In the HaYom Yom it says, “Whoever has faith in individual Divine Providence knows that ‘Man’s steps are established by G-d,’ that this particular soul must purify and improve something specific in a particular place. For centuries, or even since the world’s creation, that which needs purification or improvement waits for this soul to come and purify or improve it. The soul too, has been waiting – ever since it came into being for its time to descend – so that it can discharge the tasks of purification and improvement assigned to it.” * Hashgacha Pratis is seen not only in Chabad Houses, but with every step that any Jew takes.
HIS MOTTO IS: BE PREPARED
Rabbi Hertzl Borochov, a Lubavitcher Chassid in Rechovos, runs an “Igros Kodesh Center.” He has publicized quite a few miracle stories in the past. He works together with the Chabad House of Rechovos, which is led by the rav of the community, Rabbi M. M. Gluckowsky.
At first, R’ Hertzl would combine mivtza t’fillin with his job of fixing electronic systems and alarms, writing to the Rebbe along with servicing his customers. Then the Rebbe’s mivtzaim became his main occupation: t’fillin, shiurim and guidance for the many people who want to receive the Rebbe’s bracha through the Igros Kodesh.
R’ Hertzl is never caught by surprise. He always has a pair of t’fillin with him, a volume of Igros Kodesh, some mezuzos, and anything else he might need to help a fellow Jew. When he is asked, “Why do you schlep all this stuff around wherever you go?” he replies, “Who knows? Maybe someone will need a pair of t’fillin or a mezuza.”
He’s right. His customers put on t’fillin, and mezuzos are put up in the businesses he visits. People ask him for help in writing to the Rebbe and the phone doesn’t stop ringing.
One day, R’ Hertzl flew to the Kinus HaShluchim in Crown Heights. He had two mezuzos with him, of course, for a Chassid never knows when someone in New York might need a mezuza.
During the flight, not far from where he was sitting, sat a shliach who was talking to a young man, an American who had spent time in Eretz Yisroel and had even bought two mezuzos in Steimatzky’s (a bookstore chain). The man showed the shliach his mezuzos which turned out to be pasul. The shliach, feeling at home, called out to his fellow passengers, “Does anyone here have two mezuzos?”
Well, R’ Hertzl did!
T’FILLIN ON CHOL HAMOED
I met R’ Borochov under sad circumstances, fourteen years ago, when his father died and the family was sitting Shiva at Moshav Beit Yosef which is near Beit Shaan. After the Shiva days were over, R’ Borochov remained on the moshav for Sukkos. That’s when he realized he had a problem, because throughout the moshav where his parents lived, there wasn’t a single kosher sukka to sit in and eat something.
That is how R’ Hertzl came to our sukka in Beit Shaan in order to “break his fast” on Sukkos. A few days later, he went to the moshav again. This time too, he stopped at our sukka. He said he had two new pairs of (Rashi) t’fillin in his bag to enable people to do the mitzva. Yes, you read correctly. R’ Hertzl did not need to be told that on Sukkos we do not put on t’fillin. He brought them anyway because “Surely I will find someone who does not own t’fillin and thanks to these t’fillin I brought along, he will be able to buy a pair and put them on every day.”
He sold one pair immediately, on his first day on the moshav. One of his uncles was there and he was happy at the opportunity to buy a nice pair of t’fillin. R’ Hertzl then looked forward to seeing who would get the second pair.
His visit to the Beit Shaan valley concluded, R’ Hertzl packed up and began traveling to Rechovos. Fifteen minutes out of Beit Shaan, his brother called him. His brother lives in nearby Afula. “Hertzl, come quickly to Afula! We have people here who need advice and a bracha from the Rebbe.”
R’ Hertzl detoured just a bit and went to Afula where he discovered that the man who needed a bracha also needed a pair of t’fillin. Now R’ Hertzl could continue on home, pleased with the open Divine Providence which he had been a part of.
A STRANGE LETTER WHICH BROUGHT A GREAT YESHUA
The following extraordinary story of Hashgacha Pratis is one I heard from the bachur who was a witness to what happened at the Chabad House in Bangkok, Thailand.
