My business demands a lot from me, and I have a great deal of work. I get calls all day, and I need to talk to people, to travel here and there, and to go to all sorts of distant locations as well as centers filled with people, places where you can barely find a quiet spot for yourself – and who’s even talking about finding a shul for a minyan when I need one there?
To my sorrow, up until a while ago it would often happen that I would daven Minchah, Maariv, or Shacharis on my own...it would happen. In the beginning it was painful, but afterward, I am sorry to say, it was no longer so painful. I had all types of excuses and explanations for why it was okay.
One day I closed on a huge business deal: I purchased an office rental building and paid for it using a mortgage-like loan. My plan was to rent out the offices, using the rent money to pay the monthly mortgage payments, and to remain with some profit as well.
The first part worked out perfectly: The mortgage payments started going off my bank account each month. But the second part was truly lagging. Only a few offices were rented out, while most of the building remained vacant. The mortgage took a frighteningly large bite out of my bank account, and I lost a lot of money each month. I waited for a yeshuah. Slowly, it dawned on me that I was in serious trouble. How was I to survive until the offices were rented out? And where would I find tenants?
I davened to Hashem to help me, but I did not see a yeshuah. No one was responding to the advertising I had done about the offices.
Around that time, I met a friend, who could see that I was under pressure. In answer to his question, I told him all about the complications I had encountered: I had purchased a building and was not managing to rent it out.
“I have an idea for you,” he told me. “In the sefer Ma’or Vashamesh there is a promise: that one who davens three times a day with a minyan will have bountiful parnassah. Strengthen yourself in this, and you will see yeshuos!”
He knew exactly on which toes to step. This was really not a simple matter for me. The habitual lack of a daily schedule was already entrenched in me, and I had to break this bad habit and start a new Jewish daily routine, without compromise. It was very difficult, and with all my good will and the knowledge that this would bring so much brachah, I did not succeed.
Several months passed, and one summer day in the month of Tammuz my friend met me and said, “Soon the yahrtzeit of the Maor Vashamesh is coming up. How about if you join me on a trip to Cracow to go to his kever?’”
He probably thought it would be refreshing for me to get away from it all for a few days. I was confused by so much pressure. I had nothing to lose, for whatever I could have lost, I had already lost. He did not have to work hard to convince me to join him, and indeed, I decided to join. I knew he would speak to me again about davening with a minyan, and this flight would probably be filled with mussar and chizuk, but the past months had softened me.
He indeed utilized the opportunity to speak to me about it. He explained that shefa and parnassah are only a side bonus, and the true profit is that I would gain tefillah with serenity and connection to Hashem, and I would have three breaks each day to remind me of my purpose in the world.
I was completely convinced, and at the kever of the tzaddik Reb Kalman Klonymos Halevi Epstein zy”a, I accepted upon myself to daven with a minyan three times a day, no matter what. I asked that in the merit of this kaballah I should be blessed with bountiful parnassah.
I know this sounds exaggerated, but this is exactly how it went: Even before I left the beis hachaim, I got a phone call from the representative of a large company in the country. They were looking into my building and wanted to rent out all the available offices there for a span of ten years!
The contract was written and signed. I made an investment of three tefillos a day, and the result was ample parnassah, and this was only the bonus. It was the best deal I had ever made.
