10/28/2022
This is a story about a mouse, a house, a Rabbi and a friendship.
Mice are small creatures that are basically harmless; I don’t know anyone who is not terrified of having a mouse in the house.
It’s now a couple of weeks ago that my friend Michal was working quietly on her computer when out of the corner of her eye, she saw a tiny, furry, grey mouse race across her floor. Her kids were asleep and her husband at work.
She screamed. NO, she howled!
It suddenly occurred to Michal why the snacks stored in a special storage box seemed tampered with; a bag of popcorn was open and scattered.
From that day on, the mouse, soon mice, became the focus of a lot of her head space.
Exterminators came and checked every possible space; it was determined that there was more than one access space for the mice to come in and make themselves at home.
The exterminator placed traps filled with peanut butter, the bait of choice, all over the house; Michal is very allergic to peanuts but this was for a greater cause. There was so much peanut butter in traps hanging around, that she had an allergic reaction.
The situation escalated from day to day; soon there were mice everywhere, or so it seemed. There were mice in the garage, droppings in the brand new bathroom, and her son Doniel even saw one in the basement.
It was time to call on the Big guns; Rav Shayala.
Who is Rav Shayala? I had never even heard of him, yet his picture can be universally found on fridge doors in kitchens from private ones, to camps to school cafeterias around the world.
How did I learn about Rav Shaya? During a holiday meal, lingering over coffee, I shared the crazy story of my friend Michal’s plight. Every person around the table, young and older, responded in one voice. “She needs Rav Shayala!”
The host’s daughter jumped up, ran into the kitchen and thrust Rav Shyala’s magnetic picture into my hand. “Take it, your friend needs it more than we do!”
I brought the picture to school and left it on Michal's desk to find. When a colleague walked by he noticed the picture sitting on her desk and exclaimed, “ I see Rav Shayala, who has mice?”
The saga continued. Michal laughed,took the picture and bought two more pictures as well as a biography of Rav Shayala. Michal placed the picture on her fridge and as a backup, kept the exterminator, Bill.
He kept putting down bigger and hopefully better traps.
Things got so crazy, that after seeing bedroom droppings, she started sleeping in her kid’s room. It was a little tight but there were no sounds of scurrying feet.
Finally, the whole family moved out and into the home of a kind hearted aunt.
I wish that I could say that all is resolved and that the crisis is over, but there is hope. Today, when Michal went to check with her new best friend, Bill the exterminator, the big traps filled with poison had not been touched and there were no droppings.
Rav Shayala, doing his work? One will probably never know.
We are always encouraged to put our faith in Hashem. From a time that I can still remember, I was told to have faith. When good and bad things happen, we are told to put the trajectory of our lives in Hashem‘s loving hands.
Our Rabbis are his messengers; the guides who help us navigate our life’s journey.
I had friends who hated to study and when they had a test, they would put their books under their pillows, confident that Hashem would fill their brains with the material that they needed to study.
They were always disappointed.
The real story is that Hashem is always there to help. It is up to us to do our own heavy lifting to make sure that it happens; you have to do the work.
I am now a believer.I am confident that Shayala is taking care of things from his perch on the fridge. But Bill the exterminator, is putting down the traps, monitoring the progress and making sure that Michal will soon be able to move back into her house.
I’m a believer!
To a peaceful shabbos.
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