About three years ago, on a Friday afternoon on its way home
to Bnei Brak, a family was caught without transportation. The
last bus had just pulled out. A non-religious young man
driving past the bus stop could not help noticing the chagrin
on these people's faces and offered to give the family a
lift. He was going to Tel Aviv and it would not be too much
out of his way.
When they arrived, they realized that their benefactor could
not possibly make it to Tel Aviv before Shabbos, and begged
him to spend Shabbos with them. He refused at first, but
finally capitulated and called his parents to tell them not
to worry.
"I never realized Shabbat could be so wonderful," he admitted
the following night after havdola. "I've never
experienced anything like this." He was not prepared to
become a baal tshuva or to change anything about his
lifestyle. But neither did he wish to forget this experience.
"You've been talking about mitzvos all day. How about
teaching me something small, unnoticeable, something which my
friends won't laugh at."
The father thought for a moment, then answered, "Our entire
day<196>everything we do<196> is governed by our code of
behavior, the Shulchon Oruch. It tells us how to live
our lives from the moment we wake up. We serve Hashem in
every way, even in the manner we put on our shoes. Why not
take that first step? First you put on your right shoe, then
the left, but you tie the left one before the right. No one
will notice."
The man agreed that this would be an easy mitzva to
keep. It wasn't. He kept forgetting. But a promise is a
promise, even if you only made it to yourself. So every time
he forgot, he would do it all over, from scratch. If he was
outside already, he would return to his room and begin
again.
The real problem began in the army, with the long laced army
boots. Every time he forgot, and remembered when they were on
parade, he would plead a migraine headache. He told his
commanding officer that with a pill, a glass of water, and a
few moments of absolute quiet, these headaches usually passed
very quickly. An understanding person, the officer generally
allowed him to go back to his room, where our soldier would
remove the offending boots and put them on right and lace
them left.
It happened again one day while his unit was on parade. This
time the C.O. was not too happy about the delay. "There is a
training helicopter due to pick us all up in a few minutes.
But if you're unfit... Oh, well, go, but be quick about
it."
The soldier did his best, but by the time he returned to the
parade grounds, the helicopter had gone.
Remember the incident? Two army helicopters with seventy-
three soldiers aboard colliding in mid-air? And all of
them killed.
One person we know was not on that helicopter. All because of
a shoelace. All because of one small mitzva. Our
friend realized what had saved his life; he took the hint and
today he is a full time yeshiva student in one of the
country's baal teshuva yeshivos.
