a (not so?) random jerusalem moment

so about twelve years ago adam went to israel with volunteers for israel, a program that i had told him about. after his three weeks of volunteer work were over, he found himself in jerusalem, sitting in on one of rabbi g's shiurim. he thought that rabbi g was nothing short of amazing and so six months after we were married, we found ourselves sitting in a classroom at aish hatorah, studying the parsha of the week with rabbi g. we also found ourselves in a bit of a financial quandary, as we thought we'd have to leave israel early since we were having trouble finding a place to stay that we could afford. that same day, we met k, an older woman who offered us the opportunity to stay in her home walking distance from the old city so that we could learn. so we accepted, and stayed with k and her husband for a week. that was ten years ago.

this past shabbos, we stayed with them again, and through an interesting series of events, escaped to their neighborhood park shabbos afternoon where we sat on a bench lamenting the lack of chassidus in the shuls we've been to since our arrival. our kids were playing with some other kids, and little e was wearing a tichel on her head to protect her from the sun. it started to fall off, so i got up and walked over, whereupon the mother of the other children came over. we started to talk and when she called to one of her kids who was named for the lubavitch rebbe i told her that our littlest shared a similar name, but was named for both the rebbe and the alter rebbe as he was born on the alter rebbe's yahrtzeit.

so, if you haven't by now guessed, she is lubavitch and this fact in itself was a thrill to us.

we continue to talk.

her husband is a descendent of the alter rebbe. crazy! but crazier still was that she grew up with our rabbi from new york and went to his bar mitzvah and they used to swim together when they were kids. i did a bit more name dropping and of course, she knew many of the same people who helped inspire our judaism at various times over the past ten years.

now, i don't know if you're thinking anything of any of this, like so big deal, we know some of the same people. but we were just talking on that bench over there about how there was a lack of chassidus in our lives at the moment and along comes not just any chasid, because, you know, there are a lot of chasidim in jerusalem, but a woman who is closely acquainted with our beloved rabbi and his wife and even referred to his mother by her first name. i'd say that's some pretty big coincidence, if you so desire to call it that. and if we hadn't been at that shiur ten years ago, we wouldn't have met k who wouldn't have offered us a place to stay and we wouldn't have been at her house this past shabbos to have been at that park to meet this woman who knows all of these people. it's that little butterfly in china flapping it's wings and affecting weather in the US.

she gave us her address and after shabbos i popped in with the kids and she hooked us up with some folks who might be able to help us find our niche here.

years ago, another rabbi, rabbi ytg, told us that "when you're open to it, things happen." i'd say he's pretty much on the ball with that one.