A Special Delivery
Every morning, Mr. Hertz followed the same routine. He rose early, spent some time learning, davened Shacharis, and then headed to the subway for his daily commute into Manhattan, where he worked as an attorney.
One morning, shortly before Sukkos, he was standing on a subway platform in Flatbush when he reached for his wallet. As he attempted to slip it back into his jacket pocket, it missed its mark, fell to the ground, and tumbled straight onto the tracks. He stared helplessly at the wallet lying below. Trains passed through the busy station every few minutes, making it far too dangerous to climb down and retrieve it himself.
With no other option, Mr. Hertz approached the station attendant and explained assured him that she could submit a request to have the wallet retrieved, but warned that the process could take several days.
Several days! His wallet contained his driver’s license, credit cards, and other important identification. Being without considerable inconvenience. As he stood there wondering what to do, a strange incident from a few days earlier suddenly came to mind.
He had returned home one day to discover a mysterious package sitting outside his front door. It bore no identifying label, no return address, and no indication of whom it was intended for. Puzzled, he knocked on his neighbors’ doors, hoping someone might recognize it or know where it had come from. But no one knew anything about it.
Eventually, with no way to identify the sender or intended recipient, Mr. Hertz opened the package. Inside was an unusual tool: a professional, long-handled grabber with a gripping mechanism at the end. He had no use for such an item and could not imagine why anyone would have sent it to him. Perhaps, he thought, his grandchildren might enjoy playing with it someday. And so he put it aside.
Now, standing on the subway platform and staring at his wallet below, he suddenly remembered that his predicament. She them, even temporarily, would be a peculiar delivery.
His home was only a ten-minute walk from the station. Without wasting another moment, he hurried home, retrieved the tool, and rushed back to the platform. He extended the grabber toward the tracks, carefully maneuvering it toward his wallet. But no matter how he positioned it, he could not quite get a firm grip. Again and again, the tool came tantalizingly close, only to slip away.
Just then, a tall man standing nearby noticed his efforts and approached him. “What’s going on?” he asked. Mr. Hertz pointed toward the tracks. “You see that wallet down there? It’s mine.”
“Here, let me try,” the stranger offered. Mr. Hertz handed him the grabber. With his greater height and longer reach, the man extended the tool, caught hold of the wallet, and lifted it safely onto the platform.
As he stood there, overcome with relief, the significance of the mysterious package suddenly dawned on him. Days earlier, a tool he had neither ordered nor needed had appeared at his doorstep, with no explanation of where it had come from. He had wondered why it was there and what purpose it could possibly serve.
Now he knew.
Before his wallet had ever fallen onto the tracks, Hashem had already arranged for the very tool he would need to retrieve it. The package had arrived before the problem.
What had seemed like a delivery without an address was, in truth, a special delivery from Above, sent precisely where it was needed, even before its recipient knew why.
Sometimes, Hashem’s kindness comes in ways we immediately recognize. At other times, His preparations are already in place long before we realize we need them. We need only open our eyes to appreciate the countless ways He looks after us, even in the smallest details of everyday life.
