On one of the pressure-filled days between Yom Kippur and Sukkos, I was sitting in shul and learning. On the calendar there are not so many days like these; there is a lot of work to be done, but my wife, who deserves to be “more blessed than the “women of the tent” (the Imahos), encouraged me to go out and learn, saying that certainly in the zechus of my limud Torah we would have siyata diShmaya to get to all the important preparations done for Yom Tov.
Suddenly, a respectable-looking man came over to me and gave me 200 dollars. I thanked him and put the bills in my pocket.
I wondered what he had seen in me. Why had he suddenly decided to give me such a generous sum?
The answer to that question soon became clear. Near me sat an avreich who is older than I am and is already marrying off children. The man who had given me the money was a wealthy Yid from abroad, and the avreich at my side met him a while back and asked him for support for Yom Tov. He had entered the beis midrash now and asked one of the heads of our community whether the avreich who had requested his support was truly in need of it. The man assured him that indeed his help was very necessary, and the benefactor immediately came over to me and gave me the money.
He had really wanted to give it to the avreich sitting at my side.
One of the heads of the mosdos saw what had happened and told him, “You made a mistake. You gave the money to the avreich sitting near the one who asked you for support.”
He did not want to take the money back from me, nor did he want to leave the other avreich with nothing. The solution was very simple. The gvir took another 200 dollars out of his pocket and gave them to the avreich for whom he had come.
All three of us knew that there was no mistake here. It was Hashem’s will that money come to me as well, and He arranged that we be sitting side by side; He supervised the entire exchange so that each of us would receive his part.
As my wife had said, “Surely, the zechus of Torah learning will bring us siyata diShmaya.”
