There is a well-known story, true or not I do not know, of a son who wanted money from his father before parting ways. The father would not give the money and the son left. Later it turned out that the father had put an envelope of money in the son's siddur or tefillin bag, which had gone undiscovered until it was too late, because the son never used his siddur or tefillin. Or something like that.

This story has come to life, sort of..

According to a story on Kikar, a secular fellow from Ramat Aviv was seated near a Chabad family from Crown Heights on an airline flight. After becoming friendly on the flight, the Chabadnik suggested he start putting on tefillin and tallis, to which the secular fellow agreed.

Michael, the guy from Ramat Aviv, goes to his local Chabad House with tallis and tefillin in tow, and even bringing along his late father's tallis as well. Michael decided he preferred to use his late father's tallis, and the Rabbi was going to show him how to wrap the tallis and wear it.

When they took out the tallis, they found an envelope placed in its folds 2 checks form 1995, each to the sum of 62,000nis.

While it is not quite as dramatic as the known story, as the father did not hide it there for his son in this case, it does turn out that someone had owed the father money and had paid it back with these two checks. The father simply, probably, put them away there until he could deposit them but died before getting a chance to go to the bank (based on the dates of the checks and the fact that the father had died form a heart attack while driving - so goes the story). The son, Michael, recognized, that had he put on his tefillin after the father died, he would have found the money back then.

Supposedly Michael committed to putting on tefillin regularly.

Rabbi Yehuda Levine Explains Why NY Got off Easy From Hurricane Irene



I am sometimes envious of people who always have all the answers. they understand everything that happens and what is the cause of it. They have no questions. Everything is so clear to them. I am envious. I have more questions than answers.

Though everybody who knows the answers all tend to apply their personal bias in supplying the answer. When Leiby Kletsky was killed it was because of the homosexual marriage law that not enough people protested. Now Irene blows away and it is because he protests the homosexual rights. And had Irene destroyed the city he would have had the same explanation for it - because of the homosexual laws and lack of protest. no matter what happens, the answer is ready at hand.

this is hilarious

There was a nude, or perhaps scantily clad, protest scheduled to happen in Williamsburg on Friday night - bikers were protesting the removal of a bike lane.

The bikers think that it was removed by the mayor after pressure, and a political deal, from the Satmar hassidim, so that women in untzniyus biking gear would not ride through their neighborhood. the satmar defend their opposition to the bike lane by saying it was a safety issue - something about kids, trucks, school zones, bike lanes being crossed, etc.

The protest did not happen, at least not in the nude, because of a heavy snowstorm and below freezing temperatures, that made it impossible. Way too cold to let it all hang out, even in protest of something important.

So, was the storm heavenly sent, divinely inspired, to protect the hassidim form the nude protesters?

Obviously it can be rescheduled for a warmer day, but in the meantime, was the message heavenly sent?

I had to take a watch to be repaired. It needed some quality workmanship so we did not just want to walk into any jeweler for this. The place I usually use, somewhere near work, recently closed down. So I asked for recommendations and decided where I would go.

We head out to our choice. This is a jeweler we never would have gone to - his shop is in a different neighborhood and I just would never have even known about him.

We take in the watch, and the shop is very busy. the father, who fixes the watches, was out, and we chose to wait for him. After a while we step outside and my wife looks in the window. To her surprise she sees a bracelet that she recognizes as being very similar to one owned by a relative that recently had it stolen from them!

We let the relative know - they had some very specific simanim on the bracelet as they had made some changes to the original bracelet. They go down there and see the bracelet and inspect it. Sure enough it is their bracelet.

Obviously the store did not steal the bracelet. Someone else probably did and sold it to the jeweler (selling old jewelery for the gold value is very common nowadays in Israel). The jeweler placed it on display in the window, and we spotted it.

So, we took a recommendation for a jeweler we would never have gone to, spotted our relatives stolen bracelet and now they are in the process of retrieving it via the police and insurance company. And for added measure, that jeweler was not able to fix the watch we had brought in - we ended up taking it to someone else who did fix it.

The only reason we were sent to this place was to find that bracelet.

What do you think? Pure coincidence or hashgacha? If hashgacha, as I think, why would Hashem get so involved in helping us find a stolen bracelet - for what purpose? Just to retrieve it?

Sometimes you just have to accept that you are not in control.

