True tales from the corners of our world

The Background

A friend of mine shared this fascinating story with me. He said it taught him a major lesson — and he graciously agreed to share it with Klal Yisrael.

I

used to be in a pretty sweet business: I had an ice cream store in New York City. It was in a prime location with plenty of tourist traffic, and business was so brisk I started thinking about opening another store. In July 2019 I found the perfect spot: in Times Square. The lawyers went to work, and we finalized a lease in November. Now all I needed was a loan.

As a longstanding client at a prominent New York bank, applying for a loan there was not a big deal, and I was approved within the month. I was just waiting for the bank to send me the money so I could start serving up scoops.

One day, a letter arrived in the mail from the bank. I was a little curious — who deals with clients through the mail these days? — and I opened the envelope.

I started reading the letter — Is this some sort of prank? I thought.

The bank was notifying me that they had decided to terminate me as a client and close my account. They did not provide any reasons for why they were doing this, no information or explanation of any kind.

I had been a loyal client at this bank for many years, and I was at a loss for words.

After I read the letter five times, I decided someone at the bank must have made a mistake, and if I called, I would be able to clear up the issue and we could carry on from there.

I called the bank and explained the problem to customer service representative. He put me on hold to look into it, but he didn’t have good news when he got back to me.

“Thank you for waiting,” he said finally. “From what I can see, the bank has terminated you as a client.”

“I know, I’m calling to clear up this misunderstanding.”

“I’m sorry, sir. From what I see, there is nothing I can do for you.”

“I don’t understand. I’ve been a loyal customer for years. Do you understand what this will do to my business?”

“I’m sorry, sir. I wish I could do something for you, but I can’t.”

My next call was to my loan officer. I asked if the bank would be willing to honor their loan approval despite the letter I had just received.

“I am so sorry,” he said, “but the moment the bank decides to terminate a client, everything stops — the relationship is over.”

It seemed like a bad dream. I had the lease in my hand, but I had gone from expecting to have funds transferred into my account to suddenly having my account closed.

I felt like my life was falling apart.

By the end of February 2020, I had opened an account with another bank and got approved for a new loan. But just before the bank transferred the money to me, Covid hit. Suddenly, the entire city shut down. Gone were the tourists. Gone were the millions of businesspeople streaming into the city every day. Gone were all of my prospective customers, because everything was shuttered.

And I realized that had my initial bank loaned me the money they had promised, I would have signed the lease for my new Times Square store. I would have paid for renovations, bought machines, and opened for business — and I would have found myself paying Times Square rent for the next two years without selling a single cone of ice cream.

It would have destroyed me financially.

The first bank never explained their reason for closing my account. But the main thing to remember is that Hashem knows the reason — and that’s enough.

(Originally featured in Mishpacha, Issue 1036)