The Hashgachah Pratis (Divine Providence) of the Shabbos not allowing him to sell the building propelled him into being a total Shabbos observer. Jacobo and Sophia never told the story to anyone. Word got out that their building was sold to the government, but no one in the community knew about the frantic Friday negotiations two weeks before the earthquakes, and Jacobo's decision to close his office for Shabbos.
Years later, in the palatial lobby of his new magnificent office building, Jacobo and Sophia tendered a grand party in honor of his first completion of a Talmudic tractate, which he had studied for several years with Rabbi Shea Deutsch (now teaching in Lakewood, N.J.) at the Aram Tzovah Kollel. There, in the presence of rabbis, community leaders and friends, Jacobo told the story that changed his life.
(“Reflections of the Maggid”, Rabbi Paysach J. Krohn page 193)
Reprinted from the Parshas Vayakhel 5785 email of Good Shabbos Everyone.
