The Train Mishap That Became a Mission: The Story of an Unexpected Morning

B"H, 10th of Tammuz, 5786

The Story of an Unexpected Morning

My morning began as a race against the clock. I arrived at the station late, breathing a sigh of relief as I saw the train approaching. "Thank God," I thought to myself, "I caught it." But the train had other plans. It pulled into the middle of the station and came to a dead halt.

One minute passed, then another. For fifteen whole minutes, the train just stood frozen on the tracks. Tension began to rise, and the PA system finally announced what everyone had already figured out: there was a technical glitch, and the train would be delayed by 20 minutes.

I sat there frustrated, staring at my watch in disbelief. This delay weighed heavily on my conscience, especially since I remembered that yesterday I hadn't managed to move the "Tank" (the Mitzvah Tank/vehicle) to its proper spot. Everything felt stuck and stressful.

Ultimately, with an annoying 30-minute delay, the train finally pulled into Manhattan. I rushed out of the station onto the bustling street, hurrying toward my destination, trying to make up for lost time.

The Encounter Outside the Restaurant

Suddenly, a Jewish man walked out of a non-kosher restaurant on the street. He caught sight of me—visibly religious, with an unmistakable Jewish appearance—and looked at me.

"Shalom," he said.

"Shalom, how are you feeling?" I replied with a smile, and immediately asked the natural next question: "Tell me, did you get a chance to put on Tefillin today?"

That question unlocked something deep inside him. He looked around nervously and said with painful honesty that he was very afraid. He explained that lately, whenever he sees a religious Jew walking down the street in Manhattan, he is filled with anxiety that something will happen—that someone will attack him or me.

I looked at him and said, "Right now, more than ever, your job is to put on Tefillin. That is our shield."

He glanced self-consciously at his hands. "But I’m holding non-kosher food right here; I literally just walked out of that place. How can I possibly put on Tefillin like this?"

I smiled at him and said, "Tell me, if someone smokes and knows it’s dangerous and harmful to their health, does that mean they won't go to the doctor to treat the rest of their body? Of course they will. One Mitzvah doesn’t depend on another. Tefillin is your connection with Hashem, completely independent of anything else."

Closing the Circle for Dad

The words penetrated his heart. One thing led to another, and he agreed.

I pulled out the Tefillin, and as we began putting them on him, something inside him completely opened up. He became incredibly emotional. With glistening eyes, he shared a secret with me: "You don't understand... Today is my father's Yahrtzeit (anniversary of passing). Until this very moment, I hadn't done a single thing for the elevation of his soul today."

He continued, his voice trembling, to tell me that he has his father’s original Tefillin at home. Before his father passed away, he explicitly asked him to keep putting them on. But since the day his father left this world, he hadn't touched them or put on Tefillin even once. Until this exact moment.

The emotion on that Manhattan street was at an all-time high. The man put on Tefillin with immense intention, feeling his father right there with him.

Before we parted ways, we shook hands and agreed on one clear thing: next week, he is bringing me his father’s Tefillin so we can send them to be checked by a scribe, and from then on—he is going to start putting on Tefillin regularly.

Suddenly, I understood everything. The train didn’t delay because of a technical malfunction. It delayed because his father in Heaven wanted his son to put on Tefillin on his Yahrtzeit, and I needed to arrive at that exact minute to cross paths with him.

Yehuda Pevzner