This remarkable story illustrates the virtue of reciting Birchos Hashachar bechavrusa what a powerful segulah it is. The story is based on a letter that we received, and we have the names and full details on file.
I am familiar with the human mosaic of 6:45 in the morning like the back of my hand, even if my eyelids are still sticky with sleep...
For more than twelve years, I have been following the same route, each and every morning, with the smell of dew and the morning chill, from my home on the main street of the city of Bat Yam, to the small shul on the outskirts of the city. Dozens of people come to the minyan from the whole neighborhood, and they are also familiar with the scenery at this particular hour. The trucks are unloading merchandise, the vans are picking up students, and gardeners are trimming hedges. It’s all stable and familiar, and it runs smoothly without much change. And it could have continued this way.
But in the merit of twenty pivotal minutes, it all changed drastically, and that is what I want to tell you about.
On one routine morning, when it was not too hot, and also not foggy or cloudy, the angel of sleep parted from me earlier than usual. I decided to follow suit and to get up! I ended my night and began the day, and set out for shul twenty minutes earlier than usual. It was close to 6:30 in the morning, and the scene was different. The gardeners were not on the boulevard, the sprinklers were not spraying and there weren’t any student transportation vans quite yet. But the smell of the morning, I sensed, was clearer than usual.
When I entered the shul, I noticed a group of five people who had come early and were saying Birchos Hashachar, one to the other. Each member of the group recited the brachos slowly at his turn, and they all answered amen after him. It was a very interesting scene that surprised me. Even when davening was over, it still stuck in my mind.
I approached one of the five and asked, ‘Why do you do this? What’s your story? Since when? For how long?’ and in answer to my hail of questions he told me about one of the mispallelim in the shul whose daughter had been very ill. When the doctors had discussed her case, they could not muster up even cautious optimism...That Yid did not get drawn into the abyss of despair that could have readily drawn him in, and decided to revive the ancient custom of answering amen after Birchos Hashachar.
Now I was even more curious. ‘And?’ I asked, ‘did she recover?’ ‘Yes!’ the man grinned, ‘completely!’ Amazing. I swallowed a lump of emotion and folded my tallis, and turned to take some water from the new cooler on my way to the door. ‘Wait,’ the man ran after me, before I merged into the human stream beyond the gate as I got ready to begin the rest of my day... ‘As you’ve seen today, even after the girl’s recovery, we have continued this practice, and honestly, I can tell you that since then, I begin my day with answering amen after Birchos Hashachar from my friends – and my life has changed for the better, in every way.’
My cheeks twitched with a slight shudder, and the man continued excitedly: ‘My wife and children have also seen clearly that my whole day has taken on a different, more positive dimension. I see siyata diShmaya in every step that I take in my business, and not only that, but also in every chinuch decision regarding my children. I will not be exaggerating if I tell you that I feel the Hand of Hashem accompanying me every step of the way.’ I saw the nose of the bus reaching the stop, and my friend took a deep breath and began to run. He made the bus...of course!
I continued onwards, waiting patiently for the light to turn green. My thoughts were flashing around in my mind, red, yellow, orange and dismal black...Searing painfully in my mind’s eye was the image of a parking lot with three silent buses, covered with a layer of dust. For the last five months, my parnassah has struggled mightily. I sweat and toil to keep my head above water, and I’m hardly able to get over the line to the end of the month.
Since the beginning of the war in the south and the north, and due to the precarious safety situation, the stream of tourists to Israel has more or less dried up. The demand for bus service has faded almost entirely. Local tourists have also reduced their outings to a minimum. Suddenly I found myself facing emptiness – my schedule dwindled to almost no orders, no trips. I was devastated when I had to fire two of my veteran drivers, and I have one driver left, a remnant of my staff. But even then, I struggled to pay his salary. Some months, my expenses even exceeded my income.
And so, the whole way home I pondered my dire situation that has been going on for a long while now. By the time I arrived at my house, I had made a firm resolution and I planned to begin the very next morning.
When night fell, I saw the stars twinkling in the sky and the moon seemed to glow with pale hope. ‘In the morning,’ I knew as I got into bed, ‘I would part from the angel of sleep early and go to shul twenty minutes before davening.’
6:25. I walked to shul, my heart heavy with emotion. I joined the five mevarchim reciting Birchos Hashachar bechavrusa, and they now became six. I made the brachos one after the other, aloud, and gave the others the merit of answering amen. Then I listened to their brachos and answered amen. I felt overcome with a good feeling, and I let myself bask in the feeling.
One day, another. One week followed another, and onward... One evening, after five weeks, as I teetered on the boundary between coping with my struggles and hopefulness, my phone rang. On the line was a work acquaintance with an interesting piece of news. He told me that there was a public bus company that had been operating an additional network of intercity lines, and was not managing with the weekend overload. He made a nice, but not dazzling, offer, that I augment the bus service on Fridays and Motzaei Shabbos. It was a reasonable, albeit not very promising, opportunity, but I saw the glimmer of salvation and I accepted the proposal.
I signed up to augment a few bus trips on weekends, but very quickly, the company won a bidding tender for another set of routes, and again, they were facing an overload. Again the owner turned to me to ask for help in supplementing their service, this time for routes during the week...Things began to snowball from there, and soon enough I was invited to the offices of the company to sign a contract employing my services on a daily, fixed basis.
Today, my parking lot is empty, because all my buses are on the move, serving public transportation routes round the clock. I rub my eyes with emotion every tenth of the month, when I see the generous, regular payment, and I am overcome with peace of mind and gratitude to HaKadosh Baruch Hu.
