Quarantine on the Bus

Rabbi Arush’s son, Rabbi Nachman Arush, recently told this story, and it’s worth repeating: 

Someone who lives in Beitar Illit, which is a suburb of Jerusalem about 30-60 minutes by bus away from the city (depending greatly on traffic), got on the bus to go to his optic appointment in Jerusalem. As they come to the highway, the bus comes to a total stop. He checks Waze to see what is going on… a massive accident, and an expected 3 hour trip into Jerusalem as a result! He realized that he had absolutely no options. There is no way to get off the bus to go home, and to get to Jerusalem faster in order to make his appointment was also clearly impossible. No choice but to sit on the bus and wait… 

He informed the office of the unexpected delay, and sat back to relax on the bus, and thank Hashem for the delay. I don’t understand a thing, I only believe that it’s for the best… 

Eventually, he made it to the appointment, about 2.5 hours late. 

Fast forward a few days. As he calls to check in to the optician’s office, he gets a big surprise – everyone is in quarantine! After some checking, he discovered that someone had been in the office who had Coronavirus during the exact time that he was supposed to have his appointment! Except that he wasn’t there at that time, because of the traffic jam… 

Then, he understood. Hashem in His mercy, put him in quarantine on the bus for 2 hours via the big traffic jam, in order to save him from real quarantine for 2 weeks!