My Stolen Suitcase and the Challah that Got it Back

By Rivky Wilansky – Shlucha in Moscow, Russia

I want to share with you an amazing challah story that happened to me.

So, everyone knows that there is a famous Jewish custom to bake a key shaped challah the week after Pesach, as a segulah for good parnassah. Even though it’s not a Chabad custom, I definitely believe in that segulah, except that it doesn’t have to specifically be a key shaped challah to work, and it doesn’t have to specifically be the week after pesach to work!

Because making challah is always a segulah for parnassa!

When I was a bride, I learned about the beautiful custom of Jewish women to pray for domestic harmony and nachas from children at candle lighting, to pray for fine and healthy children who will grow up to be pious Jews when going to the mikvah, and for ample sustenance so they can give a lot of charity, when making challah…

And I learned that all of these customs are Torah!

On the spot, I decided that when I get married, I am going to make challah each week, not because I love to bake, but because I don’t want to miss out on one of the 3 special opportunities that Jewish women have to connect with and pray to G-d.

I had no experience in baking challahs, and I made lots of mistakes in the beginning, but I didn’t care, I just wanted my chance to connect with G-d in this special way.

And no matter what, I kept my promise faithfully, and baked challah every single week for 11 years .. even if I had to do it in someone else’s house while traveling, or on the day that I gave birth, or the day I came home from giving birth…

But at some point, about 3 years ago, I got lazy…

I was travelling in the states for a few weeks and I decided that it’s just too hard and it’s not even considerate, to bake in other people’s houses, especially with little kids near me… and that maybe I’m getting a little too old for this – for being so fanatic about not missing a week.

And so for the 3 weeks that I was in NY, I casually skipped my challah baking… and enjoyed the extra calm.

All was great until the last day of our trip.

I was out shopping for clothing, catching a great sale, while my husband was busy packing up the car with all our suitcases. There was one little red suitcase that couldn’t fit in the trunk, so my husband put it right near the van, just for a minute, planning to get the kids and put them in the car, and then stick the little suitcase at their feet.

When he came upstairs, my typical Jewish mom insisted that he eat something.. And so it ended up taking a few extra minutes for him to return outside.

And when he came back down to our quiet Brooklyn street, he was shocked to see that our little red suitcase was gone! It was nowhere to be found!

My husband started getting nervous, because that was his favorite suitcase!

And besides, it happened to have my $2000 wig inside, and it also happened to have $5000 cash inside of someone else’s money, (that a friend had asked him to bring to Moscow for him.)

He started looking all around and asking everyone nearby, checking the house again, and the car again… but it was gone.

That’s when I got the phone call that our suitcase was stolen, and I came running home from my shopping trip all worried.

We called the Jewish volunteer security, and asked them to please check the security camera, while we headed out to the airport without our precious suitcase.

Thank G-d, my husband and I both remained calm, knowing that this is all from Hashem, and that this too is for the good.

(You see, if it was me who lost the suitcase it wouldn’t be surprising at all, because I’m always forgetting things and losing things, but for my husband this was so completely out of character – it was clearly planned by G-d!)

But we were curious, why did G-d make this happen? What message was He trying to send us? Maybe we were behind in giving Tzedakah? We checked our files, and saw that in fact, we gave more than we owed.

Maybe we need to check our mezuzahs? But we already checked them not long ago.

In the meantime, we got a message that they found the video of a woman stealing our suitcase on camera, but it’s not going to help us anyway.

First of all, they couldn’t see the license plate of the car she was driving, or where she was heading.

Second, even if they would find her – they can’t prove that there was any money inside the suitcase, or for that matter, that there was anything at all inside the suitcase.

Third – the suitcase was outside on public property, so either way, it’s not considered stealing for her to take it.

In other words, there is no hope of getting it back.

Ok, gam zu l’tovah, this too is for the good!

But in our hearts, we both still believed that there was still hope to get it back.

When we arrived home the next day, it was a Thursday, so I started baking my challahs.

And suddenly it hit me. “Oh! That’s what it is! For the first time in 11 years, I broke my challah commitment! For 3 weeks in a row, I didn’t bake challahs! That’s why it happened!”

I remembered a story I had heard about the wife of a Crown Heights store owner who used to bake challahs every week during the year, except for during the summer weeks because that’s when she would be in her country house where she had a smaller kitchen and it was less comfortable to bake.

Her husband would always earn a lot less money during the summer weeks, but they never thought anything of it, because it made sense – of course there was half the business when half of the local families were away!

This continued on until one year, when she redid her country house kitchen, and decided to start baking in the summer weeks too.

