When a Wrong Number Saved a Life

Mr. David needed sleep more than anything. After a brutal day at work and a long chavrusa session, he dragged himself home, ate supper, and collapsed into bed. 

Within minutes, he was out cold.

Then, 2:30 a.m.

The phone exploded through the silence.

Half-asleep, heart pounding, he grabbed the receiver.

“This is the London Police. Everything okay? You didn’t pay your taxi driver—he’s waiting outside your home!”

Mr. David shot upright. “What? I’ve been sleeping for hours! I didn’t take any taxi!”

The officer was unconvinced. “If you don’t come clean, we’re sending a constable to your door.”

Only after repeating the address did the truth surface.

“Oh… you live on Street. The man we’re looking for lives on Drive.”

A similar name, miles away.

The officer was mortified. “Sir, I’m terribly sorry. We woke you up for nothing.”

But by then the damage was done.

Mr. David was wide awake.

His wife was awake.

Even one of the kids was standing in the hallway, confused.

He needed this night’s sleep so badly. But instead of complaining, something inside him flickered.

“Well,” he told his wife, “if Hashem woke us up in the middle of the night… maybe Someone needs our tefillos.”

Right then and there, they washed negel vasser, said a few divrei Torah, and Mr. David opened a Tehillim, just to say a few kapitlach.

But once he began, he felt wired. Energized. Awake in a way he couldn’t explain.

“Let me keep going,” he thought.

Page after page. Kapitel after kapitel.

Three hours later, at exactly 5:30 a.m., he finished the entire Sefer Tehillim.

Drained, he scribbled the time down, crawled into bed for a quick nap before Shacharis…

Fifteen minutes later, the phone rang again.

“Tatty… Mazel tov. We had a baby.”

Joy. Relief. And then,

“But Tatty… you should know. It was very dangerous. For the last hour or two, the doctors didn’t think the baby would survive. They weren’t sure Mommy would survive either.”

Mr. David’s heart froze.

“Then what changed?” he whispered.

His son’s voice shook.

“Suddenly, everything stabilized. It all turned around at,”

A pause.

“At around 5:30 a.m.”

Mr. David nearly dropped the phone.

5:30 a.m.

The exact minute he finished Tehillim.

The exact minute the crisis broke.

The exact minute the Yeshua arrived.

A wrong number didn’t wake him.

A taxi complaint didn’t wake him.

Heaven woke him.

Sometimes Hashem shakes a person awake because somewhere, someone’s life hangs in the balance. And when we rise to the moment, even bleary-eyed in the middle of the night, we merit to see miracles unfold right before our eyes.