I marveled at the hashgachah that had brought this driver back to Tel Aviv that day, and had brought me to his taxi

I

was walking down Rechov Arlozorov in Tel Aviv, heading for the beach. But within minutes, it became obvious that I couldn’t walk a mile in the summer heat. Luckily, Arlozorov is a main artery in the city, and as soon as I gestured, a taxi pulled over.

“Chavakuk,” I said as I got in. Not “Rechov Chavakuk,” or “hachof hanifrad,” or any other word with the giveaway resh that would instantly expose me as an American and put me, and my wallet, at the mercy of the driver.

He looked at me in the rearview mirror. “You live in Tel Aviv?”

The meter was on now, so I felt safe answering in my American Hebrew, "Not now, although many years ago I actually stayed in this neighborhood for several months."

“Really?” he said. "I used to drive around here a lot twenty years ago, before I moved out of Tel Aviv. Today I’m just here by chance. So what brings you here?"

“My husband’s office is in this area.”

As we inched through traffic on Arlozorov, he remarked, more to himself than to me, “There was a man who lived around here, and I used to drive him for years, from his house to his office in the Diamond Exchange.”

It was a stop-the-cameras moment, the kind of moment where you look back later and shiver as you wonder what would have happened if you’d missed the opportunity. I leaned forward and asked, “Did he live on Rechov Uri?”