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Lately there have been several threads on stories, is it possible to start one for stories of hashgacha pratis?
Sounds great il start. me and my chavrusa are going on mivtzoim and we need to get my brothers teffilin but they where locked in a room. when we finnaly managed to get them we where really annoyed cause we where gonna miss our usual train we got to the train station only to see the train pulling out. when we finnaly got onto the next train we see these 3 hooligoons looking at us and it looks like there waiting for something or wanted to beat us up. my chavrusa who was looking in the other direction, turns around sees these guys and without flinching he walks up to them and asks if there jewish all 3 of them highfive each other and there like I knew they would ask us. we put teffilin on them and brought one of them closer to yidishkeit by getting him to go to the local chabad house every once in a while. if my chavrusas teffilin werent locked up we would have never missed our train and then we wouldent have put teffilin on these 3 guys
How do you know that you di9miss 5 guys on the previous train 🚂?
Everything hashem does daily in our lives is pure Hashgacha pratis pure divine providence coming directly from Hashem. The difference is we human beings don’t always get to see it and that’s when we mention it but really everything is Hashgacha Pratis.
May we all start to see EVERYTHING coming directly from Hashem and notice the Hashgacha pratis in it.
It will be on July 9th 63 years I am here in America after emigrating from Hungary. We davened in Crown Heights in the Beis Hamidrash Ksav Sofer of Rav Strasser ztz’l who was the menahel, principal of the Wiener Yeshiva in Williamsburg who encouraged my father to send me there. Going to the Wiener Camp was required. The Hadhauser ztz’l, Wiener Rav said that if one who does not come back to camp, should not come back to the mesivta. Not being happy with the camp, I left and switched to Yeshiva Chasan Sofer. When I went to NYU in Mathematics, I saw an ad looking for a Senior Research Aid in computer programming at Brooklyn College from where I received a BS degree, so I got a job there. A plumber working by us and by my wife’s a’h house, brought us together. My wife’s cousin decided to buy a house in S.I. so she asked us to buy the companion house there which got us to move there. Having a problem having children, we converted and adopted, through intermediaries, a son from Columbia and a daughter born in Maimonides to a Non-Jew. They are 38 and almost 36 respectively married with children 3, two girls and a boy and 2, a boy and a girl respectively.
The above demonstrates the hashgacha pratis, an individual being controlled through Hashem, influenced from outside sources out of one’s control.
AAQ I guess its hashgacha protis we didn’t put-on tefillin on those 5 people
Tuna, I was paraphrasing Berdichever who said to a Jew running “after parnosah” – maybe parnosah is in the opposite direction? Just making sure that this wonderful event would not become your excuse to be late, expecting Hashem to fix your mistakes
You seem to be missing the concept here. We are not in control. Sometimes when we look backwards we can see glimpses of why we may have been sent in a different direction, but nobody did something wrong hoping Hashem would fix it.
The Chasam Sofer interprets the pasuk וראית את אחרי וםני לא יראו we only see the big picture from hindsight.
Syag > We are not in control.
R Avigdor Miller brings another example of someone opening a door and inviting a beggar into the house, giving him a cup of tea. Then, while beggar asks for a second cup, and baal habais goes to get it, the beggar throws hot tea into a baby’s face. How does this hashgaha matches the chesed?! Simple: he did an aveira leaving a baby with a crazy person and is punished for that. Sometimes, we diminish our understanding of Hashem by claiming that things are beyond understanding.
As to OP, if this were happen with CTLAWYER, who habitually arrives 10 minutes early to be on time, and still through a strange coincidence, he would be late and all the above happened, I would also see solely hashgahat pratis here. This is not to deny that if this were to happen with me, I would claim the same defense! Maybe my own shortcomings called me to notice the problem, as it usually happens.
You are mixing apples and oranges. Suffering consequences for a bad decision is a different issue than watching a string of events unfold separate from choices you made.
You didn’t notice a problem, you made one up. All along the lines of needing to put people in their place when they credit hashem for his gifts. Anyone who can claim a degree is the ultimate hishtadlus because a burnt out doctor can always do x-rays is grasping tightly at straws.RebE > we only see the big picture from hindsight.
Absolutely. One example from an auto-biography. Two cousins, with their families, were in Soviet-occupied part of Poland in 1939. Soviets requested everyone to get Soviet citizenship “or else”. One cousin refused, they – and other likewise Jews – were arrested in June 1940, exiled to Far North. They were able to build up and prepare for winter, and after two horrible winters, when General Anders started forming Polish army, Soviet let Polish citizens to join, they travelled to Persia and survived (not many did, of course). Ethnic Poles were treated better and given another 6 months. So, when they were exiled to the same area 6 months later in the middle if the winter and were left to their own devices, they had nothing prepared for winter and they all died. The second cousin accepted Soviet citizenship and was allowed to stay in the same area. One yer later, Nazis came in and killed everyone.
I’ve had this thought about hashgacha pratius: If there is no such thing as tevah. If the entire universe, from a falling leaf to the paths of the galaxies, is run by the specific Will of HKBH. Then the study of science is at the highest level of kedusha because it is the direct study of the Ratzon HaShem, and His Ratzon is predictable according to discoverable principles.
RK: Doesn’t follow.
The opposite – since we can’t know HKB”H’ specific ratzon, the “discoverable principles” may not be what we think they are.The biggest scientest cannot predict the course of events in human history, on a micro or macro level.
Ray, yes, a similar thought is expressed in Chacham adif min haNavi: Navi gets a message from Hashem for every incident; Chacham can uncover rules that work in Hashem’s world that can be used in many situations.
There is a story with Rav Yonason Eibshutz zt’l where a king asked him the above, you say a chacham is greater than a navi, so tell me how will I enter my palace? So he wrote something on a piece of paper and gave it to a king. The king thinking that a door and window is obvious, so he made a new opening in the middle of the castle. They checked the paper afterwards, surprisingly it said מלך פורץ גדר a king breaks the normal protective border, rules.
The gemora in Shabbos tells a story about a man who needed to nurse a baby and a miracle happened by growing him breasts. There is a argument if this was a great thing through making him a miracle or an ugly thing that the normal running of the world, olam keminhogo nohag, was changed which costs him in zechusism.
RebE > he made a new opening in the middle of the castle
This is actually a standard way to enter insurgent buildings trying to arrest them – to avoid booby-trapped doors and windows. Not only wall is unexpected, but it is not known in advance what part of the wall will be breached.
RebE > man who needed to nurse
absolutely. That means that people who get miracles to save them from preventable problems use up some of their future rewards.
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