Where I Was on November 26 | Nachum Hurvitz

My name is Nachum Hurvitz, I live in Baltimore and for Parnassah I work for the federal government. I work for the State Department in Washington, DC. My position was always 100% remote, until President Trump came into office. And as you know, in the beginning of this year, he mandated all federal employees to return back to the office and be there in person. So this resulted in a two-hour commute each way. The challenging part of this commute is that the trains were packed, it's summertime. You have issues of Shomer Negia. There's issues of Shmiras Einayim. And because I was listening to Vayimaen on a regular basis, these issues really, really bothered me. I said: I need to come up with some way of trying to avoid it, because I’m going to have to commute every day and I have to deal with it. So I came up with some strategies. I'll wait for a less-crowded train to come by. I sit in the back of the train, both the commuter train and the subway, so that when I get off, I'm not pressed into a crowd of people trying to get upstairs. On Wednesdays, that's really when it's a crowded day, so I try to alter my commuting schedule so I'm not commuting during the high crush season. And when I get off the train at Farragut Square, I'll take my glasses off, because I know where I'm going. I don't need to see everything in the street. And I have a 10 or 15 minute walk to my office. So because I take all these extra steps and because it takes a little extra time, so I usually don't get to my office till about 9 a.m.. Now comes I did not want to be challenged with the commute of Wednesday, because that's one of the most crowded days that we have. And I got permission to work remotely. Min Hashomayim, because it doesn't happen all that often. So I log on at 9 a.m. and there's an email from the assistant secretary that said, Because of the holiday, we all are entitled to a three-hour rolling dismissal. That means, great. At 2:00, I can sign off and I can go about my business because I don't have to commute home. I'm already at home. So about 2:20, as we know, news reports started coming out about shootings near the White House, which is not far from my office. As the hours went on, more and more details emerged. Later that evening, I happened to look at the Wall Street Journal. And the Wall Street Journal had videos and images and maps and a very detailed timeline of how and where this incident went down when these two National Guardsmen were shot. I'm looking at the photos, I'm looking at the timeline, and I said, Oh my gosh. I walk past that just about every day and if I would have walked out of my office at 2 p.m., a 10-minute or 12-minute walk would have put me there at 2:13, which was the time of the shooting of these two National Guardsmen. Chasdei Hashem, I was spared from the trauma for either viewing or Chas V’shalom maybe even being involved or being aimed at during this incident. And I really credit Vayimaen. Because of the fact that I was Makpid and using Vayimaen to try to avoid these Nisyonos, I believe that that is why the Ribono shel Olam showered this Bracha on me. And this is not the only Bracha the Ribono shel Olam has showered on me and my family since I started listening to Vayimaen. I encourage everybody to continue to listen to Vayimaen, to internalize those lessons and Im Yirtze Hashem, the Ribono shel Olam will shower you with the same beautiful Brachos that He has showered upon myself and my family.