At the end of the summer, her husband told her something amazing – that this summer he made double his usual profit, the same amount that he made year round!

She suddenly realized that it was all because of her challahs!

That had been the real reason they used to earn less during the summer!

And I realized that in my case, it was especially wrong of me to stop baking while traveling – because it’s a really serious thing to break a commitment that I had taken upon myself and kept strictly for so many years!

I decided that I wanted to fix my mistake.

I said that first of all, I am going to make up for those 3 missing challahs by baking 3 extra times in the coming weeks.

Second, from now on, I am going to bake challah every week b”n, no matter how hard or inconvenient it will be.

And third, the Rebbe taught us that the best way to make up for missed opportunities to do a mitzvah, is to help others fulfill that mitzvah, and so I decided that I would help others, or at least one other additional Jewish woman, do the mitzvah of separating challah.

I couldn’t hold in the excitement of my discovery.

I gathered my kids and told them, “Guess what? I know why our suitcase was stolen! It’s because I didn’t bake challah for 3 weeks while I was in NY.” I went on to tell them my 3 good resolutions of how I’ll make up for it.

(I told my husband too, and he wasn’t so sure about it, but he agreed with me that we would be getting our suitcase back!)

In the meantime, my mom kept asking me when I’m going to buy a new wig.

Over the next few weeks, I made challah twice instead of once – keeping my first promise.

And when we had a geulah gathering event for the 15th of Av, I prepared challah dough and made a raffle for one of the women to get to say the blessing on the challah – thereby keeping my second promise.

And then, one Friday, six weeks after we returned from NY, I was suddenly invited for Shabbat to my friend in Malachavka at the last minute. I told her we would come, and that I would bring along challah.

She said, “No no, you don’t have to bring challah, I have!”

I said, “No no, I do HAVE to bring challah. I’ll explain later.”

We packed our suitcases, and I started making challah even though it was very late and I was worried about making it there in time.

If not for my commitment, I probably would have skipped it that week.

But after taking challah and making the blessing, I realized that that’s it – I just kept my 3rd promise of making challah even when it’s hard or inconvenient.

I said, “Hashem, I’m not making challah in order to be blessed with wealth. It’s not a business deal. I’m doing this because I want the mitzvah, the chance to connect with you! Nothing more! But Hashem, if I don’t find my suitcase now, nobody will believe me that our stolen suitcase has anything to do with my missed challah bakes! If it’s true that it’s connected and You want people to know it, then we need to get our suitcase back..”

As soon as our challahs came out of the oven, we took them out in towels and headed out to Malachovka. On the way, I wished my parents Shabbat Shalom, and thank G-d, we made it there just in time to light the Shabbat candles.

Right after Shabbat, I saw that I had a whole bunch of missed calls from my parents, followed by some voice notes and photos… they were trying to reach me right after Shabbat began in Moscow.

Turns out that shortly after I spoke to my parents, the police called them to say that they found the thief and they are in her house now, and that much to their surprise, the suitcase is still there, with everything in place – aside for the cash!

They said the woman claimed there was no money inside, and then claimed that there was only half the money, and they wanted to know if we wanted to press charges against her.

My mom said that there is no reason to press charges because anyways we can’t prove how much cash was in there, and she had no interest in this woman sitting in prison if there will anyway be no benefit to us…

But 10 minutes later, the police came over to return our suitcase to us, and much to my parents’ surprise, they counted out the full $5,000 cash, down to the last dollar!

They said the woman ended up crying and admitting the truth, and returning all the cash that she had hidden away.

The police told us that it was a miracle and totally unexpected!

They explained that she was not really a thief, because a professional thief would have thrown out the wig and holy books, sold or discarded the suitcases and spent the cash right away.

Instead, she was just a regular woman who just happened to see a nice suitcase on the road and was tempted to steal it at that moment.

When she returned home and discovered what was inside, she couldn’t decide what to do with it.

But I understood…

This woman was just a messenger from G-d to hold our suitcase for us until we were ready to have it back. G-d just wanted me to know that my challahs really mean a lot to Him, and that He really missed them those few weeks in NY!

And so every time I wear this wig, and every time we travel with our little red suitcase, we are reminded that G-d alone runs this world, and that everything we have comes directly from Him.

And it goes without saying – that last year when we visited NY again, no matter how busy things were, and no matter that it was shortly before Pesach, I made sure to stop everything and make challahs at my sister’s house – because yes, G-d really DOES need our Challahs!

And if Hashem loves our challahs even now in exile – when they are just “practice” ones, not even the real thing, imagine how much Hashem is looking forward to our real challahs – the ones we will give to the Priests once our 3rd Holy Temple will be rebuilt!

May it be now!!!

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