Three years ago my husband and I were visiting my grandfather’s kever in Queens. My husband had completed reciting Tehillim and was walking around looking at the gravestones in the cemetery. When I completed my recitation of Tehillim, my husband approached me and said he had found my great-grandfather’s kever.
“Impossible!” I responded. “He’s buried in Austria.”
When I was growing up, my father, zt’’l, told me that my great-grandfather was the rav of a shtetl in Austria and that when he passed away there had been a large funeral procession during which the police closed off the streets. I had always assumed the funeral procession my father described had occurred in Austria, where my father was born. It never occurred to me that this took place in America. Yet there I was, standing in front of my great-grandfather’s kever, just one row behind my grandfather’s, in a cemetery in Queens.
I proceeded to daven at my great-grandfather’s kever and was overwhelmed with an incredible feeling of love that I could not explain. I never knew him – he passed away many years before I was born – but nonetheless I harbored such love for him. Since that day I often feel the presence of my great-grandfather when I daven.
Recently, while cooking for Shabbos, I happened to think about my grandfather’s sefarim, which as a young child I had seen lined up along his dining room wall. I thought, “Why didn’t Daddy get any of those books when Zeida passed away? Whatever happened to them?”
Five days later, I found an envelope left in my mailbox by a friend. The following was written on it: “Hi Susan. I saw this letter in The Jewish Press. It is very likely your zeidy’s book.”
In the envelope was a letter to the editor from the Oct. 2 issue of The Jewish Press, written by Esther Michelson of Brooklyn. She had in her possession sefarim from a shul in Williamsburg that had been razed many decades ago. She was searching for the descendants of individuals whose names were in the sefarim. One of the listed names was that of my great-grandfather, Rabbi Reuven (Rubin) Kerner.
I could barely contain my excitement. I e-mailed Esther and asked her to call me. She invited me to her grandmother’s house to look at the sefarim. There were three volumes of Shas and a Marharam Shif commentary, all published in the 1800s and each containing my great-grandfather’s personal stamp: “HaRav Reuven Kerner, M”Tz [Moreh Tzedek – righteous judge].
Beneath each stamp was a dedication in my grandfather’s handwriting. My grandfather had donated the sefarim to the shul in memory of his father.
Esther told me she had been working arduously to find the descendants of the sefarim’s original owners. She submitted her “lost book notice” to several Jewish publications but there had been no response. Esther’s grandmother suggested she send it to The Jewish Press because it is read by all segments of the Orthodox Jewish community. Esther told me she was prepared to put the sefarim into sheimos if no one responded within a week to her letter in The Jewish Press.
It was amazing to have acquired the sefarim. I was even more astonished, however, because my grandfather’s yahrzeit occurred just four days after the sefarim were given to me. So, on this yahrzeit it was my zechus to have my husband learn mishnayos from a Gemara that had been owned by my grandfather and great-grandfather.
It is also amazing that one of the volumes contained tractates Nedarim, Nazir, and Sotah, which were the tractates my husband was learning in Daf Yomi at the time.
If my husband had not walked around the cemetery looking at gravestones, I never would have found my great-grandfather’s kever. Had Esther Michelson not endeavored to search for the descendants of the sefarim’s original owners, and The Jewish Press not published Esther’s letter, and my friend not seen it, I never would have been given the sefarim that once belonged to my great-grandfather and grandfather. I never would have known they even existed. If I had contacted Esther just one week later, they would have been gone.
Esther, her grandmother, my friend, my husband, and The Jewish Press were all carefully chosen to be part of Hashem’s perfect plan of having these sefarim given to me. I am sure my dear father is so very happy that these precious sefarim are now in my possession.
Hashem saw the spiritual connection I had with my great-grandfather on the day I stood before his kever. He heard my innermost thoughts on that Erev Shabbos while I was cooking. None of the events that transpired was a coincidence. There is no such thing as a coincidence.
In fact, the Hebrew word that is often translated as “coincidence” is mikreh, spelled mem, kuf, reish, heh. These letters, when rearranged, spell rak me’Hashem – only from God.
Something that may seem to be a coincidence in actuality happens “only from God.”
Thank You, Hashem!