My name is Avraham, and I live in the center of Eretz Yisrael. I bought an apartment up North at a special reduced price for first-time homeowners, and since it did not make sense for me to move there, I decided to rent it out and to use the rental money to pay the mortgage.
I advertised, contacted realtors who knew the area, and waited for a call that would close a deal. I waited for a long time. I received a lot of calls, but none brought a serious tenant. The area was new and was flooded with apartments that were up for rent, and the potential tenants were hastily grabbed up by apartments no worthier than mine.
I davened to Hashem to help me, and finally, a realtor informed me that he had found a serious tenant. She had already seen the apartment and liked it. I was invited to close the deal with her!
I was very happy about the yeshuah, and I traveled up North to close the deal. The future tenant was a single woman who was making aliyah from the Soviet Union. She was excited about the apartment, and she signed a contract and gave twelve post-dated checks.
I concluded the deal with a good feeling, but two days later I received a strange call. On the line was the woman who had signed the contract. She had a hard time speaking Hebrew, so she asked me to speak to the person who was with her.
He took the phone and introduced himself.
“I am the woman’s lawyer. She said she was going to move in to your apartment, but then she realized that the contract she has for her current apartment is still valid, and she cannot cancel it.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean that she needs to continue paying rent in the place where she’s living now. She signed a contract there for a year, and she cannot cancel it.”
“But she signed a contract with me as well.”
“Right, but she can’t cancel the previous one. You have to understand. She doesn’t speak Hebrew, did not exactly understand the contents of the contract, and when her current landlord heard that she wanted to move, he explained that it was really not possible, and her contract obligated her for another few months.”
I understood. This woman could not really rent my apartment, even though she had signed a contract and I had been completely honest. “You can sue her,” the lawyer reminded me, “and demand the annulment fee.”
Yes, I could demand reparations, and it would be completely justified, but how could I do this to a lonely woman, who probably did not have much money either?
I told him, “Fine, I understand that the contract is canceled, and regarding reparations – I’ll think about it.” But at that moment I already knew that I would not think any more about it. I would forgo it completely and hope that Hashem would help me. He has done so much good to me. Not everyone gets an apartment at a reduced price. How much I had to thank Hashem for this!
I strengthened myself in bitachon and hurried to post new ads about the apartment for rent. On that same day I got a call. “Tell me,” the man asked eagerly, “is it possible that the apartment for rent is in the middle building?”
“Yes,” I answered.
“And it is available for rent?”
“It is.”
“What hashgachah pratis! We want to rent it!”
And then my new tenant revealed that he had been living in a rented apartment in that same building. He liked the area and wanted to continue living there. When the time came to renew his contract, the landlord told him that he was planning to sell the apartment.
“I didn’t know what to make of this news,” the tenant told me. “We’d already invested in the apartment – we bought furniture to suit the layout of the apartment. We thought we would stay there for many years. And now, suddenly, we had to move. Your apartment is simply a miracle for us. It is the exact size of the apartment we live in now. The furniture fits, and everything works out perfectly!”
He was happy about his hashgachah pratis, and I was happy about my hashgachah pratis.
