Some people have asked me, “Aren’t these just Hashgachah pratis stories?” They certainly are, but they’re a particular type of story
Many years ago, when I was a yeshivah bochur, I had several amazing and mysterious encounters in moments of personal crisis. When, in my late thirties, I started teaching in colleges and yeshivos, I began to tell these stories to my students. Invariably, someone would say, “Oh, I also have a story.” The same happened at our Shabbos table.
At a certain point, I decided to collate these stories in a book. The turning point came when I actually set aside a few hours each morning to write. Then things started to flow, both in terms of productivity and in terms of the stories I was hearing.
Early on, I sent a manuscript of about 30 stories to a Jewish publisher for consideration. They liked it, but told me that I would need a lot more. Miraculously, within a few months, I had almost 60 stories.
Once, I was driving home from a school where I teach and offered a ride to a young man studying there. I said to him, “If I’m giving you a lift, you have to tell me a story.” He told me the story “ICQ,” which is one of my favorites in the book. Later, when I sent him a copy as a gift, he wrote back to me, “Thank you for helping me to see the Hashgachah pratis in my own life.
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