It’s not the first time I was in this pinch. It was Thursday morning and I still didn’t have a speaker for Pirkei Avos on Shabbos. I had already asked about 10 people, some of them twice. Of the 18 weeks of Pirkei Avos, this usually happens once, and often around this time. People go away and the pool of potential speakers from the Yeshiva Kollel dries up because of Bein HaZmanim.
I started moving on the backup plan. I asked a friend, RCW, who davens in front of me at weekday Shacharis, if he would speak again this season if I couldn’t find someone. He tentatively agreed, pending his wife’s approval, but not before he asked two other people at the minyan if they could do it. On such short notice they were both hesitant.
Mid morning I got a text from RCW that he got clearance from his wife. A few minutes after that I got a text from RCEW, who often helps me get speakers, saying that he got somebody from the Kollel to give the shiur. Who did he happen to ask? The same person that RCW asked in the morning. He had come up with something to say after Shacharis.
We were all doing our hishtadlus to get a speaker. The hashkacha was that RCW went out of his way and asked this person, and then RCEW happened to ask the same person so he was primed to say yes. It’s comforting to see how Hashem is actively involved in our lives after Tisha B’Av!