Hashgacha Prati 1

Hashgacha Prati (Divine -and Individual - Intervention) is one of the foundations of our faith and something that Rebbe Nachman of Breslov placed tremendous emphasis on. If one's eyes are truly open you will see Heaven's hand playing a very active and recurring role in your life.

I would like to record for posterity 2 simple such events in my "mundane" life to illustrate this point.

CASE 1: A few years ago I had scheduled a job interview in Rechovot, near the Weizman Institute at 10:00AM. To put it mildly, the commute from my home in Hashmonaim is not easy and I wasn't looking forward to the convoluted multi-bus trek. To top it off, I got off to a late start; perfect!

Within 60 seconds of my arriving at my yishuv's "trempiada" - hitchhiker post - ostensibly just to get a lift to the first bus stop I needed, a car pulls up. I asked the driver where he was going. Guess what? He was going to his office which was across the street from the Weizman Institute.

Coincidence? He said that he didn't know what happened top him that morning as he never leaves this late (it was close to 9:00) and I don't recall anyone on any other day headed to that location.

When I arrived (on time) for my interview, my interviewer sheepishly apologized for agreeing to meet with me in the first place as I wasn't at all suited for the spot he needed filled.

Conclusion - This whole scenario was orchestrated from heaven for the express purpose of teaching me (and my driver) an invaluable lesson in Hashgacha Prati.

Case 2: The other day on Tu B'av I had decided that I wanted to make a trip to the Kotel after work. In the morning I estimated that I would leave by 6:30 in order to get there in time for Mincha.

Sure enough by the time 6:00 rolled around I was starting to make excuses in my head why I could go later or maybe even not at all that day. After all, there was still so much work to take care of and I was really beat. The Yetzer Hara has an exhaustive list of excuses.

At exactly 6:20 the company Internet line went down...kaput. No fiddling around on my part could revive her. Without the Internet, there is basically nothing I can do at work. I ended up leaving exactly 6:30 and Baruch Hashem arriving at the kotel just before sunset.

P.S. - lest you think that Internet crashing is a regular event by me, it's not. It happens about once every 2 or 3 months