One of the special gifts we receive from our Creator is the power to create! The creative urge is strong when not blocked by our own insecurities (“what will it look like”) or the critical voice inside of us (“you can’t do that!”). The power to create can help us achieve anything we do.
Destiny is always a willing partner to our dreams, but first we must seal the connection and the results can be potent. Many years ago in Bnei Brak there lived a Yid by the name of R’ Yaakov Schwartz. R’ Yaakov had recently arrived from Europe. The year was 1938 and R’ Yaakov decided to open a makolet. An Ehrlicher Jew, he was befriended by and admired for his piety by none other than the Chazon Ish, his next door neighbor. R’ Yaakov’s Makolet was the largest supermarket in young Bnei Brak, but it consisted of just a few shelves of produce and staple items.
Chanuka was arriving soon and R’ Yaakov had bought 5 small bottles of olive oil. But the prices were beyond expensive. Who would be able to pay the high cost, he wondered?
The bottles were delicate and R’ Yaakov placed them on the top of the very highest shelf. One day an older, distinguished gentleman walked into the store to purchase one of these flasks. Climbing up on a makeshift ladder, R’ Yaakov’s hands slipped and the bottles came tumbling down from above. One of the bottles rolled into an open drainpipe. After hours of searching the pipe, they abandoned their quest. The bottle had fallen all the way down to the Te’home, the underbelly, they surmised as they gave up.
Fast forward to November 1948, the economic situation was desperate- there was not a drop of any kind of oil to be found. The wife of the Chazon Ish visited daily in hopes of securing one of the bottles that R’ Yaakov Schwartz had ordered. Daily, she visited. “Has the shipment come in yet?” she asked R’ Yaakov’s wife? ”My husband says it will hopefully arrive before the holiday, " Mrs. Schwartz replied,” but Rebbetzin Karelitz was hardly placated.
As the final days of the month were approaching, Rebbetzin Karlitz brought word from her husband that there was one flask of oil in the store. R’ Schwartz was adamant –unfortunately there would be no oil of any kind (even baby oil) this year.
Returning later, the Rebbetzin assured Mrs. Schwartz, “my husband claims that there is a bottle on the premises.” Undaunted, and with a fierce faith in Talmidei Chachamim, Mrs. Schwartz’s memory finally jarred open, “Do you recall what happened perhaps 10 years ago? The bottle that rolled down the drain pipe.”
R’ Yaakov swung into action, calling some Arab workers they worked to dismantle the shelves. Excavating both ground and pipe they tunneled down six feet or more, and there it was, the oil had been preserved ten years earlier for the Chazon Ish, who gladly covered the excavation costs!
Sometimes, things are hidden - we simply cannot get what we want, what we feel is rightly ours. But when the time is right, events start to beat a path to our door, the fury of destiny behind them. What is rightfully ours can never be truly withheld from us.
Written by R’ Avrohom Hillel Reich based on a lesson and story by Harav Ben Tziyon Sneh Shlita
