A Crash for the Best
From the Memoirs of Rav Moshe Fhima
During one of the summers while I was first here in Belarussia, I remember being under tremendous financial pressure in keeping the local school running. The weight of the burden was heavy and after more than a month of doing all that I could to rectify the situation, I realized that it was starting to affect me in different ways. I found that I was becoming nervous and distracted, I was short with people whom I knew I really ought to have patience with and in general had become less and less the person I knew I should be. So thinking that I needed to do something in order that I should get back to doing the things that needed to be done, I decided that perhaps the best thing that I could do would be to go back to England and to Manchester for a bit of a rest and to breath some clean mountain air and then come back and get back into things with a clean head. I was hoping that maybe some home and hearth would lead to some clear thinking and that and a few days rest would show me the way to solve our financial problems.
I left just after Shabbos and first thing Sunday morning I went with my father and my two brothers to Mt Snoden, which is the highest mountain in the United Kingdom. The four of us hiked around a bit and then sat down to enjoy the air. At about 3:00 that afternoon we decided that it was a good time to head back as the drive to Manchester was at least 90 minutes. We had been driving for about an hour when we saw on the other side of the highway that a car had crashed into a lamp post. And as we looked, we noticed that the car was being driven by religious Jews and that they had al gotten out and were inspecting the car. Well we immediately knew that we should turn around and go and have a look to see if they were all ok and so at the next junction we turned around and headed back.
One of the fellows told us that, Baruch Hashem, all were all right and the car seemed to be alright but for some damage to the bumper. “However,” the driver went on “I wonder if you could help us with another problem that we have.”
It turns out that he and his friends were on their way to the house of a wealthy and righteous religious Jew who did not like praying without a minyan. A minyan of course is a group of 10 Jews older than thirteen. As the story went on we learned that the man had at his house four friends as well as himself, and this group of four had come also on his request from Manchester and was supposed to join them. “I wonder if one of you would care to come with us,” The driver offered, “we need one more to make a full minyan. Actually, we were wondering how we were going to find the 10th man. Maybe this accident was G-d’s way of slowing us down enough so that we should meet.”
Well, to help out a fellow Jew does not always mean helping out physically, sometimes it means helping out spiritually as well. So after a moment of discussion, we all agreed that this is what we would do. We called to home and said we would be delayed for some time, and then all of us including my father and brothers followed behind the four religious Jews out to an address somewhere in Whales. Needless to say this wealthy man was rather surprised to see us, but when he heard the story of how we met and that we had decided to come out to his house just to pray mincha with him, he was beside himself with gratitude.
So we said together the afternoon prayers, and as we were waiting for the sky to darken so we could continue with the evening prayers, one of my brothers asked me to tell some stories of my work in the former Soviet Union to help pass the time. “Certainly your life has got to be more interesting than normal ork-a-day folks.” He joked. So I agreed and our entire group went outside in order not to distract this righteous Jew who said that he had some work to do in the time between the prayers.
And so I talked for a while about some of the heroes I had met, some of the people who were living exceptional lives under trying and even impossible situations. We were all laughing and enjoying ourselves and I suppose I had become engrossed in my stories because I hadn’t noticed that our host had become interested in what was going on as well and had come out and was standing behind me while I was speaking.
Anyway, after evening prayers everyone felt good about how the afternoon had worked out, all said that they enjoyed my stories, and we were packing up to leave when the man we had come to visit pulled me aside. He told me that he also lived in Manchester and asked if I could come over to his office the next day at 2:00. Well, if you have to come at 2:00, you come at 2:00 so I agreed, then we all congratulated ourselves again on the minyan and then drove back together to Manchester.
The next day at 2:00 I was at this man’s office. He invited me to sit down, looked me right in the eye and asked me what my deficit was as of today’s date. Now everyone who has anything to do with the running of an organization knows that there is almost always a deficit and that it doesn’t matter how big or small the deficit it, if it is there, it always holds you back. So, I nodded once or twice, leaned back and told him that as of the moment I was short $35,000 US. I don’t know what I could have been expecting or hoping for but basically, the man without saying or doing anything extra simply pulled out a checkbook and wrote a check for the full amount.
It is very hard to describe what one feels at a moment like this. But I remember thinking right as he was writing that I had I realized how G-d had guided every move that I had made since I left Belarus and was probably even responsible for my having decided to come back to Manchester. Certainly we need to have our eyes open for such miracles because once one really understands that everything is run by Hashem, I would think that it must be easier for us all to do what we need to do. And really it is just like that. Baruch Hashem.