My uncle was on a domestic flight to JFK Airport. Apparently there was traffic at JFK and it was taking time before they could land. The pilot announced that they had to make an emergency landing in LaGuardia Airport because they were running low on fuel. They landed in LaGuardia and asked the passengers to debark. They would continue their route to JFK afterwards.
My uncle called the Rental car company to change his reservation for a car from Kennedy Airport to LaGuardia Airport. It was Friday getting closer to a Shabbat candle lighting time. If the pilot would have waited until they received rights to land at Kennedy it might have been already Shabbat. When they ran low on fuel and made an emergency landing, it gave my uncle an opportunity to debark the plane and drive home before Shabbat. He arrived just in time.
He left. All the others else stayed. Finally the plane took off from LaGuardia and arrived at Kennedy after nine o’clock – about 2 hours after Shabbat entered. Afterwards they delivered his luggage to him at his home.
The fact that the plane was running low on fuel allowed him to get off the plane without having to desecrate the Shabbat. It seems that Hash-m arranged things to just so that my uncle would not desecrate the Shabbat.
Some people would see this as a coincidence. But we as Jews, know that Hash-m guides the world for individuals and the world at large for the good. We too can see Divine Providence in our daily lives – when we allow ourselves to see.
There is an excellent book that talks about Divine Providence of Hash-m in history. There are two such books by the same author – Yaakov Astor – one about the “Hidden Hand” in the Holocaust and one about His “Hand” in general history. It is appropriately called “the Hidden Hand”. This book is excellent because it not only gives detailed accounts of historical events but also provides reasons why the events occurred and shows the “Hand” of Hash-m guiding the world from a Torah perspective. If you want to purchase the book(s) here are links:
Some Events that the “20th Century Edition” covers are:
The Miracle of Dunkirk
The Battle of Britain
Day of Infamy
The Miracle at Midway
The Longest Day
Of Statues, Liberty & Freedom
The Crash and the Great Depression
How Watergate saved lives
When the Berlin wall came crashing down
The Wrights and the Lights of Chanukah
A Titanic Lesson
The Challenge of the Challenger
Hiroshima
The Cuban Missile Crisis
The Gulf War
The Hidden Hand – Uncovering Divine Providence in Events in 20th Century
Hidden-Uncovering Divine Providence in Events in 20th Century / Kindle edition