Every year, one of my closest friends would mark her
family’s miraculous escape from a horrific car accident with an intimate family
seudah. Over homemade delicacies, the children would take turns
recalling their own private story of how they had walked off, unscathed, from
an accident that left the car totaled, and had the police officer ask, “How
many bodies?”
I had the zechus
of participating in one of these seudos, and hoped that one day, I too,
would have the opportunity to thank Hakadosh Baruch Hu for a personal miracle
by making my own seudas hoda’ah.
I did. But it was very different from the one I had imagined.
It happened some 33 years ago. I was lying inert on a
hospital bed, attached to multiple monitors and intravenous tubes. The doctors
were pessimistic about my future. At the
time, I was a single mother with three small children. Although I had no
relatives in Israel, my neighbors had become my family and took turns sitting
at my bedside. I was never alone.
One afternoon, a frum man carrying a violin walked
into my room and started playing Chanukah songs. I was confused and surprised.
Chanukah? It seemed like I had just finished putting away the sukkah
boards. I asked the friend sitting at my bedside about it.
“Debbie,” she responded. “You’ve been sick a long time. It’s
already Kislev. The eighth of Kislev. Chanukah is just around the corner!”
“And by then I’ll be
completely better,” I said with a smile. “Next year, mark my words, I’m going
to invite all my friends to a seudas hoda’ah to celebrate my complete
recovery.” With a twinkle in my eye I added, “Better write it on your calendar
– ches Kislev. One year from today I’ll thank Hashem for my miraculous
recovery with a seudas hoda’ah.”
Fast forward ten months. By then, I was back at work,
running my home, and very happy with my life. I was grateful for the miracle
that I had been granted, and often spoke to my friends of the beautiful seudas
hoda’ah that I would make on the anniversary of my recovery, where I would
publicly thank Hashem for restoring my health, as well as show my appreciation
to all my dear friends for their constant support during those difficult times.
The phone call came at around nine thirty. The children were
all sound asleep, and I was relaxing with a steaming cup of hot tea and
enjoying a few rare moments of total serenity. It was an old friend, someone who I had once
been close with but had lost touch with over the years. After a few minutes of catching
up on our lives, she began telling me about her husband’s close friend, a young
widower, and asked if I’d be interested in meeting him.
To make a long story short, I was, and I did.
Two months later, late one night, sitting in my neighbor’s
living room (like I said before, my neighbors had become my family) we decided
that the puzzle pieces seemed to fit and came to the conclusion that we should get
married. But since it was close to one in the morning, we decided to wait until
the following day to drink a l’chaim and make it official.
The following evening, my wonderful friends prepared a stunning
seudah in honor of our engagement. Amidst laughter and tears we reminisced
about that difficult year, and thanked Hashem for all of his chessed.
And then I remembered. “What’s the date?” I asked one of the
women.
She ran to the kitchen to check the calendar. I could hear a
gasp, and when she returned to the room, there were tears in her eyes.
It was the eighth of Kislev.
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