I had a meeting scheduled for Sunday. An important meeting.

Saturday night the guy calls me and says he can't come Sunday, something came up. We rescheduled for Tuesday. The problem with Tuesday is that he could only meet in the afternoon - at 1pm. I knew this would be a long meeting, and I hate doing these in the afternoon, because they always tend to get out of hand and go longer than necessary just because of off the topic discussion.

I am a yekke about my schedule and I hate having to adjust it for a reason that is not absolutely necessary or very important.

I knew when he called that this would get out of hand and mess up my schedule. But he assured me he would meet me at 1 and it would not take too long. Everything would be fine.

1pm comes and goes, and he does not show. Now this guy is very responsible, and very talented. he did not not come just because he was late - something must have happened. I call him up and ask what the story is.

he sends me a message saying he is stuck by a client dealing with a problem. OK, no problem. A short while later he sends me a message that they are coming at 3:30. I groaned knowing that that would definitely mess me up, but there was nothing I could do about it. It was an important meeting and I just had to suck it up and bear it.

Sure enough they get to the meeting and we talk. There is enough wasted time to frustrate me, but that is part of life. I see the clock creeping toward the time I needed to leave to make my regular train. There was still a chance. Grrrr.

Sure enough, we finished the meeting 3 minutes after the time I would have had to leave to make my train on time at the last possible moment.

Everything that could possibly have happened to cause me a delay, happened. Sometimes you just have to accept that you are not in control.

Last night my shiur held a siyum. We finished learning Yoreh Dei'ah vol.3 and began learning Even Ha'Ezer.

Even Ha'Ezer deals mostly with the halachos relevant between man and wife, and it starts off with the topic of "Be Fruitful and Multiply" - Pirya V'Rivya.

As we were going through an introduction, a guy comes in and asks to say a few words. He tells us how he has been married 6 years and they are infertile, the treatments are not covered by the national health care and cost him $2000 per month. He and his wife both work and that is how they pay their regular living expenses, but they cannot afford the expense of the medicine and treatments....

Talk about good timing! Just as we were learning the importance of the mitzva of having children, this guy shows up and describes his problem.

Of course people gave him money and good wishes.

He would have had even better timing if he should up 20 minutes later, right after we came across a statement in the rishonim (if I remember correctly) that said one should give money to help others, who cannot, have children...

There is a freaky story going around. I first saw it on the Hebrew forums, and now it has made it to the English email lists.

This is how it was presented in the email on the list, and it was the same details in the Hebrew version on the various forums....

The Israeli soldiers were going from house to house looking for terrorists the other night. Three times in the same night, at three different houses, a woman dressed all in black stopped them from entering.

She pleaded with them not to go in.

They listened to her and found out all three of the houses were rigged with tons of explosives. She saved a lot of our soldiers from dying.

No one knows who she was. She disappeared as quickly as she had appeared. One soldier asked who are you, and she said Rachel. Other soldiers heard her say this.

In the Sixth Day War, a similar incident happened with a very old man sitting by the side of the road. He appeared to many groups of soldiers in the same day, telling them don't go down that road, or they must go down this road. When the soldiers all got together and shared the story, they were astounded that they all saw the same old man, dressed the same way, but at different places during the war. (This was told to me by a man who fought in the Sixth Day War and experienced this miracle first hand).

The following is an email I received from the organizer of the trip I went on in which the bus broke down... I changed nothing except for removing the names...

