On Friday I was energetically occupied with preparations for Shabbos, returning from shopping for Shabbos foods and going to pick up my son from cheder. Holding many bags, I was rushing, as though in competition with the clock. It wasn’t clear to me how it happened, but my leg got twisted.
The first moment, I felt a sharp pain, but I thought it was tolerable and I could continue my tasks. I hastened on my way, but my foot was not complying as it had before, and I could not move so quickly or easily anymore. I suffered silently, and by the end of the long trip I arrived home along with my son, the many bags from my shopping trip, and the pain in my leg. It was a sharp pain that kept getting stronger.
By the time Shabbos began I realized that there was more to this pain than a bit of discomfort; it had me confined to my bed and prevented me from going to shul to daven with a minyan. My head filled with worries. What would be next week? How would I go to work, and how would I do all kinds of urgent tasks that awaited me? I could not be stuck at home, certainly not in bed. What would I do? From where would my help come?
Then I recalled that I needed to use my legs for a certain activity that could be a zechus for me. I had promised my friend I would go to a certain address for him to bring him an important item, something connected to his parnassah. This is not the first time I would be going to do this. Many times he asks me to help him with this matter, and as I know him, it is a great chessed to do so. True, it had to do with his parnassah, and if he was earning money from it, it would make sense that I should earn something on the way as well, but here it was a different story. This is a Yid who has a hard life, and if I’m able to help him out, I do so. My parnassah comes to me in other ways.
I davened emotionally to Hashem yisbarach, Who prepares the steps of man, and asked Him that I be zocheh to do the mitzvah of chessed this coming Motza’ei Shabbos. I wanted
