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The Short Vort- -“The Lost Siddur” (6/21/10)
The Short Vort
Good Morning!
Today is Monday the 9th of Tammuz 5770 and June 21, 2010
The Lost Siddur
Hymie Gluck works hard. Every morning he gets up early to arrive in Passaic for the 6 am minyan from his home Brooklyn.
He has to be at the first minyan in order to make sure he arrives at his bagel store on time to guarantee that his bagels are fresh and tasty every morning.
The other day in his rush to the Bagel Munch he forgot his favorite and sentimentally important siddur at Shul.
The entire next day he was combing through the local shuls in Brooklyn to find his beloved lost siddur. Alas, it was no where to be found.
Enter the loyal and dedicated Gabbai of the Ahavas Israel, Rabbi Shmuel Landesman.
Rabbi Landesman whose love for Jewish books is only eclipsed by his love for Jewish people, organizers all of the seforim on a daily basis in the shul; when he sees a sefer or a siddur which is not the property of the shul, he attempts to discover the owner and contact him to return the siddur.
Rabbi Landesman noticed a siddur in the shul with the name ‘Hymie Gluck’ inscribed in it with a ‘718’ phone number. Rabbi Landesman called Mr. Gluck and as could be expected, Hymie was overjoyed with the realization that his beloved siddur was safe and sound.
When Hymie Gluck arrived the next morning in the Ahavas to retrieve his siddur he asked Rabbi Landesman, “Do you know why I merited having my siddur returned to me?”
Rabbi Landesman did not quite understand the question as of course he knew the reason; Hymie had written his name in the siddur and Rabbi Landesman contacted him.
“No”, said Hymie, that is not what merited me to have my siddur returned to me. Allow me to explain:
Two weeks ago I had the privllege to visit Eretz Yisroel. While davening at the kotel, I noticed a siddur which looked just like mine. I opened it up and believe it or not- there was a name in the siddur with a ‘718’ phone number in it! I removed my cell phone from my pocket and directly from the Kotel I called the number. The fellow on the other end of the line was shocked and overjoyed. The fellow had actually lost the siddur in Meron (about a three trip from the Kotel) and somehow the siddur had made its way to the kotel and to the hands of Hymie Gluck. I brought the siddur back to Flatbush and returned it to its owner.
It was no doubt in the zechus of the mitzvah of Hashavas Aveida (returning lost objects) that Hashem caused my siddur to be returned to me!”
Friends, the moral of the story is….
Always write your name and number in your siddur, you never know.