It Happened One Night

I called the wonderful people from Chaveirim, who came out to change the tire. As they had used the emergency tire, I had to drive back slowly and with care, but the fellows told me about a place near Boro Park that was open 24 hours, where I could get a real replacement. I arrived there at 2:30 a.m. and had the tire changed. While they were working, the manager of the place, a black guy, called me to come over behind a van. I was more than a little nervous, but what choice did I have? Anxiously, I followed him.

“I want to show you something,” he said, and took out a small bag of… tefillin.

“Where did you get this?” I asked.

He said that someone had told him that it was something important, and for some months he’d been trying to find its owner.

I opened the bag and I saw the name. It was a Lubavitcher name, so right then and there, I texted some people who I know in Crown Heights, and then I called my daughter to look up the phone numbers of people who might fit the name.  Right then, in the middle of the night, I called one of the numbers she came up with.