Three words – “mei’Hashem yatza ha’davar,” “the matter stemmed from Hashem.” Even the wicked Lavan and Besuel saw what so many who demonstrate spiritual myopia refuse to acknowledge: Everything comes from Hashem; He is the source of all that occurs. When we take note of what happens around us and how everything has transpired, how the various pieces of the puzzle many of us call life just “seem” to fit together, we will realize that it can only be attributed to Hashem’s guiding Hand. Stories abound which demonstrate the concept of “mei’Hashem yatza ha’davar.” One that is especially intriguing is told by Horav Yitzchak Zilberstein, Shlita, in his sefer, “Tuvcha Yabiu.”
The young man about whom the story is related says that only through Divine intervention could he have been where he was and, consequently, discovered what he did. It happened by “chance” that this young man was davening in one of the “shtiblach,” little shuls, in the Zichron Moshe section of Yerushalayim. This was actually the very first time that he had prayed in a shtibel. At the end of davening, he felt “something” pushing him to look in on a shiur, class, going on in one of the little rooms off the main shul. He did not know why, but for “some” reason he felt compelled to enter the room and look at the Talmud that they were studying. The young man reiterated that such a practice was totally atypical for him.
Suddenly, he noticed that there were notes written on the page of Talmud that they were studying. At the bottom of the notes was a signature – that of his own grandfather! He was shocked. His grandfather was a great scholar, who had been killed during the Holocaust. To the best of everyone’s knowledge, his Shas, set of Talmud, upon which he had written copious notes had also been destroyed. The family was bitter about the loss of the Shas, since the notes were said to be of great significance to the study of Talmud. Additionally this was a link to the past, a link that would keep his grandfather’s “lips speaking from the grave.”
As soon as the class was over, he approached the man who was studying from the volume to inquire from where he had gotten it. The man explained that after the war, he met a man who gave him the entire Shas as a gift, on the condition that he would take it with him to Eretz Yisrael. “I would be delighted to return the Shas to its rightful family,” he said to the young man.
One can only begin to imagine the great joy felt by the family as everyone discovered that the personal Shas of the family’s patriarch had been found. After careful perusal, it was discovered that while their grandfather had written notes on many pages, it was only on this specific page that they “happened” to be studying that he had affixed his name. The “Mesabev kol ha’sibos, cause of all causes” had “arranged” that this young man had davened for the first time in a shtibel, which “happened” to be in Zichron Moshe, where they “happened” to be studying the specific Tractate and the specific page upon which his martyred grandfather had signed his name to his notes. On that day – that place – that Tractate – that page – “mei’ Hashem yatza ha’davar”!
