I would love to share with you a wonderful story of hashgacha – one with a twist! I saw this “gem” (pun intended, as you will soon see) on Page 273 of Achas Sha’alti 2, a sefer of halachic queries posed to Rav Zilberstein, shlit”a. Please look it up!

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Yossi, a young baal teshuva, lived in Manhattan. Anyone who has seen pictures of this “city” inside New York City immediately notices the huge high-rise buildings and the lack of private yards. Yes, Manhattan is a place for those who want to live near work. But for those who might want to build a sukkah – well that is not so simple in this concrete jungle!

Our Yossi thought long and hard about how he was going to manage to fulfill this newfound mitzvah of sukkah. Where could he build a sukkah?

After a long while, it dawned on him that the best place was on the roof, at the top of the high-riser where he lived. Yes, the winds might be strong there, but he would have to build it, reinforced, on the roof. The person whom he needed to ask was the person on the top floor, whose roof he would be using. Hmmmm.

Yossi knocked on the door of this non-Jew, and after a few minutes the penthouse owner realised that he could make a quick buck on this request.