Today I want to share a beautiful story that teaches us a lesson in bitachon shows how Hashem controls the world. Consider it part two of a story that we started last year, as you may recall. This past Lag Ba’Omer, we were in Eretz Yisrael and went to Yeshivat Birkat Ephraim, where Rabbi Mayer Veisman is a Maggid Shiur. He had come late that evening, and when he arrived, he explained that he had been at a Sefer Torah dedication that he felt he had to go to. His brother, also Rabbi Veisman, is the Rosh Yeshiva of a Yeshiva with a few Sephardic hundred boys, in Yesodot. In that town, there's a very wealthy importer, the largest importer of appliances in Israel. He had recently built a huge warehouse, and had not yet started using it. This wealthy man’s father had passed away not long before this, and although he was not yet a religious man in any regard, like many Sephardim who feel connected regardless of their religious level, he wanted to dedicate a Sefer Torah in his father's memory. He asked a religious worker of his to please find a suitable place to donate the Sefer Torah. This worker thought of the Sephardi yeshiva in Yesodot, and suggested that would be a nice thing to do. So the Rosh Yeshiva, Rabbi Veisman’s brother, met with this wealthy young man, and they worked everything out. There would be a procession to the Yeshiva where the writing of the letters would take place, and they'd have a small meal there. After that, they’d proceed to the warehouse, which, after putting in a few hundred thousand dollars, would be converted in to a veritable wedding hall, set up to a ccommodate a festivity for 500 invited guests. Wonderful. They sent out the invitations and 500 people rsvped . The agenda of the night was described, step by step, on the invitations. First the procession, then the completion of the letters, and then on to the warehouse. However, unbeknownst to the Rosh Yeshiva, a very popular Israeli singer, who was not known for his morals and ethics (to put it lightly) was invited to sing at the warehouse celebration. The Rosh Yeshiva was in a bind. He could not have this singer affiliated in any way with his Sefer Torah dedication, especially with his Yeshiva’s logo on the top! He had no choice. He went to the man and said they had a problem. They tried to come up with some compromises, “ We'll do this, we'll do that. We'll send out 2 invitations.” But the rabbi said they’d have to totally disconnect it. “ You can do your thing, but can't connect it. We can't go from one to the other. It’s just not a match.” The man thought about and said, “Let me get back to you.” And ultimately, he decided. “ You know what, ” he said, “ I'm doing this for memory of my father. I want it to be kosher on the best possible level. We have everything at the highest standard of Kashrut. I want everything to be acceptable to the Yeshiva.” And he canceled the singer. Now, this singer had a down payment of $80,000. (These numbers are hard to believe, but this is the story.) The man lost his deposit, and that was that. They had a beautiful Hachnasat Sefer Torah, and that was the Sefer Torah dedication that Rabbi Veisman couldn’t miss. End of story? This week, Rabbi Veisman was in my house, and he said there was a continuation to the story. Rabbi Veisman’s niece writes for a religious magazine in Israel, and she wrote up this whole story. The story got back to the man who had dedicated the Sefer Torah, and he was quite touched that he had brought so much inspiration to people by making the right choice, and that it became a news article, and that he was now, so to say, famous, in the Yeshiva world. So he called up Rabbi Veisman and asked if there was anything he could do for the Rabbi. The Rabbi said, “ Well, there is something, but it's a lot of money. I don't want to ask you this.” (The Rabbi is a humble man, and had never, ever asked him for any money.) “ We have a minibus, a large sprinter, that takes the married men from their homes to the Yeshiva, and it recently broke down. We need about a hundred thousand shekel” ( Or something like that. I don’t recall the exact amount, it was told to me in shekels, and taxes are high in Israel) “ But I don't want you to pay for it alone. Let’s get a few people together, and if you want to, you can be the one behind the initiative, and that would wonderful.” And the man said, “ Absolutely not. I'm doing the whole thing.” Within a few minutes, the money was wired over. The Rabbi happens to be in America now, collecting. He thought he was going to collect for the van, but now he's able to collect for other expenses. And the story is still not over. The man called Rabbi Veisman again, this time to say he wanted to start putting on Talet and Tefillin every day. He never, in his entire life, ever put on Talet and Tefillin before. That's how distanced he was. · But look how Hashem can run things. He can turn around the seeming catastrophe of the uncomfortable situation of canceling the singer. Imagine if the rabbi thought he should just give in. What if he said, “You know, it's two different venues, who cares? ” But instead, the man ended up happier with his decision than he would have been if he hadn’t canceled the singer. It turned him into a celebrity in the yeshiva world, got him so excited that he wanted to give money to the Yeshiva, and in those zechuyot , he is now putting on Talet and Tefillin. It’s unbelievable how Hashem pulls strings and makes wonderful things happen!