“Good luck”
By: Rabbi Dr David Fox
Pullquotes:
“He recommended that I keep the engine running until I reached home. Home was a few thousand miles away on the eastern side of the continent.”
I was a young man heading across the continent to my new position. It was time to complete my professional training and I had accepted an internship at an excellent hospital where I would stay for three years. I had set off in my small foreign car to make the journey solo, to enjoy the countryside, and to air out my mind which had been overworked during my years in school while also serving in the rabbinate.
All went well until I got to Albuquerque, New Mexico. It was late afternoon, I checked in to a motel, and then… my car would not start. I had driven through California and Arizona, cruising through the deserts, and all had been fine. Now, the car would not start. I called the automobile club to which I belonged and they dispatched a tow truck crew who said I needed some electrical work but all of their mechanics were closed, in that this was now Sunday evening. They said that there was one late-night mechanic who handled vehicles passing through the area and that they would call ahead and alert him that I was on the way.
The mechanic was a tough-looking character, puffing on some marijuana, but he seemed to know cars. I owned a Japanese car and he said that he would be able to fix it too. After testing out a number of parts, he diagnosed the problem, told me he would install the replacement parts, worked on the vehicle a few hours, and gave me the bill. I had brought cash along with me, having closed my bank accountants in anticipation of relocating. I thanked him, paid him, and drove back to my motel.
Setting out the next day, I enjoyed the peaceful humming of the desert highways and made my way through New Mexico and on to Amarillo, Texas. Stopping for gas, I filled up, paid, then went back to my car which would not start again. Fortunately, there was a mechanic on duty who looked under the hood and advised me that whoever had installed parts had used things for another brand of vehicles, and these parts had blown out a system in my own automobile. I asked him what to do and he recommended that I keep the engine running, once he managed to get me started, and not turn the car off until I reached home. Home, at that moment, was a few thousand miles away on the eastern side of the continent. I told him that I had a few days of driving left and when I asked if it was safe to keep the engine running that long, he merely said, “Good luck.”
Somehow I rumbled along, although by this time I was reciting Tehillim (psalms) as I made my way along the highways. As I was driving through Oklahoma, however, the car began to rattle and shake. Lights came on along my dashboard as I drove past miles of cornfields. Just as the car went silent and I rolled towards an exit on the road, barely moving along, I looked up. Right across from me was what turned out to be the only dealer in western Oklahoma that sold my brand of Japanese cars. There, in the heartland of America, people bought domestic models, Ford, Chevrolet and the like. Coming to a halt right at the entrance to the dealership, I noticed a group of men in uniform overalls drinking beer and playing cards. I gingerly approached them, asking if they fixed cars like mine. They gave a collective hoot of joy and the headman said in his mid-western drawl, “Son, we ain’t had a repair here in four months. Nobody out this way buys these foreign cars. We hardly get business. We would be glad to work on your vehicle.”
They made a similar diagnosis as the mechanic in Amarillo and said they would have to bus in parts from Tulsa, about 200 miles away. They said they could have it fixed the next day. That little village had only one motel, which was virtually across the street. I spent the night marvelling at the series of upsets along that leg of the journey, but recognised the remarkable miracle that when my car gave out I was in the one place where my imported auto could be correctly repaired. Why I had needed to go through the ordeal, or meet the Klansman getting drunk as he hid out at the motel who confided that his uncle was a sheriff in the next state and had allowed him to use his rifle for target practice and shoot a man for fun, or why the money my father-in-law wired me to pay for the repairs went to the Western Union office inside the Methodist Church, and other challenges that trip, puzzled my soul for years. I may save those tales for another time, but for now, suffice to say that there are so many times when we cannot understand the Divine plan, but yet there are occasions when we can spot His protective Presence in the least likely places.
