What happens if one arrives in shul and finds that one has forgotten one’s gartel? Does one return home for it and in this way lose out on tefillah betzibur, or does one daven without a gartel? This question is brought in “Piskei Teshuvos”  (volume 1 page  692) and the  ruling given there is to daven without a gartel.

One morning, Rav Eliahu Hakohen Haltamari of Izmir (c.1659 -1729) got up whilst it was still pitch dark, dressed and put on his gartel. That day his gartel felt thicker and stiffer than usual and he found it more difficult to put on. He started learning when suddenly the gartel started coming loose and moving and it then slipped off and landed on the floor. He looked down and saw that it was in fact a poisonous snake. He realised that it was a great miracle that he had not been harmed at all by this venomous snake. To commemorate this miracle, he wrote the book entitled “Eizor Eliyahu” – (“eizor” is the Hebrew for gartel). (see: Mishpacha, English edition, Junior section, 18 Kislev 5772 [14 December 2011], page 3, who acknowledged that it was adapted from the book “Aleinu L’shabeiach” by Rav Yitzchak Zilberstein)