I’m an avreich from Kiryat Sefer. Every afternoon I learn in kollel in a yishuv called Na’aleh, a distance of eight minutes’ travel from Kiryat Sefer. In Na’aleh there is large group of baalei teshuvah, and baruch Hashem, after facing much opposition, they succeeded in establishing a beautiful shul. We arrive at the shul about 25 minutes before sunset and daven Minchah there. Often the minyan relies on us, and if we’d be late, there would be people there who’d want to daven but would have no minyan.
Since the war broke out there’s been a lot of chizuk. Many Jews who were not accustomed to davening started filling up the shul for Minchah, and our presence is less crucial, as they are often able to form a minyan without us.
One day we set out toward the kollel in Na’aleh. There were 20 avreichim in our group, and together we filled up two cars. We left Kiryat Sefer and found ourselves stuck in traffic, which was not moving. We called our friends in the car ahead of us, and they explained that there was construction on the road, and that’s why they were allowing travel in only one direction at a time. Now it was the other lane’s turn.
What to do? In another twenty minutes the sun would set, and who knew how long the traffic jam would last?
Ten minutes passed and our lane opened up. We were moving along nicely, but when there was only one car ahead of us, they closed the lane once again. Now we were pressured. There were only five of us in our car. How would we daven Minchah with a minyan?
The rosh kollel tried asking the traffic cop to let us go, because we had to make it to Minchah before sunset, but he claimed there was no possibility of doing so, since cars were now traveling in the opposite direction on this lane. Suddenly, one of the avreichim came up with an idea. He went over to the traffic cop and asked him to let us get out on the side of the highway and walk to nearby Yishuv Nili. He agreed to this.
At the entrance to the shul in Nili we were amazed to discover seven people who wanted to daven Minchah but didn’t have a minyan. They were very happy that we had arrived. We joined them and davened together.
Now we understood that Hashem had arranged the traffic jam in order to send us to the place where we were needed.
