Both the women worked in the same office building in Manhattan, and both notified their employers that they would not be coming to work on the day of the waitress’s operation, explaining the reason. And so it was that both those women whose lives had been saved in Yerushalayim only about a month earlier, were now in a Manhattan hospital with the woman who inadvertently had helped save their lives. They were there in the hospital because of hakaras hatov. And so it was that on that terrible day, the eleventh of September, when the Twin Towers were blown up in Manhattan, those two women, both of whom worked in the Twin Towers, were not at work. They were far from the Twin Towers, visiting a woman who had been instrumental in saving their lives barely a month ago. And once again, their lives were spared. Because of hakaras hatov.
***
I was on a bus in Yerushalayim, coming back to my home in Har Nof when a lovely young lady sat down next to me. I struck up a conversation with her and when she heard where I live, she told me the following story.
A woman named Golda, a neighbor of mine across the street, used to rent out one of the rooms in her home to visiting seminary students. Golda is a wonderful person in many ways and among her fine qualities are her concern for others, and her honesty. The girl sitting next to me, we’ll call her Leah, told me that when she was in the beginning stages of becoming a baalas teshuvah she rented a room in Golda’s apartment.
One day Leah mentioned that she was going into town to do some clothes shopping on Yaffo Street, the main street with lots of stores and restaurants in the secular area of Yerushalayim. Wanting to be honest, Golda told Leah that since she’s in seminary, learning about Judaism, and since she’s clearly interested in becoming more religious, maybe she’d like to get clothes that are more modest than what she would find on Yaffo Street. She told her about Geula, the religious neighborhood that has plenty of wonderful clothing stores for religious girls and women.
Leah appreciated the advice and did just that. She had planned to go shopping on Yaffo and then have lunch together with a friend in the nearby Sabarro restaurant, but after what Golda explained to her, she decided to go to Geula instead for tzniusdig clothing as she truly did want to do Hashem’s will – even though sometimes the weather is so hot here, and also, the tzniusdig look is quite different from what she was used to. The girl was strong and followed her new convictions, and the advice of her young landlady. And so it was that though she had planned on being in the Sbarro restaurant at lunchtime, she wasn’t. And her life was saved.
Nothing is by chance, and when we do Hashem’s will we always benefit. We don’t always see the benefit, sometimes we never see it in this lifetime but it is always there. Because everything is Hashem for the good, even when we don’t see the goodness. And sometimes we do see it – very clearly.