Whatever the moment- Recognize Hashem

The Story of The Leaf

This morning I spoke to Seventh and Eighth grade girls. The principal told me I can do anything I want with them. ( First I thought maybe I'll take them bungee jumping, or parasailing. Then I thought i should just teach them how to knit or how to make paper airplanes) In the end I gave them a workshop on my favorite topic. .........HASHGACHA PRATIS! (I also tied it in to Chanukah) I started off by showing them a leaf. ( When I told my father that I was going to show them a leaf, he asked me if I was still able to get one outside or because it's gotten so cold, if I had to order it on-line. I actually was able to get it outside). I told the girls I wanted to tell them the Story of the Leaf:
There was an old man walking down the road when he saw a leaf on the ground. Stopping in front of the leaf he asked him,
"Excuse me, Little Leaf, why do you lay there on the ground like that, you don't belong there, you belong on the tree."
The Little Leaf answered,
"Don't ask me, ask the tree, I just follow what he tells me to do."
So the old man asked the tree,
"Mr. Tree, why is the little leaf on the ground, he doesn't belong there."
Mr. Tree answered,
"Don't ask me ask the wind, I just stand here, he's the one that blew the Little Leaf down."
So the the old man went to the wind and said,
"Hey you Mr. Big and Mighty Wind, why is that leaf on the ground, why did you blow him down."
"Don't ask me, ask G-d, I just follow His orders, He says 'blow', I blow."
So the old man went to G-d and said
"G-d why is the Little Leaf on the ground?"
"Son," G-d said "Pick up the leaf and tell me what you see."
The old man bent down and picked up the leaf and saw, lying underneath was a worm.
"Now I understand," said the old man smiling.
"Little leaf, you are there to keep the worm warm, that's why you had to fall."
A small little leaf has a purpose, a reason, a mission, how much more so us, who are much more then a little leaf"

Brownie Points

Erev Shabbos my mother was in Trader Joe’s. While she was doing her shopping she remembered that this Shabbos was a family friends Bar Mitzvah. My mother knew that this family is wheat free. She decided to make gluten free brownies. My mother was about to put the brownie mix into the cart when she noticed the Hasgacha was changed to another one she didn’t recognize, so my mother put it back on the shelf. When my mother came home she asked me if I could run out to Whole Foods to buy a different brownie mix. By the time I got to the store and back it was less than an hour to Shabbos. We never ended up sending the brownies over. It was Hashgacha Pratis we never sent it over. On Shabbos we found out that the bar mitzvah was not this Shabbos but next week! (boy, that would be embarrassing)

Saved by Domino's Pizza

One Friday night, a member of my family by mistake hit the radio that’s right above our kitchen counter. The radio was blaring really loud and we needed it to be shut off. My father went outside to see if he could find a Shabbos Goy. He came back in a little bit later and said he couldn’t find anyone. My father was standing right outside our house when he saw a man from Domino’s Pizza walking up the path to our house. He said he was here to deliver the pizza we had ordered. My father was confused since we had hot chicken soup and delicious Shabbos food, we definitely did not order Domino’s Pizza. The delivery man told us the address he was looking for. It was the same address as our’s but a different street. It sure was Hasgacha Pratis he delivered the pizza to the wrong house, he was able to be our Shabbos goy and turn off the blaring loud radio.

-Post Seminary

HP @ Kever Rachel

A few days before Yom Kippur my friend and I went to Kever Rachel to daven. We took the 1:00 bus because we had to be back by 5:00. We were given a half hour to be by the Kever to daven. After a half hour we headed to the entrance to catch the bus. When we got there we realized we missed the bus. The Chayal told us the next bus was not coming for another two hours. We were waiting for around five minutes when an Israeli woman came walking towards the Chayal holding her baby in a car seat. She asked him if she can watch her baby while she went in to daven. Her baby was a Kohen and was not able to go in to the building. Seeing the Chayal hesitating my friend and I told her we would babysit her baby while she went to daven. We were anyways waiting so it gave us something to do while we waited. When the Israeli lady came out a little bit later she thanked us and told us she was driving back to Yerushalyim and offered us a ride!

HP In Marshall, Indiana

We were on the bus pulling up to a Nageela Shabbaton, in Marshall, Indiana. As the bus driver was parking, he hit some branches causing a window to shatter. The window that broke was by a seat that nobody was seating in. People were sitting in front of it, and in back. Had someone been sitting there, she could have been badly hurt. HOW AMAZING!:)

Ashira Glassengerg

Our camp had a Shabbaton on our camp grounds in Marshall Indiana. I live in New York and I thought I was going to have to take a taxi at three in the morning to catch a Six AM flight. Weeks before I was thinking how it was going to work out. It was an hour drive and expensive for just two people. Its also a bit scary in the middle of the night. It turned out a Rabbi flew in and had a flight ten minutes before mine. He had rented a car and we were able to get a ride with him to the airport.

Devorah Rubinstien