Lost Items & Segulos

 “Hakol B’Chezkas Sumin…”

December, 2019

“I have a question that has been bothering me for a long time” I once asked the president of my vaad, a renown doctor and medical school professor. “Every so often I feel my phone vibrate in my pocket, but when I reach for it I see that either no one had called, or, even worse, that I do not even have my phone on me! My question is not if I should be concerned, rather I am curios if before cell phones were common if there were lines around medical practices with concerned patients who had strange leg vibrations”

I was only half kidding. However, his reply was serious as well as thought provoking. He explained that amputees, soldiers home from battle for instance, who, lo aleinu, lose an arm or a leg often report “phantom limbs”. Meaning they still have sensations mimicking the missing limb. One of the most important studies on this phenomenon reported the following rare yet extraordinary case:

“I placed a coffee cup in front of John and asked him to grab it [with his phantom limb]. Just as he said he was reaching out, I yanked the cup away.
 ‘Ow!’ he yelled. ‘Don’t do that!’ ‘What’s the matter?’ ‘Don’t do that’, he repeated. ‘I had just got my fingers around the cup handle when you pulled it. That really hurts!’ Hold on a minute. I wrench a real cup from phantom fingers and the person yells, ouch! The fingers were illusory, but the pain was real – indeed, so intense that I dared not repeat the experiment.”

Experiments done in order to discover the root cause of this strange yet observable phenomenon have led to more questions than answers. From Wikipedia:

“Until recently, the dominant theory for causes of phantom limbs was irritation in the severed nerve endings (called “neuromas”). When a limb is amputated, many severed nerve endings are terminated at the residual limb. These nerve endings can become inflamed, and were thought to send anomalous signals to the brain. These signals, being functionally nonsense, were thought to be interpreted by the brain as pain.

Treatments based on this theory were generally failures. In extreme cases, surgeons would perform a second amputation, shortening the stump, with the hope of removing the inflamed nerve endings and causing temporary relief from the phantom pain. But instead, the patients’ phantom pains increased, and many were left with the sensation of both the original phantom limb, as well as a new phantom stump, with a pain all its own (Ramachandran & Blakeslee 1998)”

The doctor then explained that, whatever the root cause, it was clear that once the body has an appendage it is tricky for the brain to then, L’Pitom (suddenly) shut off all relevant circuitry, thus feelings of itchiness’, pain, or sensation in a removed limb can occur.

“Our cell phones” he continued “have become so much a part of our lives, even in how we see who we are, that the brain has begun, in many people, to see it as an appendage of ourselves. What you and others suffer from when we mistakenly feel our phones is nothing but these same phantom limbs! So, no, before cell phones this question was never asked”!

I do not know how seriously I took his words –spoken some six years ago. But last week I saw them come very true.

Last Thursday was to be the first snow storm of the year in New York City – but this should not have been cause for much concern.

There is something, however, about a fall storm.

The leaves are still on many trees and snow is wet and heavy, a wicked brew that can cause branches to become weighed and to break.

The snow came an hour before rush hour and everything that could have gone wrong did.

My father in law left Manhattan’s AKO conference at 5 and got to his home in Monsey after 11pm.

The roads were a nightmare.

I took my van to pick up my daughters from high school. A ten-minute drive took me an hour. I ran in to the school to let them know I was there and by the time I returned to the car I was sopping wet and my shoes were filled with water and ice.

Driving home took an equal amount of time. I started to panic that stores might be closed erev shabbos, so on the way I stopped at a local kosher bodega for some quick provisions.

Walking in to the store one would think it was the eve of a world war, with people carrying water and canned foods to the register.

I got what I thought we needed and ran back; splashing through the deep, wet snow, to the car.

Finally at home, and safe, we all sat down to eat.

I soon noticed that my cell phone had been uncharacteristically quiet. Checking my pockets and the counter to no avail, I asked one of my daughters if she wouldn’t mind running to the car to get my phone.

She soon returned, full of snow, saying that it wasn’t there.

“I must have left it in the store” I thought.

I called the store, which explained that there was no phone left there.

I now started to panic. My cell phone is half my job. That is my main office; it is on it that I respond to emails and many, many texts, pictures of hechsherim, door frame images for mezuzos, etc. There were shailos that needed answers and issues that needed resolution.

I searched the car, under the car, around the house. 

Nothing.

I went back on the roads and returned to the store. It was really bad out now, and the store was empty. The manager looked at the security video and saw that I left with my phone.

I went back home and signed in to my ‘Fine My Phone’ application on our home computer. This application will show you on a virtual map of the world where exactly one’s phone can be found.

Having not used this service since I signed up for it years ago, I put in my email and clicked the ‘forgot my password’ option. I got this response, “We are dedicated to security, and we will therefore send you a new code to your cell phone we have on file”. But it is my cell phone that I am looking for!

I had a restless night. 

The next morning, I stood on my balcony and began walking down the stairs. I quoted the midrash (Bereishis Rabbah 53:14, relating to Hagar finding the well) “Amar Rav Binyamin, hakol b’chezkas sumin ad sh’Hakadosh Baruch Hu ma’ir es einayhem, min hachah: vayifkach elokim es eineha –Rav Binyamin taight that we are all considered blinded until Hashem open our eyes, as its says: And Hashem opened her eyes.

This segulah to say this when is looking for a lost object, while not mentioned directly by this chazal, is brought in many sources (see  from the Chazon Ish in Maaseh Ish, vol. 2 p. 127, the Steipler in Orchos Rabbeinu vol 1 p. 289. See also sefer Hashavos Aveida p. 27 and Segulos Asher Bacharta [Yowza ed.] p. 1).

In addition –and seemingly separate from this –is a Midrash Talpios (brought in the footnotes to Taamei Haminhagim p. 564) to give money for Rav Meir Baal Haness.

As soon as a recited the midrash I immediately spotted my phone –in a black pool of water on the side of the road, which was under ice, which was under snow.

The relief I felt when the phone actually turned on is hard to describe.

And that is when I remembered the words of my vaad president, and a Beis Halevi to the above midrash.

The Beis Halevi wonders why we are called ‘blind’ until Hashem opens our eyes. Can we not see anyway?!

He explains that the word eved (slave) shares its root with avodah (hard work). An eved does not own anything of his own, and so too when we work and do our hishtadlus we should never feel that we own what we bring in. Rather, like Hagar, until we recognize Hashem’s hand in everything we have we may be blind to other opportunities that He places right in front of us.

I always knew I was too attached to my phone, but now Hakadosh Baruch Hu opened my eyes to just how much attachment I really was, and how I need to change that.

May Hashem open all of our eyes, bring us hatzlacha from where we are supposed to find it and help us see the danger when we don’t.