Yaakov from Bnei Brak relates:
Since, b’siyata d’Shmaya, we moved into our new, spacious apartment, which has a private entrance, we waited for an opportunity to host guests. With this goal in mind we tried to get hold of beds for a guest room, but we did not find any, so we decided to buy them. We went down to a store and ordered beds. They told us the beds would arrive by Thursday.
That week my brother-in-law and sister-in-law rented out their apartment for Shabbos, and we gladly invited them to spend Shabbos in our home, counting on the beds that would arrive later in the week. However, on Thursday, when we called the store to ask when the beds would arrive, they told us that they would probably not arrive until the following week.
“We’ll try to get beds,” I said. “There will be beds, with Hashem’s help.” I knew our guests did not have another place to go at this point, and Hakadosh Baruch Hu would certainly help us.
On Friday at 12 p.m., I went to the main entrance of the building, planning to ask the neighbors if we could borrow mattresses, and right there I saw a nice hi-riser bed with two mattresses. I assumed that the bed belonged to one of the neighbors, who gets hold of secondhand furniture from time to time, so I called him.
“What can I do for you?” he asked
“Does the bed in the entranceway belong to you?”
“Yes.”
“Can I take the mattresses for Shabbos? I have guests.”
“You can take the mattresses, and take the bed too. Take, take, no problem. If you need it, it’s a sign that it was sent for you. You never lose out from doing chessed.”
As soon as he finished talking I heard a dial tone. He had told me he was very busy.
This hi-riser was really a great piece of furniture, and thus we were zocheh to host my brother-in-law and sister-in-law happily and comfortably, and we all gained. I went to the store where we had ordered the beds, and they agreed to cancel the order. Everything worked out, and I was amazed by my neighbors’ noble behavior.
Before Shabbos Parshas Balak, this same good-hearted neighbor told me, “The Yid who brought me the bed asked if I was enjoying it, and I told him I had given it to you – my neighbor the avreich who hosts guests. He could not understand how I had agreed to give up the bed at a time when I needed it myself. I told him, ‘I brought the beds in on a Thursday night, and this avreich needed them urgently for Shabbos. I understood that they were meant to be his, and one never loses out from doing chessed!’ This Yid was so impressed by the whole story that he told me, ‘Okay, then I’m buying you new beds!’”
This is how I saw that Hakadosh Baruch Hu helps us all, with a chain of gemilus chassadim. We searched for beds because we wanted to do the mitzvah of hachnasas orchim, and the neighbor gave them to us because he wanted to do chessed, and the Yid who gave him the beds had the ability to give him beds again. Ashreinu that we were zocheh to be part of this chain of giving!
