Bus Number 43

An excited young boy clutches his mother's hand as they bounce their way beside the busy main road. They are off to the store to buy him new shoes and, for the very first time, he will be able to pick the shoes he likes. Furthermore, they will be traveling on one of those brand new city buses. He has never been on a bus before, and cannot wait to tell his friends about his experience.

His mother has informed him that they will need to catch bus No. 43 to reach the shoe store, so he has been eagerly scrutinizing every passing bus. Obvious impatience turns to sudden delight when a sleek orangey bus bearing the large magical digits "43" glides into view. He points to it breathlessly, then jumps up and down in anticipation. He can see his bus, the one that will take him and his mother to the shoe store!

But what is happening? Instead of halting, his mother is pulling him further up the road! Why don't they just stand and wait for the bus to stop and let them board? That bus is meant to take them to buy shoes, surely it will stop as soon as it reaches them--why walk further? Yet his mother is telling him to walk faster or they'll "miss the bus..."

Extremely perplexed, the boy hurries on with his mother. Suddenly he grows very worried. Apparently, the bus driver doesn't stop wherever people need to board. He probably stops wherever he chooses! How will his mother know where the bus driver will choose to stop? What if she guesses wrong? The shoe stores are too far away for them to walk, and he'll never get to choose his own shoes! His anxious grip tightens as they hurry up the road.

With a noisy rush, the new city bus sweeps right past them, and his pounding heart is about to shatter. It's a No. 43, yet his mother doesn't know where the bus driver will choose to stop! Just as the stinging tears surge in his eyes, his mother stops. They have arrived at the end of a crowd. The bus has finally stopped, and the people are slowly boarding.

All at once it dawns on him. Obviously, the bus driver doesn't want to stop for just two people. If he did that, he would be constantly starting and stopping and it would take forever to get to the shoe store. The bus driver only stops when he notices a large crowd on the side of the street. His clever mother had noticed a large crowd, and rushed to join them. Happily, the young boy prances onto the brand new city bus with his mother, and they settle down for their ride to the shoe store...

As adults, we all recognize that buses do not stop by themselves or wherever the driver chooses, and neither do they halt wherever a crowd gathers. Rather, both the driver and the riders follow pre-arranged signposts and bus stops, which have been carefully designed by the local transportation services.

Yet, we too, often find ourselves playing the young boy in our story. We marvel at the busy world around us, at our interaction with fellow humans, our business clients, or even at Nature itself. We wonder how matters seem to slide into place, how so-and-so accidentally happened to hear we were looking for a job just after he heard that so-and-so is looking to fill that very position, , how we met just the "right" person in a chance visit to a park we never visit... Our daily lives are so full of such coincidences, that we often fail to notice them.

But what are they? Are they a sleek bus called Nature whose driver makes random stops? Are they completely determined by our input and effort--wherever people gather, Nature's bus will halt? Maybe the bus driver ignores individuals but looks for a convenient crowd to smile upon? Is life all about oneself, or perhaps about no-one in particular?

As Jews, we have the sacred tradition, passed down through the generations all the way from Abraham. Our ancestor Abraham, as a young boy in the ancient Ur Casdim, used his famous genius to analyze the origins and workings of nature and life. His conclusion--the existence of a purposeful Creator, coupled with His incessant and individual Divine Providence--has been and continues to be the hallmark of Jewish belief and practice.

Nature makes her rounds, and we utilize our potentials. Yet the weaving of the two together in an often seamless manner is the result of the constant Hashgachah Pratit (Divine Providence) of He who lays the markers, routes, signs, and shelters, for both the "driver" and ourselves. No effort is needed to see the world "working" around us; the study of Torah, however, attunes us to realize what we are already seeing and allows us to train ourselves so that we recognize the design and Designer.