They say that finding your bashert is like splitting the Sea. For me, when my son finally, Baruch Hashem, got engaged, it was more like crossing over to the Israeli side of the Jordan. And from here, the view is, of course, different.
All matches are the result of Divine Providence. A few years ago, I published a book called Bashert, Inspiring True Stories About Finding Your Soulmate (available on Amazon), as a merit for my son to find his. One after another, the stories were about finding the right one, at the right time, often in the most surprising and serendipitous ways.
My son and new daughter-in-law had been suggested to each other five years previously and then again a year ago. For whatever reason, they said no. But it wouldn’t be right to say, “Oh, too bad, if only they’d agreed five years ago…” They didn’t because they weren’t supposed to. It wasn’t the right time. And when it was the right time (this past Succot), there was such a confluence of circumstances, that it is impossible not to see Divine Providence working overtime.
Both of them had moved to Jerusalem last summer – she from a small community near Beer Sheva, he from Petach Tikvah. They both moved to the Kiryat Moshe neighborhood, a few houses from each other. Ah, but it gets better. They are, or rather were, both active in Shagririm (Ambassadors). Shagririm is an online dating site that uses the people who are looking for shidduchim to be shadchanim, themselves, so that everyone on the site is being helped by somebody else. On Chol Hamoed Succot neither Josh nor Tzion were planning to go on the hike that Shagririm was organizing, until… Josh decided at the last minute to do so and Tzion misplaced her keys which somehow led to her going on the hike too. But there’s more: because they had both signed up at the last minute, they were made the counselors of the group and worked together in leading them on this activity. Three months later, they were engaged, and two months after that, they were wed. Baruch Hashem! And it was beautiful!
What’s the take from all this besides mazal tov!? While, it’s very sad that so many people have to wait so long for their bashert, predominantly, it isn’t their fault. We try to find reasons why people aren’t married and tell them if only they tried this segulah, that event, that matchmaker, this person… they would be married. If they were only less picky, less introverted, more erudite, more compromising (pick a quality). But it doesn’t work that way. For every girl my son dated, he added another requirement to his list, some of the qualities he was looking for even contradicted each other. But when he found the ONE he was prepared to spend the rest of his life with (bezrat Hashem), the list became superfluous. This was the girl he wanted to marry. And those were the qualities he ended up wanting. And this too was the guy she wanted to marry (to everyone’s joy and relief).
So if we really want to help the singles of this world, instead of criticizing and finding fault, our best avenue of hishtadlut, would be to pray for them to meet their right match, at the right time, in the right place, in the right way. Believe that they will find their soulmate and make sure they know you believe it.
To demonstrate the efficacy of prayer, my son and a friend of his had done hitbodedut for each other, last Motzaei Lag BaOmer. These two young men, but older singles, had gone to a forest in Kfar Etziyon, under the guidance of Rav Dov Zinger, and basically prayed there emotionally, in solitude, for the success of the other one to find a shidduch already! And they both ended up getting married, within the year, two days apart.
May all singles find their bashert among the trees, their roses among the thorns; may they and their families make their way to the opposite bank soon and may they have smooth sailing! And let us say, Amen.
