Welcome to the Daily Chizuk. We mentioned yesterday the Pasuk (verse) that Hashem controls our footsteps. I once read a story in a book called Two Halves of a Whole about a 35-year-old man who was still single and on a business trip, ready to take a flight back to New York from Bangkok. The flight would arrive on Erev Rosh Hashanah (eve of Rosh Hashanah). Right as he was getting onto the plane, they told him his ticket was invalid and he couldn’t go. The plane was leaving, and he was stuck there in Bangkok. What was he going to do, stranded in Bangkok for Rosh Hashanah? He remembered that there was a Jewish community in Hong Kong and asked if he could get a flight there. He arrived in Hong Kong right before Rosh Hashanah. He made a connection to stay at someone’s house and ended up in the home of a total stranger for Rosh Hashanah. But luckily for him, it turned out to be the home of his future wife. There was no mistake with his ticket. Hashem controls our steps.
Someone told him. He told me a beautiful story that happened to him last week. He said his baby was crying, and his wife asked him if he could drive the baby around in the car; the baby would fall asleep like that. He said, “No problem,” and drove his baby around. He remembered that he had a deposit to make at the bank, so he said, “I’ll go to the drive-thru.” He got to the drive-thru and made the deposit, and the baby’s pacifier fell out. The baby started crying, so he got out of the car, went to the back, gave the baby the pacifier, got back in, and went on his way. He said he drove around for at least another half hour and got back to his house. He looked in, felt his pockets, and realized that his money was missing. He had $2,000 cash on him. He started looking in his house. “Did I bring it with me? Didn’t I bring it with me? I know I brought it with me.” He went back outside to his car. Maybe it was in the car. He couldn’t find it in the car. What was he going to do now? He went all the way back to the bank and started checking by the drive-thru. Maybe he had dropped it there. He looked on the floor, but couldn’t find it. He was searching and searching. All of a sudden, a man came over to him and said, “Did you lose something?” He said, “Yeah, I lost a lot of money.” The man said, “Did you lose $2,000?” He said, “Yes.” The man said, “Here’s the money,” took it out of his pocket, and handed him the $2,000.
These were two Jews. The person told me he was so happy. He said, “Thank you so much. What happened?” The guy said, “Well, I came with my wife here to the drive-thru, and we saw money scattered all over the floor. I got out, and he picked up all the money. He put it in his pocket and said, ‘Let’s wait here for a couple of minutes. Maybe the person who lost it will come back.’ He didn’t come back, and we had to go. We said, ‘We’ll go do some errands.’ He went to do errands with his wife, and after they finished their errands, they said, ‘Let’s go back. Maybe the person came back to look for his money.’ And he came back, and sure enough, you were there looking for money. You were looking for your money, and I handed it back to you.” The guy tells me, “I can’t believe it. Look at the Hashgacha Pratit (Divine providence). Brooklyn is a very big place. Who knows what errands they had to do? But the fact that we both came back at the exact same time, almost an hour later—look at the Hashgacha Pratit.” This is MeHashem mitz'adei gever. Hashem was controlling our footsteps.
Now, the couple who found the money did a heroic act. First, they waited at the bank, trying to find the person who lost it. Then they drove back, going out of their way, hoping to return the money. What was going through their minds? “Baruch Hashem, we found out who it was.” We learned many important lessons from their side of the story. Be'ezrat Hashem, we’ll discuss them tomorrow. Have a great day.