“One morning,” said the bachur, who was on shlichus there, “we were in the Chabad House after Shacharis when the mailman appeared with a brown envelope. It contained a thick letter. The mailman looked for the person to give it to. I took it from him and began reading the long letter.
“In the letter, which was twenty pages long, an unfortunate woman in Eretz Yisroel told of her problems and asked for help. ‘We have no food and the children are starving. The refrigerator is empty for days now. A snake entered the house and I had to pay 150 shekels to get rid of it. They are about to cut off my water and electricity,’ and she went on to detail her problems.
“I read it and wondered why a woman in Eretz Yisroel had sent a letter like this to Chabad in Thailand. How could we help her? The only thing I could do was to give the letter to R’ Nechemia Wilhelm, the shliach and director of the Chabad House.
“As I was reading the letter, a wealthy man who was there asked about the long letter that was being passed around. Instead of answering, R’ Wilhelm gave him the letter and said, ‘Read it for yourself.’ The man looked through the letter and was moved by the fact that the Chabad House in Thailand received requests for help from so far away. He said, ‘Tell the woman that I am leaving 10,000 Euros here for her.’
“R’ Wilhelm called the woman and gave her the good news. He also took the opportunity to ask her why she had sent her letter to Thailand. The woman said that when she wrote the letter, she didn’t know who to send it to. Later on, she went to her neighbor for a moment and she saw a program on the television about the tz’daka and chesed being done in the world. Part of the program was about R’ Wilhelm and his work at the Chabad House in Thailand. ‘When I saw that, I decided that I would send my letter to this rabbi. I called the television station and got your address.’”
Think about how many details came together here so that the woman would be helped through a shliach of the Rebbe and his Chabad House.
A DOLLAR FROM THE REBBE
R’ Uzi Shinan works as a shliach on a yishuv called Einan in the Shomron. He also runs a spice factory. He tries to spread the Besuras HaGeula, hiskashrus to the Rebbe and mitzvos to all his customers.
Yossi is one of his customers. Yossi is a mekurav of Chabad in Thailand and Eretz Yisroel and it’s all thanks to the Rebbe’s dollar. This is the story:
It all began on the fifth night of Chanuka 5750 when Yossi was attending the party at the Chabad House in Thailand. He was in the middle of a trip to the Far East after serving in the army and he had no particular connection to mitzva observance. He was at the party only because “the guys said it was worth going to. It will be fun.”
At the start of the evening, the shliach asked, “Who wants to light the menorah?” Nobody volunteered. He asked again and again and Yossi felt something inside pushing him to do it. He was surprised at his reaction. Just a moment earlier he did not feel at all connected to religion and mitzvos and suddenly, he felt an uncontrollable urge pushing him.
Yossi went over to the menorah. He felt his entire body shaking. He had no idea why he was reacting so emotionally. He lit the menorah and felt that in addition to the menorah, his neshama had also been lit.
Remember the date: the fifth night of Chanuka.
Two years went by and Yossi became more committed to Judaism. He returned to Eretz Yisroel and lived in Tel Aviv. He worked as a taxi driver. One day, a Lubavitcher entered his cab and they got to talking about the Rebbe, Judaism, Chabad Houses, dollars, etc. As they spoke, Yossi said, “How I wish I had a dollar from the Rebbe.” The Chassid decided to seize the moment and he said, “You know what, I’ll give you a dollar that I got from the Rebbe.” He took out a dollar and gave it to Yossi.
Another two years went by and another Lubavitcher, of Bucharian origin, entered his cab. Once again, they spoke about the Rebbe, Judaism, Tanya and dollars. Yossi took out his dollar from the Rebbe and proudly showed it to the Lubavitcher. The Chassid looked at it and said, “Do you see what someone wrote on it?”
“No,” said Yossi. “What does it say?”
Yossi took another look and couldn’t believe his eyes. It said, “The fifth night of Chanuka 5750.”
