My Corner Store Miracle

This past Shabbat, Shabbat Chazon, I was on my way to the other side of my neighborhood when I noticed a small sign posted at the entrance to an apartment building. The sign read, “Our corner store has burned down! This corner store belongs to all of us, please donate generously.”

And then something truly strange happened. Out of all the appeals for donations I come across every day, and generally ignore, this one stuck in my head. And I felt with great urgency that I needed to help this corner-store owner, whom I’d never met, to rebuild his corner store, which I had never seen.

And I got an idea. We have a big family and a home hospitality business, so we spends lots and lots of money on food. And this corner store owner, when he’ll get back on his feet, please God, will have lots of food for sale. So I thought I could suggest to the corner-store owner that we would give him money now for his repairs, and then in a few months, after he’s in the black, we would use the money we’d given him as credit to buy food for our family and business.

By Sunday morning, my feeling of urgency was as strong as ever. So I drove over to the corner store I’d never entered to meet the corner-store owner I’d never met. When I arrived, the owner wasn’t there, so I had a chance to look around. The shelves were quite well-stocked, considering what had just happened, but the walls were charred and there were several repairmen, fixing this and that.

Then the owner, a Breslov baal teshuva, arrived. I introduced myself, and told him my plan. He looked a bit stunned, but also sounded excited about the idea.

Then I went home and transferred him the money I’d promised. There was no response until the following day. I saw from his note that it wasn’t easy for him to express himself in writing. But his sincere response moved me to tears:

“Sometimes you arrive at places in life where you merit to meet dear souls in the Jewish people upon whom the world is standing we have no words to express our appreciation to you thank you very much and a huge thank you to Hashem Yitbarach who gave us the privilege to meet people like you.”

It was a deeply moving experience for me, to meet this Breslover, who had obviously been praying to Hashem to send him the money he needed, and that out of nowhere Hashem had sent me this out-of-the-blue push into my mind and heart to do just that.

It was wild, to feel that I was living a Chassidic story about a Chassid’s heartfelt prayer and his trust in Hashem and the miracle Hashem made for that Chassid, through me.

And I was struck by how the corner store’s story was also the story of Tisha b’Av, the fire, the destruction, and the acts of kindness and faith that will, IY”H, bring it back to us, rebuilt, once again.

An easy and meaningful fast to all!