A Yid from Monsey relates: I have a business selling tallis and tefillin bags. We offer different styles of embroidery, and of course a customer can have his name embroidered on the bag that he buys.
One day a Yid came and asked to buy a bag for Rashi tefillin – not a large tallis bag, and not a tefillin bag for a bar mitzvah bachur either, but something smaller. I ordered the style he wanted, with his initials embroidered on the outside: .ק.פ.א.
Several days later the order arrived, but the customer was dissatisfied. The bag was too large, and it did not suit him to put it into his tallis bag. I felt bad for him because he would have to wait another few days until we arranged for a bag in the size he wanted and had it embroidered for him. I also felt bad for myself, because I lost money. The bag we prepared for him and had embroidered would not be able to be sold. What are the chances that another Yid with the same initials would show up and want a bag of this size and style? What were the odds?!
Gam zo l’tovah. I placed the bag in a corner of the store and almost forgot about the whole thing.
Several years passed. One day, an elderly Yid entered the store holding an especially large pair of tefillin, larger than what we normally see. “These tefillin belonged to my father,” the Yid told me. “My father took these tefillin, sewed into his clothes, and with all his travels through concentration camps, the tefillin came along with him. He used them every day!”
The elderly man was excited. “My father always said that he felt he survived the war in the zechus of these tefillin. Now, in honor of his yahrtzeit, I had them refurbished, and now the battim are larger than they were before. Do have a bag that would fit them?”
I measured the tefillin. They were too small to be placed in a tallis bag but too large for a tefillin bag, whether for Rashi or Rabbenu Tam tefillin. “I could order you a bag in this size,” I suggested, “but it will take a few days.”
“That will not help me,” the elderly man said. “I need to travel soon. Don’t you have anything in stock now?”
“You know what?” I said as I jumped up from my place. “I have something I had special-made, but it did not suit my customer. It’s a bag that is the perfect size for your father’s tefillin. But it already has initials on it: .ק.פ.א. Would that be okay for you?”
“Excellent, perfect!” he answered enthusiastically. “These initials suit me perfectly. – .ק.פ.א ריגקוןפריבערא – Survived the war!
Tears glistened in the man’s eyes, and in mine as well. I was so moved that I decided to give him the bag as a gift in memory of his righteous father, with my wishes for the long life of the son and the life of Klal Yisrael, the eternal nation.
