Hashavas Aveida Stories

freidasima

Sat, May 17 2008, 4:56 pm

I don't know if this qualifies but it is true. My father knew someone who was liberated with him from concentration camp, the man had lived in Germany before the war and had an extensive library of sforim, a very frum man, he had lost everything and his whole family and wife and parents had been killed. At some point after he and my father and a whole bunch of frum men were liberated and were still in the camp before moving to a DP (displaced person's) camp in the American sector. Anyhow someone came up to the group that my father and his friend were with and told them that the Nazis had rounded up lots of collections of sforim in Germany and actually all of Europe at the outbreak of the war and some were being held in this big warehouse in either Munich or Frankfurt, I don't remember where.

My father's friend asked my father to come with him to see and they got there and there was, according to my father, a gigantic warehouse piled high with sforim. So where in the world can one start looking? My father walked in with his friend and he picked up the first sefer at hand, it was a sefer called "meginei eretz" (my father remembered the name and told it in the story) and turns out that it was a sefer belonging to his friend! For some reason Hashem had guided them to the area just where this man's sforim were. He looked around, according to my father, and just took the three volumes of this sefer and walked out, leaving everything behind. This was July 1945, and by the end of the summer this man was already in Eretz Yisroel! He remarried and had a new family and these sforim went with him.

My father and his friend are both long gone, I visited him with my father a"h many times in Yerushalayim, and saw the three sforim in this story. After he was niftar they went to his youngest daughter who is my age, and son in law who is a talmid chacham and I guess they have his library in their house today.

Ribbie Danzinger

Sun, May 18 2008, 7:53 am

My daughter with newly pierced ears, went swimming last summer and lost one of her (very inexpensive) earrings inside the pool. Well, obviously, she lost all hope of ever retrieving it.
A few weeks later, my son came home from the pool and handed her an earring, asking if it was hers, which it was. Apparently, he had stepped on the earring and dived down to see what it was he had stepped on. Amazing hashgacha pratit!

mandksima

Sun, May 18 2008, 9:23 am

This is a special story about Eretz Yisrael- although I'm not sure it is what you are looking for...1

Just a few weeks ago I went shopping in a nearby city and loaded down with countless bags, I waited on the bench for my bus back home. Somehow, when getting my bags together, I didn't notice that one bag had remained under the bench and I boarded the bus without it and went home. Upon arrival to my house, I realized my mistake and wondered what would become of my bag. There was no name of the store on the bag and no receipt with my name on it there either. It wasn't something that anyone would want to steal though - I had bought some material to sew some clothing but it would look like regular clothes if not inspected.

My first thought was to call the material store as there was only one in the neighborhood and if someone would see the bag, open it, see that it was material, maybe, just maybe, they would ask where a nearby store was and bring it there until claimed. It was a long shot but I couldn't figure out any other way to get it back. When speaking to my friend a few minutes later, she mentioned she was going to that city for a few errands and said she'd go by the material store in person to replace the meter of fabric I needed to finish an outfit and likewise see if the bag had miraculously turned up. I gave her a small swatch of the fabric so she'd know what to buy.

My friend called me from the city when she arrived and said she was looking near the bench where I had lost the bag and didn't see anything there but went into the store opposite it and they knew right away what she was refering to and handed it to her. Someone had brought it in shortly after I had left it there so nothing would happen t it. She matched the swatch of fabric to what was in the bag and was so happy no one had taken it. I hadn't even thought to look there as it was a household goods store and I just thought someone would have taken it and tried to sell it perhaps. I felt so good that the bag was fine and I didn't have to spend another 100 shekels in replacing the material bought. Hashem is surely proud of his Jewish people that don't even think of stealing something and only try to make sure they can help the one who misplaced the item be able to find it again.

Ribbie Danzinger

Sun, May 18 2008, 10:24 am

Here's a double-barreled story: I was waiting at the trempiada to the Shomron from Yerushalayim when I found a bag with a school notebook in it. The notebook had a name on it and I realized that I had got myself a mitzvah to do. After a while, I got a lift, but I soon realized that because I was so involved with the hashavat aveidah that I had picked up, I had left one of my own bags at the trempiada myself!
I asked the driver of the car to let me off (we were still in Yerushalayim), explaining what had happened. I got out of the car and crossed over to catch a bus back in the opposite direction when suddenly, I heard a car hooting behind me. The driver of the car had turned around and come straight back after me. She took me back to the trempiada and found my bag (which somebody else had picked up to do hashavat aveida on!) we set out once again for the other direction.
When I got home, I called up the principal of a particular ulpana (high school for girls) in my area, thinking that the chances that the notebook belonged to someone from there were unlikely, because there are a number of ulpanot on the route. However, the principal of the school (who I know) said that in fact, there was a girl with that name at their school. I then called one of the girls in my yishuv who studies there and passed on the notebook, which soon reached its destination.

mamacita

Sun, May 18 2008, 2:10 pm

I had lost my siddur and after tearing up my apartment and my sem looking for it, davening, giving a lot of tzedaka and saying the tefilla in the merit of Rav Meir Baal Haness, I gave up and bought a new one. A few months later I found a siddur with a friend's name in it. I grabbed it, and while walking down to her classroom I asked Hashem to return mine to me like I was returning this lost one. Even though I had replaced it, I missed it terribly! As I neared the classroom, I saw my friend coming towards me carrying my siddur!! She'd found it in the library after all this time! We exchanged siddurs, thank yous, and hodu l'Hashems. It turns out hers had only been missing a day while mine had been gone almost 4 mos! Crazy hashgacha!