I live in Yerushalayim, and my net is spread all the way to Ashkelon, where I rent out an apartment that I purchased as an investment. Last summer I made my way to Ashkelon in order to do some repairs in the apartment. Upon completing those tasks, I left the apartment and met a neighbor who lives in the same building. He understood that I was the owner of the apartment and told me, “You should know that I clean the building every week, and no one pays me.”
The truth is that I had never even thought about the cleanliness of the building. This is a matter that has to do with the residents of the building. As we all know, it is not the owner of the apartment who has to pay the va’ad bayit; it is the tenant who rents out the apartment and enjoys the clean elevator.
But I did not get into a petty argument. I told the neighbor, “You’re right! You need to be paid, and I want to pay you. I just have a small problem: I don’t have cash on me. If you want, you can come with me to the nearest ATM and I’ll withdraw money and give it to you.”
“Fine,” the neighbor responded. “I’ll come with you.”
We walked together in the direction of the bank, and then I saw a shul. I told the neighbor, “I haven’t yet davened Minchah. Do you mind coming in with me for Minchah?”
“Why not?” he said. “I never daven, but it’s definitely a good idea.”
We headed in the direction of the shul, and the neighbor told me candidly. “You know what? It was in this shul that I had my bar mitzvah. Since then I haven’t set foot in here.”
I wanted the spark of Yiddishkeit to be ignited in him, and I was excited that in my zechus a Yid would stand and daven Minchah for the first time since his bar mitzvah.
We joined the minyan, and when we reached “Hashiveinu” I thought about him, my tenant’s neighbor, and about others who hadn’t been zocheh to walk with some chareidi avreich in the direction of the nearest cashpoint and enter a shul on the way.
The big surprise came at the end of the davening; this neighbor said kaddish yasom!
What happened? What was the story?
We left the shul and continued on our way. The next moment I discovered that I had thought that the only reason he came with me was in order to get payment for his work. The real reason was totally different, the amazing reason brought about by Hashem, because, the neighbor told me, his eyes gleaming, “Today is my father’s yahrtzeit...”
