Worth the Wait | Rabbi Shlomo Landau

There was an Israeli yungerman who had to travel to the United States for a particular reason. He wasn't a man of means, and when he came back, he landed in Ben-Gurion airport, he collected his suitcases, and he went outside to take a Nesher. You know, the Nesher is that van taxi that waits until it fills up with enough people, and then it drives you to Yerushalayim and it drops everyone off in their own neighborhoods. It takes a long time to get home, but it's the most cost-effective way to get from the airport to Yerushalayim. At least, when the story happened. And he comes to the Nesher, and sometimes you have to wait 45 minutes, an hour, till the Nesher fills up, but he's in luck. He's the last guy. There's one seat left, and that seat is waiting for him. He could get on, after a long trip, go to Yerushalayim, hopefully, be dropped off one of the first and see his Mishpacha, who he hasn't seen for some time. But as he's about to get onto the van, he realizes that the only seat that was left was a seat next to a woman. And this fellow was very Makpid, he tried to live his life in a more elevated way, and the thought of sitting next to a woman for the entire journey to Yerushalayim, the bumpy ride, was not something that he was willing to do. So he turns to the driver and he says, נהג, אדוני, סליחה. Is there any way maybe possible, that you could rearrange the seating, so that I could get the last seat and we can go to Yerushalayim? And the driver says: תעזוב אותי, leave me alone. I'm not interested in people like you. You don't like the seat? Don't come with me. What’s he supposed to do? He walks away, and as soon as he walks away, someone else comes and takes the seat and the taxi, the tender, leaves for Yerushalayim. He waited almost an hour for the next tender to fill up, and finally there's enough people on it. This time he has a seat in a good place. And they begin the journey to Yerushalayim. Eventually, they turn onto כביש 1, onto Road 1, the highway that leads up to Yerushalayim, and then all of a sudden, the traffic slows down. Somebody asks the driver: What's going on? He says: I heard on the radio that there's a big accident up ahead. It’s going to take extra time. סבלנות, be patient. And they crawl, they creep and eventually, they come to the scene of the accident. And when he looks out the window at the scene of the accident, his heart drops. That very tender, the one that he decided not to go on, was involved in a terrible accident. Emergency services were there, ambulances were there. They didn't have a chance to see what happened, but they continued, they pulled out. And like any Yid with a pumping heart, he immediately begins to say Tehillim for those that were injured and the people that need Refuah, those that need Yeshuah. And he davened for them. But when he concluded davening for them, he also put in a Tefillah, a prayer of הודאה, of thanks to HaKadosh Baruch Hu. Thank you, HaKadosh Baruch Hu, for sparing me from a challenge of Kedushah, which ultimately, spared my life.