A Yid from Har Nof relates: We traveled to England in order to participate in a family wedding. On the way back, we were supposed to fly to Holland, and from there on to Israel. In Holland, we rented a car and set out to the airport, but we missed our connecting flight. We discovered that Holland is very nice as a stopover, but not a place to stay in for more than a few hours. We did not know where to stay or what to do. It was Friday, and we were truly worried about what would be.
A Yid we met gave us good advice: Go to Belgium, to Phsevorsk; there’s a big shul there that offers hachnasas orchim. They’ll welcome you warmly and host you generously.
As we did not have any other idea, we continued traveling for a few hours and crossed the border into Belgium. I knew we would be compelled to accept the gifts of other people, so I thought that at least I would purchase some fruit for Shabbos. We arrived in Antwerp and searched for Yidden. Where is it most common to find Yidden? Near the mikveh. We stopped near the mikveh, and from the car window I called out to a Yid and asked him to show me where I could purchase some fruit.
“Fruit?” he asked. “Here you will not be able to find any, because the Jewish stores are all already closed. If you want, I can show you where there are general shops.”
He joined us in the car and directed me to the marketplace. In the meantime, we got to talking and discovered that this pleasant Yid was a 33-year-old bachur and was looking for a shidduch.
“One day,” he told me, “I went into shul and opened a Gemara at random to maseches Sotah, by the words, “The daughter of so-and-so to so-and-so; such and such apartment to so-and-so....” I decided to use this Gemara when I daven Shemoneh Esrei, and since that time, when I daven, I say: “Ribbono shel Olam, You taught us that the daughter of so-and-so is to so-and-so, and I believe with full belief that You are going to send me my zivug!”
My wife, who was listening to the entire conversation, decided that the moment she thought of someone suitable, she would propose the shidduch to this bachur, whose ways are pleasant and who learns diligently.
We got to the shul, and then we thought that the entire mess had been worth it in order for us to be zocheh to see such ahavas Yisrael, such generosity, such good feelings, such kavod Shabbos... It was an amazing feeling, after all our difficulties, to be among Yidden, and such Yidden who host others so wholeheartedly.
Over Shabbos we got to know some other families that had landed in the same shul. Among them was a family from France with a daughter in shidduchim. My wife put an eye on her and suggested her for the bachur who had accompanied us to buy fruit.
Baruch Hashem, we were zocheh to be the messengers to establish a home in Am Yisrael, and it all happened through this most incredible chain of occurrences. Now we understood why we’d missed the flight, and why we had to go through that long and exhausting car ride. Hakadosh Baruch Hu heard the tefillos of this bachur and certainly also the tefillos of his intended, and He chose us, a family from Eretz Yisrael, to make the shidduch between the bachur from Belgium and the girl from France.
