What happens after ten minutes? My back starts to “sing” and send me signs of pain. At this stage I am forced to switch positions in order to lessen the pain. One minute I put my legs forward, and the next minute they are pointed to the right or to the left. I also swing back and forth a bit and move my body from side to side. This is a strange sight. It looks like I suffer from ADHD. While there is something to that, it’s not the reason behind my strange dance.
The best thing to do then is simply to get up. And I do this many times. Then my back calms down a bit, until the next attack.
On one of the days of Chol Hamoed Sukkos I went to visit my father. I sat joyfully in his sukkah, and we talked in Torah and about matters related to the Yom Tov. There was a pleasant atmosphere, and then it began... I had a sensation like ants starting to crawl up their route on my back, and I knew that in a minute the pain would increase, and then I would not be able to sit like a normal person.
At that moment I said to myself: The Ribbono shel Olam knows that I am here, and He arranged these pains for me. “Ribbono shel Olam,” I said, pouring out my tefillah, “please, not now! I’m sitting here near my father, and I want it to be pleasant for us together. Please, Hashem, help the pain stop immediately!”
The next moment, the ants seemed to go backward, and the pain disappeared. Yes, totally disappeared. I was sitting just like anyone else, and nothing hurt me at all!
I continued sitting there for another three-quarters of an hour, and there was no sign of pain the entire time. I felt tangibly how Hashem hears our tefillos.
While I Was in Kollel
This morning I went to kollel, and after I got there I discovered that I’d left my cell phone on the bus. I calculated that the bus must have already reached the end of its route, so I went to the central bus station to check whether my phone had arrived there, or if they’d received some kind of report about it.
I came up with nothing, and I thought I would continue my search by borrowing a phone to call the bus company. A minute later I told myself, I traveled here in order to learn. My chavrusa is waiting for me, and the fact is that I don’t need my cell phone this minute. I will do my part, and Hakadosh Baruch Hu will help me. Chazal teach that Hashem removes the burden of everyday affairs from anyone who takes upon himself the yoke of Torah.
Baruch Hashem, we learned throughout that seder, and a few minutes after 1 p.m., I called my cellphone from my friend’s phone. I thought that perhaps someone had found it and would answer the phone.
To my great surprise, I heard my wife’s voice. “Your phone got here just a few minutes ago!” she related. While I was learning, Hakadosh Baruch Hu arranged that someone would find my phone, look through the numbers, call my wife, and bring the phone to my house!
How Could It Possibly Be?
This story is simply impossible. Anyone who heard it said, “Do you want to tell me that this stretched on for three years? It’s not logical!” But when Hakadosh Baruch Hu wants something, He arranges for everything, so that we don’t even sense how we are living on miracles.
This is what occurred: I have an apartment, which I purchased as an investment. I rent it out, usually over the course of several years, and baruch Hashem, the money from the rent that comes in helps me cover my mortgage. This is my opportunity to thank and praise Hashem for this. I did not know how much to appreciate it until it occurred that for a full two months I was seeking a tenant.
Two months passed, and finally we found someone who wanted to rent the apartment. He moved in, and a short while later we got an urgent call from him: “There are problems with the electricity here! The washing machine isn’t working, the refrigerator doesn’t cool off the food. What’s going on here?” (As an aside, we have to decide which “volume” to put this story into – the one about washing machines, or the one about refrigerators...)
“We’ll check it out!” I told him. I immediately sent an expert technician to go to the apartment, and his call was even more urgent than the tenant’s call. “There is no grounding in this apartment!”
The grounding system is simply a wire that takes unstable electricity directly into the ground, thus enabling appliances in the apartment to work safely and efficiently. Living in an apartment without one is dangerous, because one can easily get an electric shock, which is truly a danger to one’s life.
“It’s simply a miracle that the electricity wasn’t working and the problem was discovered,” the technician gushed. He told me about a couple who lived in such an apartment, and one of them was electrocuted and died. The owner of the apartment was sentenced to jail for causing death by negligence.
“I’m amazed to hear this,” I told him, “since up until two months ago, for three years, a woman lived in the apartment and nothing happened. She passed away, but not from electric shock!”
The technician was also amazed, and we all thanked Hashem for His great chessed and his revealed and concealed miracles, which are with us every day.
A Deposit in the Meter
I am zocheh to refrain from using electricity powered by the Israeli electric company on Shabbos. In the apartment where I lived until a short while ago I was hooked up to a generator, and the generator’s cost was very high. It did not seem justified to me, so I called the management to find out why it was so expensive.
The person who spoke to me was not impressed by my query. “You must understand,” he explained, “the meter marks down exactly how much electricity you use, and you pay accordingly. If you want to pay less, use less electricity.”
Nu, what could I do? I told myself that this was a Shabbos expense. Hashem knows exactly how much I spend, and I trust in Him to send me these sums every month.
And thus, even though my income is not very high, we managed somehow and did not complain about it.
A few months ago I moved to another apartment, and a new tenant came to live in my previous apartment. My new apartment was not connected to a generator. I started looking into hooking up to the generator, and I found that it was a very expensive proposition. I was confused and did not know where I would find the money. Then the tenant who is now living in my previous apartment called me up and told me the following amazing story.
“Listen,” he said, very excited, “I got the bill for payment for the generator, and I found that the sum was very strange – illogical. I checked the meter and saw that it was faulty. It reads double the amount of electricity that is actually used. I called the company that manages the generator, and they were shocked to hear about this – how they had been taking double the amount of money from you for several years.”
The end of this story is incredible: I was refunded for all the extra sums I had paid over the years, all in one shot. The amount I received was very significant, and I used it to connect my new apartment to a generator.
Then I understood how Hakadosh Baruch Hu had arranged for the faulty meter to collect a sum that would enable me to continue using the Shabbos generator in my new apartment.
