The spinning finally stopped. Baruch found himself standing, in the snow, touching his neighbor’s mailbox. He shook his head. That was amazing! It had been quite a while, but it seemed like time in the present had not moved a second. He looked to the door and saw his neighbor, Mr Shpeiter, waving. “Come in Baruch. Come in!”
Baruch ran to the door. He was starving. His neighbor sat him down at the table and gave him some cookies and milk. “Can’t I have some cholent?” Baruch asked. “Although the cookies are delicious,” he added. “Nope, that cholent is Top Secret. If that cholent isn’t full and bubbling, there’s no Time Machine! It took a lot of work to get the temperature just right. But that’s enough for now. When you’ve finished, you should run home, Baruch. I wouldn’t want your parents to worry!” “But… “ Baruch began to refuse. “You’ll come back tomorrow, im yirtzeh Hashem,” Mr. Shpeiter winked. Baruch smiled, finished his cookies and milk, said a bracha achrona, and went home, still inspired by what he had seen that day.
The next day Baruch ran home from school. He ran to the mailbox and pressed the button. Nothing happened. “Strange,” he thought. He went to the door and knocked. The door opened quickly. “Baruch! Come on in! Please take off your boots. Come, come…” Baruch started to speak. “I’m sure you wanted to use the Time Machine, Baruch,” his neighbor interrupted him, “But first we need to shmooze a bit. Don’t worry, it’s nothing bad,” he smiled.
“Do you know the story of the Sfas Emes and the soldier?” Mr. Shpeiter asked once they were sitting with some more cookies and milk. “I don’t think so,” said Baruch.
“In the times of the Sfas Emes, many bochurim used to come and ask for a bracha to avoid being drafted into the Russian army. One bochur, although he cried and begged, only got a bracha to remain strong in the army. Which meant…he was going to the army. That’s right Baruch. The heilige Sfas Emes gave him a sefer on bris milah and told him to learn it every day, and in that zechus, he would be freed.
The bochur went to the army and learned from the sefer. He held strong to the Torah and mitzvos – never eating the army meat, always remembering to daven, and only doing jobs that weren’t melachos on Shabbos. Incredible! One day one of the generals burst in looking for him. He took him to his office and screamed at him for not doing what the other soldiers did. ‘Is it true!?’ he yelled. The bochur said that yes, it was all true. He was a Yid and he couldn’t act like the others. ‘Good,’ said the general, ‘I am also a Jew, and if you help me, I’ll let you escape the army. You see, I had a baby boy eight days ago…”
Baruch gasped. “Wow! So he did the bris and was freed – all because of the Sfas Emes’ brocha and sefer! But why are you telling me this?” he asked.
“Baruch I’m going to tell you a secret about the Time Machine that – if you keep it and listen – all will go well. But if not… we could run into some problems. “
To be continued…
This article was found in Nekuda Tova Issue 21.