Miracle Alert


As you know, over forty volunteers have delivered shmurah matzah to over 700 people in 400 homes so every Temecula Jew can celebrate Passover.


For years, Michael Brenner has been a star volunteer.  Every holiday, he is the first to sign up to make deliveries.  He has his set route, saved their addresses in his GPS everyone on his route knows him by name.


On Tuesday, while en route from delivery three to four, he was hit by a van.  His car rolled over 450 degrees (complete rollover and landed on the drivers side).  It was super scary and unbelievably dangerous.


But Michael walked out without a scratch (actually pulled out, because he was trapped inside with the deployed, smoking airbags).


This was a miracle.


All night we were both thinking about what happened and how it could happen.  Is the sarcastic saying  “no good deed goes unpunished” really true?  Doesn’t the Talmud (Pesachim 8A) teach that “a mitzvah messenger never gets harmed”?


The next morning, I brought over a muffin and coffee (made by my girls) and we had a chance to talk, wrap tefillin and work through this trauma.


The conclusion we came to, is that the exact opposite is true.  G-d had obviously determined that Michael was supposed to be in a car crash and no matter what, that was meant to happen.  


Because Michael was in the middle of doing a mitzvah, however, he had the protection of a “mitzvah messenger” and came out without a scratch.


Sure, a car crash is scary, and the cars were totalled, but he was not hurt!


I looked up the Talmud and came to realize to what extent the Talmud is serious about this rule.  Even someone who is doing a mitzvah for an ulterior motive, or is multitasking his mitzvah (i.e. mixing mitzvah and personal), can confidently stick their hand into a hole that might have a snake because they have the protection of a mitzvah and have nothing to worry about.


This is a reminder to me that I should spend as much time as I can doing mitzvahs and helping other people do mitzvahs.  And it’s better to mix mitzvah and personal, than it is to “get the mitzvah out of the way” so I can focus on personal (because when I’m engaged in exclusively personal I lose that protection).


Hashem wants us to spend our entire lives serving Him and in turn, we have supernatural protection and can be confident that we will not be harmed.


Thank G-d Michael is here an unharmed.

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