{"id":99152,"date":"2022-11-20T05:48:51","date_gmt":"2022-11-20T03:48:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/rdpinto.org\/?p=99152"},"modified":"2022-11-24T23:35:22","modified_gmt":"2022-11-24T21:35:22","slug":"a-flood-of-prayers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rdpinto.org\/en\/a-flood-of-prayers\/","title":{"rendered":"A Flood of Prayers"},"content":{"rendered":"

A Flood of Prayers<\/strong><\/p>\n

I was once in Venezuela for a few days in order to bring chizuk<\/em> to the Jewish community there and bring them back to their Father in Heaven. I was scheduled to fly back to France on a Wednesday. Since the flight is extremely long, I expected to land Thursday night. I could not travel later than Wednesday, for fear of arriving too close to Shabbat.<\/p>\n

Venezuela is a land notorious for flooding and natural disasters on account of torrential rainstorms. When it rains, the streets are closed to all traffic. Sometimes, even the airport is shut down for fear of landslides or avalanches, which cause real danger to life and property. Once, an avalanche in Caracas claimed fifty thousand lives, rachmana litzlan<\/em>.<\/p>\n

I was afraid that it would rain precisely when I had to get to the airport. If the streets were closed, I would have no choice but to spend another Shabbat there. I was not interested in this.<\/p>\n

I had an additional fear. It was of the president of that country, an avowed atheist. At every opportunity, he spewed forth words of heresy. This despot thought he had everything under his control, people and phenomena alike. He averred that the world runs only on nature, and if it does not go according to our will, we will fight it. He reminded me of Nimrod, the wicked king, who went to war with Hashem Himself. Why was I so afraid of him? Because whenever he proclaimed his perverted opinions in public, suffering would befall his country. How many tragedies struck the citizens of Venezuela! How many were buried alive in avalanches! I was simply afraid for my life when I found myself in his domain.<\/p>\n

I therefore offered a sincere supplication. I said, \u201cRibbono shel Olam<\/em>! Act as if You don\u2019t hear the heretical mutterings of this madman. If You wish to show Him Who is Boss, please wait until Thursday, when I am out of this place. I must make it back to the yeshiva in time for Shabbat. And I need to be at the chanukat habayit<\/em> for the girls\u2019 seminary on Sunday.\u201d<\/p>\n

Wednesday dawned with continued flooding throughout the day. I tried mightily to reinforce my faith that all is in His hands. Hashem could stop the rains in an instant and allow traffic to flow unabated.<\/p>\n

In the early afternoon, I told my host, Mr. Yaakov Harrari, z\u201dl, \u201cI am leaving for the airport. Whoever wants to come with me is invited.\u201d Of course, everyone tried to talk me out of my imprudent plans. They claimed it was extremely dangerous to drive in such inclement weather. Some of them said that maybe I should wait an hour or two until the rain abated. But I insisted on leaving then, in order to make my evening flight. Finally, since I would not relent, my escort accompanied me on the ride.<\/p>\n

We listened to updates on the weather report and traffic conditions. We heard about avalanches and roads closed to all traffic. The heat was on. There are only two highways that reach the airport in Venezuela, and one was already shut down. The one we were on was still in operation, but likely to be closed very soon.<\/p>\n

I was filled with dread. I was terribly afraid that I would run into problems if I had to wait until the next flight out. For me, Shabbat is a top priority. Throughout the week, we remember Shabbat by calling the days, \u201cThe first day to Shabbat, the second day to Shabbat, etc.\u201d We prepare for Shabbat all week long. Chazal teach (Avodah Zarah<\/em> 3a), \u201cOne who toils on Erev Shabbat will eat on Shabbat.\u201d How could I possibly violate the sanctity of Shabbat by traveling on that holy day?<\/p>\n

As I was buried in these thoughts, we saw a mountain crumble before our eyes. Just as we passed the location of the landslide, the street was closed to traffic. B\u2019chasdei Shamayim<\/em>, we managed to reach the airport in time.<\/p>\n

But our worries were not laid to rest. Due to the harsh weather, the flight was likely to be cancelled. The rain stopped just in time. Baruch Hashem<\/em>, we were able to fly.<\/p>\n

Upon retrospect, I realized that had I surrendered to the entreaties of my escorts to delay the ride to the airport, even by a few minutes, we would have been deterred from reaching the airport at all, as the road would have already been blocked. This would likely have resulted in desecration of the Shabbat, chas v\u2019shalom<\/em>.<\/p>\n

It was the merit of Shabbat that enabled us to successfully reach our destination. We were thus able to celebrate this consecrated day in joy and elevation<\/em>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A Flood of Prayers I was once in Venezuela for a few days in order to bring chizuk to the Jewish community there and bring them back to their Father in Heaven. I was scheduled to fly back to France on a Wednesday. Since the flight is extremely long, I expected to land Thursday night. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23,"featured_media":99611,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"give_campaign_id":0,"_coblocks_attr":"","_coblocks_dimensions":"","_coblocks_responsive_height":"","_coblocks_accordion_ie_support":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1105],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-99152","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-shabbat"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rdpinto.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99152","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rdpinto.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rdpinto.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rdpinto.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/23"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rdpinto.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=99152"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rdpinto.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99152\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rdpinto.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/99611"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rdpinto.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=99152"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rdpinto.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=99152"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rdpinto.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=99152"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}