By Rabbi Moshe Hirschberg
When Mrs. Braun* and her husband opened a printing company in Central New Jersey, they were confident they were entering a thriving industry. Printing was in constant demand, and they were certain the business would quickly take off.
It didn’t.
Customers came only sporadically. Month after month, the bills piled up while the loans they had taken to launch the business remained unpaid. A year and a half after opening their doors, they had little to show for all their effort besides mounting debt and growing anxiety.
One evening, as Mrs. Braun sat down to supper, an unexpected thought entered her mind.
More than twenty years earlier, a close friend had hurt her deeply. Although the years had passed, the pain had never truly faded. She had carried that resentment with her ever since.
At that moment, she made a decision. As a zechus for parnassah, she would let it go.
It wasn’t easy. Every emotion urged her to leave the past buried where it was. But she refused to listen to those feelings. She picked up the phone, called her former friend, and told her sincerely that she forgave her b’lev shalem, full-heartedly. The conversation ended.
About an hour later, the phone rang. It was a businessman whom her husband had approached more than a year earlier about investing in the company. “I’ve been thinking,” he said. “And I’ve decided to move forward.” After a brief discussion, he committed to investing $130,000.
He was the first investor who agreed to put in a substantial amount into the corporation. This would give some leeway for the business to form and grow.
But the story doesn’t end here.
Before they even had time to absorb the news, the phone rang a second time. It was Mr. Braun’s brother-in-law. “I know things have been difficult,” he said. “I’d like to help.” He sent them another $100,000.
In the span of just two hours, more than $230,000 came their way, rescuing the business from the financial quicksand it had been trapped in for so long. That gave them flexibility to extend the business and bring in a supervisor who not only covered his salary but also brought in new clients that made the entire corporation fruitful.
Sometimes the greatest obstacle to brachah is not outside of us, but within us. Once Mrs. Braun found the strength to release a decades-old grievance, it was as though the channels that had been holding back her parnassah suddenly opened. The blockage was gone, and the flow began.
Reprinted from Issue #273 of Zichru Moshe Toras.