Yossi sees that date as the time his neshama was ignited. He continues to improve in his mitzva observance. He attends shiurim at the Chabad House in Einan and regularly consults with R’ Uzi Shinan.
IN THE NICK OF TIME
A few more years went by and Yossi was doing quite a bit of business. However, the way of the world is that sometimes one is successful and sometimes things go awry. There is a large picture of the Rebbe hanging in the entrance to his house and occasionally he looks at it and asks the Rebbe for a bracha.
One day, he sat facing the picture with his head spinning with all kinds of worries. That morning, the bank had called and informed him that he needed to deposit 35,000 shekels that day; otherwise, his checks would not be honored.
Yossi had no idea where to obtain such a large sum within two hours. He looked at the Rebbe’s picture and sighed. “Rebbe, help me so the checks don’t bounce.” A few minutes later his mother came to visit. “How are you Yossi? You look worried.”
Yossi didn’t want to tell her what was on his mind, but she was persistent and he finally told her that he needed 35,000 shekels immediately. To his amazement, she took an envelope out of her bag and took bills out of it. Yossi counted them and couldn’t believe it. There were 35,000 shekels.
“Where is this money from?” he asked. His mother said, “Grandma from Switzerland sent this money which arrived today. She wrote that it should be for her burial expenses after she lives a long life and that in the meantime, the money can be used.”
EIGHT LITVISHE BACHURIM
The following story sounds a bit crazy, but read it till the end to see the Hashgacha Pratis. I heard this from R’ Eren Ben Porat, principal of a Litvishe elementary school with about 500 students.
“21 years ago, I was with some other bachurim in South Africa. We were involved in founding a yeshiva in Johannesburg. At some point during the year, the eight of us went on a five day trip to Capetown. We arranged plane tickets and cheap rooms in a hotel, took plenty of food, and set out.
“Due to unexpected changes, the flight was delayed. In addition, we did not know the exact address of the hotel; we simply hadn’t written it down properly. We wandered around for a few hours looking for it. It didn’t help that we weren’t fluent in English. We reached the hotel after midnight. At that hour, it was already closed and there was nobody to talk to.
Having no choice, we set ourselves up on the lawn near the beach and planned on sleeping under the stars. A homeless, semi-drunk person came along. He saw that we were Jews and he wanted to help us. He began looking for the addresses of Jews. For some reason, a friend and I went along with him.
Close to two in the morning, a car with a local yeshiva bachur driving stopped near us. When we told him our situation, he got us all into his car and took us to the Chabad House! He woke up the shliach who welcomed us. He told us that for the next five days, he would take care of us. “You don’t need the hotel. Sleep and eat with us and I’ll take you on guided tours to all the tourist spots in the area.”
To our amazement, the shliach rented a nine passenger van and for four days he dropped everything else and took care of us. He drove us and served as our tour guide. This went on for a few days until Thursday when he said he couldn’t go with us. But he provided us with another driver to accompany us all day. On Friday, the shliach drove us to the airport.
It was only when we returned to yeshiva that we began wondering why the shliach had gone all out for us. One of the guys called him and asked him to tell us why he had put himself out to such an extent for us. The shliach told him what happened.
“A few days ago, the police arrested me and accused me of a serious crime which could end with a long jail sentence. I called the Rebbe’s office to ask for the Rebbe’s bracha. The Rebbe’s answer was that I needed to do an act of chesed that was beyond what I would normally do, and in that merit I would be exonerated.
“I did not know what chesed to do, especially when most of the Jews here are well-off and don’t need my chesed. I asked, through the Rebbe’s secretaries, what act of chesed I should do and the Rebbe’s answer was that I would soon know what it is I had to do.
“Three days before the court case, which was arranged for last Thursday, you appeared at my house at two in the morning. I immediately realized that this was the chesed I had to do. I recognized the Hashgacha Pratis that brought you to me, so I threw myself into the chesed with all my heart. On Thursday I couldn’t join you because I went to court. Thank G-d, I was exonerated and on Friday I took you to the airport.”
Please daven for a refua shleima for Yaakov Aryeh ben Rochel, the author of this column.