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I hope you had as much fun as my family did on the tiyul. The sense of appreciation I got from everyone made it all worth it for me. I know I mentioned that we had a lot of siyata d’shmaya on the trip and thought you would all enjoying the tremendous bracha we had with the entire bus incident. As we were leaving Beit Shean my wife told me to watch the driver because he was (understandably) very tired. We had an experience with an Egged bus driver who was literally falling asleep on the way back from Yerushalayim so I was a bit nervous but I kept my eye on him. I myself couldn’t keep my eyes open anymore and I dozed off. A few minutes later, my son woke me and said, “Look at the driver – he’s falling asleep”. Sure enough his head was bouncing every half a minute or so. I knew he wasn’t bobbing for apples because there weren’t any and it wasn’t even Halloween J. I moved up to the front seat to have a conversation with him and keep him up. We talked for a few minutes and I still saw his eyes closing a bit. My assessment was that I have to do something more to keep him up – but Hashem knew that there was no way this guy could drive a bus full of people. Then the radiator light started flashing. I thought this would be good to wake him up a bit but Hashem said “wait”. We emptied all the water in the radiator that was overheating and poured a big jerry can inside of cooler water. We started driving again and saw that the car was still overheating. That’s when he pulled over and called the car, which happened to be the two owners of the bus company, to come and help. What we found out was that it wasn’t the radiator at all but rather a belt broke. This was a belt that was changed ONE MONTH AGO! Anyone who has owned a car knows that belts are meant to last much more than a month. Fixing the radiator – if that was really the problem – would only have been a temporary solution to our sleeping problem. Now what were these two guys still doing in the area after they fixed the headlights (which was where our story began)? THEY WERE FIXING ANOTHER BUS THAT BROKE DOWN – but not a bus that you would think would have problems – they were fixing their new 2008 VOLVO BUS! They were able to change the belt with the supplies they carry around and we were on our way WITH A NEW DRIVER! And a car following from behind. I couldn’t help see the Yad Hashem in the whole event – all the little things Hashem did to make sure we got home safe! One of the owners that came to fix the car said “We never had a night like this”. Of course not – he never had such a special group on his busses at one time! Like we say three times a day “We shall thank you and relate your praise …. For Your miracles that are with us every day …” Please share this with your families and may we all merit a year full of Bitachon and Emunah that will lead to simcha in our lives until we experience the ultimate simcha of the binyan Beis HaMikdash – speedily in our days. Looking forward to the next tiyul – with Hashems help.

Two interesting stories were published in the weekend papers. One in the local rag and the second in the Mishpacha weekend newspaper (Hebrew).

The Mishpacha story was about someone who lost his tefillin two months ago. He lost it on a bus in Jerusalem. After searching for them as much as he could, he was directed to an organization that specializes in recovering lost tefillin. he contacted them and gave his information and for two months he did not have tefillin.

He could not afford to purchase a new set, so he had to make do with borrowing from others and gmachim. After two months, he went out and bought himself a new bag for tefillin. He then said to Hashem, "Hashem, I have done all I can do. I bought a new bag but I cannot afford new tefillin. I have done my hishtadlus, now it is up to You."

The story as reported is that the very same day a representative from Eged's Lost and Found division brought in a pair of tefillin to the organization who identified them based on simanim as belonging to the above fellow.

They contacted him and the very same day he had his tefillin back and placed in his new bag.

The second story was from the local rag, Hadash.

The story goes that a mehadrin bus (not belonging to Egged) was on its way from bet Shemesh to Jerusalem. When approaching the Castel, the driver of the bus fainted and lost control of the bus. On the decline of the highway, the bus got out of control and was weaving.

A passenger laid under the seat of the driver and slowly manually depressed on the brakes. The bus came to a stop just before crossing over the median and bursting into the opposite side of the highway into oncoming traffic.

Nobody was injured and the driver was taken to the hospital to be examined.

The passengers declared that in the merit of having been careful about travelling in a mehadrin bus, they merited the miracle of being saved from a terrible accident.

These are both interesting stories. In the first story though, why did the guy not check Egged Lost and Found? Maybe he did and on the day he checked they had possibly not yet been turned in? He could have checked back with them once a week during the two months... I am not really sure. However, they were returned to him on the same day he went out and purchased his bag. It is clearly a function of his emuna. Maybe only at that point was his level of emuna clear....

The second story - if the merit of riding a mehadrin bus saved them, why was the merit not enough to completely avoid the accident? Why was the driver, who was driving a mehadrin bus, not protected from fainting?

Shooting in Utah!
Another disgruntled teenager (this one 18 years old) shoots up a bunch of random people.

Good think an off-duty cop was in the mall having dinner with his wife. He confronts the guy then teams up with another police office and they put an end to the kids miserable life.

CNN brings us the story of the cop who was off-duty but still carrying his gun who got involved.


The funny thing is, when I hear stories like this, such as reading them in the Hamodia hashgacha pratis article, I tend to roll my eyes, nod/shake my head, or mouth a cynical 'wow'. Yet when CNN prints a similar story by a non-Jew, the cynicism is gone and, at least my initial reaction, I am impressed.

Why am I, or why are we (if you do the same), more cynical about these things when it comes to frum Jews? Or am I just an aberration?