There are three stories related at the end of Maseches Shabbos (156b):
In the first story, Shmuel and Ablat, a wise non-Jewish astrologer, saw a group of people going to cut down stalks by the water. Ablat said about one of them, “This man is going, but he will not return [alive].” Shmuel responded, “If he’s a Jew, he will come back.”
Several hours passed, and indeed, the group returned from work, including the supposedly ill-fated man, who was alive and well. Shmuel and Ablat called him over and asked him to open the bundle of stalks on his shoulder. They were not surprised to find a dead snake inside the bundle. The worker himself had unknowingly cut the snake in two.
Shmuel asked him, “My son, what good deed have you done?” He related: “Our group has the practice of collecting everyone’s food into one basket. Afterward, we eat it all together. Today, I realized that one of my friends had not brought along any food. So as not to embarrass him, I took it upon myself to collect the food from everyone, and when I came to him, I made believe I was taking food from him. Thus he wasn’t embarrassed, and he ate along with everyone.”
[They serve the constellations, while we, Am Yisrael, serve Hashem. We transcend the constellations!]
The second story is about the daughter of Rabi Akiva. An astrologer told him: She will live only until the day of her marriage! Rabi Akiva strengthened himself greatly in bitachon, even though he knew that astrologers do not speak nonsense. He heard various marriage proposals for his daughter, and she became engaged to a suitable young man.
Rabi Akiva davened that the decree be changed. The wedding took place with great fanfare and celebration, and the next morning, the bride met her father and, trembling, told him what had occurred. On the night of the wedding, after the big celebration, she removed the pin from her hair and stuck it into a crevice in the wall. In the morning, when she came to take the pin out, she felt that the pin was very heavy, and she discovered, to her astonishment, a dead snake was stabbed by it! It seemed that when she stuck the pin into the wall, she stuck it directly into the head of the snake, unknowingly killing it.
Rabi Akiva asked her: What good deed did you do?
She related that during the wedding meal she had noticed a poor man standing at the door. She saw how everyone was preoccupied with their own meal, and no one paid him any attention. She, the bride herself, out of the goodness of her heart, hurried to give her own portion to the poor man. Rabi Akiva then explained that “Charity saves one from death” (Mishlei 10:2). See how an act of kindness saved her life.
The third story is about how during the birth of Rav Nachman bar Yitzchak, an astrologer told his mother that he was destined to become a thief. What did his mother do? She made sure that from the day he was born his head was always covered, so that he would have yiras Shamayim and would thus be saved from the evil inclination inciting him to steal.
These stories teach us the vital message: Small acts can save you from a harsh decree. Not everyone is capable of establishing large, famous organizations or doing rare acts of international import. However, every Yid with a good heart can do good for another each day, with his body, his soul, or his possessions. As it says in Yeshayahu (58:7, 10), “Shall you not slice your bread for the hungry?!” “And give to the hungry one your soul.” Rashi explains that this refers to appeasing people with words of comfort, with good words.
Sometimes there’s a Jew who has meat, fish, and sweet and savory foods aplenty, but inwardly he is broken and starving for a good word. When a good Yid encourages him with some positive words, sometimes that is truly saving a life.
Chazal reveal to us that even though the non-Jewish astrologers reveal what they see, Am Yisrael is above mazalos. We can overturn Hashem’s Middas Hadin and transform it to mercy. When we give tzedakah and do chessed and good deeds, we can save our lives and can emerge from darkness to light and from slavery to redemption. May it be this very year, very soon; amen.
