A much older man who had been single for a very long time, found himself turning to a big tzadik, “I can’t take it anymore. What can I do that will guarantee to find my basheret?”
The tzadik prescribed, “You can say this particular prayer, for 40 days straight, at Kever Rochel, at neitz.” That was no easy feat, but the man pushed himself to do it, trusting that this would bring his yeshua. By day 40, he was still single, and returned to inquire with the tzadik. The tzadik was confused that the segulah didn’t work. Maybe the fellow didn’t have the proper kavana? He instructed the man to return to Kever Rochel for another 40 days, at neitz, and this time to say the tefilla with kavana. The man, desperate for it to work, complied. By Day 80, he returned to the tzadik, broken. “Nothing.” The tzadik was bewildered. He had never seen this particular segulah not work before. He questioned the man, “Are you sure you haven’t missed any days?” “Rebbe, I’ve done it every single day, with kavana, at neitz, for the past forty days, again!” The tzadik thought it over. “It must be that you need to be saying it with simcha. Do it again, but with simcha!” The man chose to comply. He returned to Kever Roche daily, each time before sunrise, to daven this particular prayer with kavana, and managed to infuse it with an extra level of simcha. Sometime during the third set of 40 days, he met ‘the one’. By day 40 (really, day 120), he got engaged!
At the l’chaim that night, his future father-in-law turned to him and remarked. “This is definitely such a big simcha for you, but for our family, it’s an even bigger simcha that we’ve been waiting for years and years for. Today, our daughter got engaged to you, and somehow, just 40 days ago, her older sister got engaged also! And do you know what’s crazy? 40 days before that, our oldest daughter, her oldest sister, got engaged as well!”
B”H this story has the happy ending we all needed. By the ending, it becomes obvious that this man’s efforts and tefillos were clearing the way for his kallah to get to him. Each set of 40 days unlocked the zechus to have one of her older sisters get engaged, and allowed this kallah to walk down the chuppah to her basheret, fullheartedly.
No tefillos are wasted. There is no such thing as a tefilla to go unanswered. Every single prayer is powerful; we just don’t always get to see what electricity grid it is powering. Rachel Goldberg Polin, mother of Hersh, who was one of the beautiful six hostages that were executed in the tunnels of Gaza after 328 days of captivity. She was able to offer up a mashal for prayers that we don’t see getting answered. She described tefillos like adding water droplets to a cloud, that eventually gets big enough to ‘rain’ down on us the brachos we need. Sometimes the rain showers down on us. And sometimes, Hashem sends the raincloud over to someone else, who needs those tefillos and zechusim to help them out, and they get an unexpected deluge of brachos and yeshuos. Every single tefilla we utter is powerful. Not one drop of connection to Hashem goes to waste.
This article was found in Nekuda Tova Issue 84.
