A few weeks before my trip to South Africa, my brother-in-law called to ask me a favor. He was ordering a new credit card and asked if I would trouble myself to bring it with me when I came. “Of course,” I said. He thanked me and urged me to keep it safe.
Where is the safest place I can keep it? I asked myself. And I decided to keep it with my own credit card. That way it is guaranteed safe.
And I did. As soon as the envelope arrived, I tore it open and slid his card in right beside mine. What could go wrong with something kept as close as I keep my own.
Then came the chaos of a 15-hour flight with 8 children! Oy gevalt.
We landed in Cape Town already late for the bar mitzvah. We ran to pick up our rental and the woman at the counter said, “License and credit card, please.” I reached for them … and they were gone. No card. No license. Not in my wallet, not in my pocket, not in any of our bags.
I had a photo of my license but she couldn’t accept it. So we put the van under my wife’s name and I drove. (We will not dwell on the fine print of that arrangement) Thank G-d, we made it to the bar mitzvah in one piece.
The next day, my brother-in-law called: someone was using his card in Cape Town. And that’s when it clicked. I hadn't misplaced anything; I had been robbed. Somewhere over those 15 dark hours on the airplane, someone had quietly lifted my cards and my license, and my brother-in-law's precious card right along with them, and was now enjoying a shopping spree across the city.
I'll spare you my first instinct, which was to note that the thief was spending rather more modestly than my own family does, and to briefly wonder whether we should simply let him keep it. That's a joke. (Mostly.) I cancelled everything, of course, and my brother-in-law also ordered a new card (and, I'm fairly sure, found a more reliable courier than me to carry it).
But the more I thought about it, the more I realized what a powerful lesson I’d just been shown.
I tried hard to keep the credit card safe. I gave it thought and put it in the safest place I could think of—right alongside my own card, where I would protect it as I do my own. And still, it was stolen.
Because what really protects us is not our own actions, but Hashem. He is in control and He decides if my credit card will stay in my pocket or be stolen on the other side of the world.
Sometimes Hashem allows something small to be taken from us to teach us something much bigger about what we should really be holding onto.
The credit card was replaceable. The license was replaceable. The money was replaceable. But the lesson? That is something only He could teach me.