'הבוטח בה' חסד יסובבנו' (תהילים לב:י)
‘One who trusts in Hashem, kindness surrounds him’
My parents came to my city to spend Shabbos. Together with my wife, we decided to have the Shabbos night seudah with my parents and then we would walk the 45-minute walk from Beit Shemesh Aleph back home.
We had the seudah with an elevated spirit and we returned with our small children at 2:00 in the morning. As we approached the house, our eyes darkened, the whole house was dark!!! I remembered that I did not set the Shabbos clocks and tall the lights stayed on which overloaded the Shabbos generator and the electricity failed.
Aside from the oppressive heat, we had the problem that the small children were afraid to go up to the dark house. We were at a loss since at that late hour we would not find a Shabbos goy in our neighborhood and now there was no way of going back to where my parents were staying what with the little children, the heat and the dark.
Then my eight-year-old daughter began to tell the younger ones, “We will say a chapter of Tehillim together, and Hashem will do a miracle, and in the middle of Tehillim, the electricity will go back on.”
Really, this was ridiculous, but because of her innocence, I could not stop her. With amazing bitachon in Hashem she began saying Tehillim, and with much hope that she would not lose her faith when the electricity would not go back on. I prayed for a miracle despite there being no chance of a miracle at a time like this.
In the middle of saying Tehillim, I noticed two people who did not look Jewish across the street from my house. I went to them and asked if they were not Jewish and they said that they weren’t. [Of course, this was done according to halacha.] They went up to the house and turned on the electricity and the generator worked to our joy.
The next day I asked the Rav if I truly acted appropriately with the goy on Shabbos? The Rav replied: “You acted appropriately, even from the outset. But explain to me, how did you find a goy at 2:00 in the morning? This is amazing!!!”
I told him that I had no idea, except for the innocence and bitachon of my little daughter the Shabbos goyim came. More so, had we been a minute earlier or later we would not have run into them, and we saw the exactness of Yisbarach!!!
י.ר.
