Parking Spots for All | Rabbi Elysha Sandler

One of the disciples of the Baal Shem Tov was a Tzaddik by the name of R’ Baruch of Kosov, known by his Sefer as the Amud Haavoda. And in his Sefer, he says something unbelievable regarding pleasure. He says that Hakadosh Baruch Hu decides exactly how much pleasure, how much benefit, every person gets in this world from the things around him. And the choice that we need to make is are we going to get it in a permitted way or are we going to do something wrong in order to get it? But either way, we're going to get it. If somebody takes money from a charity box and puts it in his pocket when he thinks nobody's watching, he hasn't gained the money. He would have gotten the money anyway. All that he gained was that he has a prohibition to his credit. I want to share with you an unbelievable story that happened with me not that long ago in the holy city of Yerushalayim. I rented a car, a full-size car. It was a seven-seater SUV, which is nice to drive, but difficult when trying to find parking in Yerushalayim, especially around the Old City. It's 12:00 at night. We drove through the Old City, came along the wall. Each spot that opened up was taken by a car in front of me, looking for the same thing. We come to Mount Zion. Mount Zion, near King David’s Tomb, has a parking lot, and as we’re coming in, the scene is beyond. Everybody is trying to find a spot. Anybody who had more than one person in the car has somebody else taking a spot here or there or there or there. I finally see a car pulling out of a spot. I drive to take that spot, and I see that it was a tiny car that was pulling out of that spot. There's no way I could fit in. Resigned to my fate, I pull out, ready to go back to Yerushalayim and take the cab that I should have taken in the first place. As I'm pulling back, somebody knocks on my window and says: איפה אתה הולך? Where are you going? I said: Look, I can't find a parking spot. I'm going to go home, because I'd like to still come back to pray. He says: What do you mean? You have a spot right here. I said: I don't have a spot. I can't fit in there. He says: Of course. It was made for your car. He eventually tells me to get out of the car. He takes the wheel, parks the car and comes out. He was a very, very thin person. He was able to squeeze his way out of the car and says, Nu, you see? I thanked him very much, wondering how I would get back in the car myself, and then I saw something unbelievable. This person didn't come from nowhere. His last name was Cohen. He came from Bnei Brak with his wife to pray at the Western Wall. He walks over now to his car and starts to look for a spot himself. I couldn't believe that. He had a spot. I was leaving. And as he got into the car, ready to find a spot, somebody pulls out directly in front of him and he slides in. With a grin from ear to ear, rolls down his window and says to his wife and to me, You see? אין אדם נוגע במה שמוכן לחברו כמלוא נימה. You can't take away even a hair's breadth that's coming to somebody else. Whatever's meant to be the other person's, is the other person's. Whatever's coming to you is yours. The spot that he got was his spot, it was a comfortable spot. Had he taken my spot, the only thing that he would have gained was a stiff, tight spot, and making sure that I couldn't get one myself. Our sages say, אין מי ששומע לי ומפסיד. There's nobody who listens to me and loses out. We should have the inner strength and the fortitude to take what's coming to us, stay away from the things that don't belong to us. What's coming to us is going to come to us. Hakadosh Baruch Hu gives us everything we need.