The Corona Wedding

Rabbi Arush has spoken a lot about some of the fringe benefits of Corona, and the upheaval that the world finds itself in. Everything has changed and continues to change, sometimes on an hourly basis. Due to the difficulties and fear, many people have strengthened themselves in emuna and come closer to Hashem in practical and positive ways. 

On that note, I received this story by voice recording a few weeks ago. How I received this story is already a story! Someone contacted me to arrange for books to be distributed on his behalf, as a merit for him to find his soulmate and have good income. Never wanting to lose the opportunity to tell anyone about Chok Todah – Law of Thank You, I shared it with him as well.  

He then shared it with a close friend, so that they should do it together and strengthen each other. His friend then shared it with a cousin in England, who was experiencing incredible difficulties trying to marry off her first daughter in the midst of Corona.  

Here is this woman, who according to the cousin, has had most of her life on easy street from A to Z. Suddenly, money can’t buy her what she needs! Weddings had been outlawed altogether, and people were going into quarantine left and right. She found herself planning and cancelling and re-planning and cancelling every aspect of the wedding.  

In her voice note, she mentioned that she was totally beside herself, when this cousin told her about The Law of Thank You. Even though she said of herself: “I am not much of a spiritual person,” she decided to do it anyway. Then, she described the miracles that happened to her, one after the other.  

A hall suddenly opened up, and they grabbed the opportunity. Hashem then enabled her to realize that hall was much more suited for their needs then the original hall they had wanted.  

Then, the Prime Minister announced that weddings would be legalized the day before the wedding was now scheduled for. She said that she was so relieved. She really did not want to make an illegal wedding like so many others were doing – she was just not comfortable. Now, her daughter’s wedding would be legal! 

Now, she found herself frantically planning a wedding in less than two weeks! All the pieces fell together in such a way – she said, “I am utterly gobsmacked!” (In plain English, it means “astounded; astonished”). 

So, she sent the cousin, who forwarded me, this voice note to say thank you. She was very emotional about the entire episode and exclaimed, “I don’t know what it is about that Tehillim, but it really helped me!” She also noted that she was so much calmer as she put the wedding in G-d’s Hands, and watched Him plan it for her. 

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At first glance, who wouldn’t like to be this woman? Your whole life on a red carpet. No worries, no issues. Sounds great, right? I also thought that for one split second. 

Then, I realized that for all of her physicality, this woman self admits that she isn’t so spiritual. The truth is, that she simply doesn’t recognize who she is – every Jew is incredibly and intrinsically spiritual. But the circumstances of her life never led her to particularly develop her spirituality. Only now with perhaps the biggest hurdle of her life, and a hurdle that for the first time, money can’t fix – trying to make her first wedding in the middle of the Corona crisis – is she discovering the power of connecting to Hashem. For the first time, she really needed Hashem’s help! 

And I hung my head down, and started crying. This is exactly the feeling that I talked about in my article Say Thank You for Abuse?! All that suffering served me well! Thank you, Hashem, that I am me with all my difficulties and all my spirituality, instead of her with all her physical wealth! As Rabbi Arush says, “Someone can have everything in this world, money, kids, ‘the good life’ – and Rebbe Nachman says that their life is not life! Because they don’t have emuna.” 

This also explains another aspect of the Chok Todah – the universal good in every suffering, which is getting closer to Hashem. Who would say this woman’s situation was good? The wedding is on, it’s off, here, no there, now it’s in 2 months… incredible suffering. BAD – right? WRONG. Because now that suffering pushed her to be willing to listen to the cousin who told her about the Chok Todah – and now she just had a major revelation! She needs Hashem, and Hashem helps her! WOW! That isn’t just an epiphany, but it’s also a major step closer to Hashem. And that is very, very good! 

This story also beautifully illustrates why distributing emuna is The Most Important Thing. Who knows how many people this friend’s cousin in England might hopefully tell about the Chok Todah? All of that in is his merit! And the original person that I spoke to – he gets all of that merit too, because he started the chain. And if in the end, someone really returns to Hashem and starts keeping Torah and mitzvot properly – all those merits also go straight into their bank too. And if he is lucky enough that somewhere along the line a family or children are transformed by this simple beginning and come closer to Hashem, then all of the mitzvot of the entire family, and their children, until the end of time – is in his merit! This is just an example of why Rabbi Arush says: “No charity can touch the shoelaces of distributing emuna! Put your money where you will get the highest return!” 

This is also a perfect example of the fact that distributing emuna is so easy! All this cousin did is tell his friend about it! It cost him no money and very little time, and all this merit is coming to him now. And he has the awesome title of someone who is mizake harabim – bringing others closer to G-d. It’s an incredible return on the tiniest investment.  

So go ahead – share this story with your friends! On Facebook, on Whatsapp, on Instagram, whatever. Or call your friend, send an email, or tell them about it when you run into them at the store!  

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If you also have a “Say Thank You and See Miracles” story you would like to share, please send it to us! Stories may be posted on our website anonymously and sent to Rabbi Arush.  

 
Please email rachel.avrahami@breslev.co.il  with your story.