Welcome to the Daily Holy Story.
Rav Shalom Schwadron, the famous Maggid (storyteller) of Jerusalem, used to tell over the following story about a father, a mother, a daughter, and a son who had traveled to a seminar of Arachim in the Kibbutz Chafetz Chaim. They heard lectures for an entire week, and the father, son, and daughter began to get closer to Judaism. The son, however, remained in his room all week long, listening to his radio. At the end of the week, they started going back home, and the father and mother, together with their daughter, began to perform mitzvot (commandments). But the son didn't. They asked him to join them, to get on the bandwagon, but he refused. Finally, after a while, the father, son, and daughter began to get closer to Judaism.
After a period of time passed, the father and mother came up with an idea. They went to their son and told him, “You know what? We’re going to give you an all-expenses-paid trip to Italy and Cyprus, like all your friends go, provided that you agree to go to a week of Arachim and listen to the lectures.” The boy heard that, lit up, and said, “Yes, I will go to Arachim.” He traveled again to the Kibbutz Chafetz Chaim, the Kibbutz Chafetz Chaim from Jerusalem, and spent an entire week there. On Saturday nights, they would have symposiums, and people would get up on the stage and explain their impression of Judaism and how they’re going to change. This boy sat there dreaming, and one of the boys next to him said, “No, what do you have to say? What’s your impression? What are your thoughts?” He said, “My thoughts are that I’m taking a ticket, getting on a plane, and going to Italy and Cyprus. That’s all I’m thinking about.”
The boy next to him tried to convince him otherwise, to do something about the unbelievable lectures that they heard. “How is it possible,” he asked him, “that you have no impression from all those beautiful lectures we heard all week long from these Arachim meetings?” The boy said, “You know what? If a miracle happens, and my father and mother appear here tonight in the middle of the night, I will become a Baal Teshuvah. I will change my ways, and I’ll become religious.” Sure enough, a few minutes later, the father and mother appeared. The boy got up, hugged them and kissed them, jumped up to the stage, put on a yarmulke, and said to everybody, “This kippah (yarmulke) will never be removed from my head.” And he became a Baal Teshuvah.
What happened? How did the father and mother show up? The father went and told the people, “When I went to sleep tonight, on Saturday night, I had a dream. And in my dream, an old man appeared to me and told me, ‘Get up and go travel to your son in Arachim.’” He wakes up and tells his wife his dream. And they say, “Nah, it’s nothing.” And he goes back to sleep. He has the dream again. And again he wakes up and tells his wife, “I had this dream that we should go to our son.” So she tells her husband, “Okay, let’s get up and let’s go to our son.” Sure enough, they get up, they go into the car, they try to start the car, and the car won’t start. So the husband says, “Okay, let’s go back to sleep.” The wife says, “No, no, no. Let’s take a taxi. Let’s get...” “Nah, I don’t want to take...” “Let’s take a taxi.” She pushes him. They take a taxi, and they get to Arachim at two o’clock in the morning. And the son becomes a Baal Teshuvah. The story teaches us that when somebody would like to go in the ways of Hashem, Hashem will assist them.
Have a wonderful, wonderful day.