No-Stress Weddings

Translated by Rabbi Lazer Brody

So many people buckle under the pressure of marrying off their children. They’re willing to leave home for weeks and months trying to raise the needed sums, leaving wives and children while living like refugees. I wish they’d try their own back yard, but that requires emuna.

Here’s a spiritual way to try and raise the money you need:

1. Start a personal prayer session by thanking Hashem profusely for all the good He has done for you – for all the material and spiritual kindnesses Hashem has shown you throughout your lifetime, up until now. Then, go on to thank Hashem for all the massive expenses you have to cover; they are designed to bring you closer to Hashem, for without them, you might not be talking to Hashem with such sincerity.

2. Next, you need to pray for emuna. Ask Hashem to help you to believe in Him; to trust that He really is the One and Only Provider; to believe that Hashem doesn’t anyone else’s help to give you what you need to marry off your children. Tell Hashem that if you don’t have to run around trying to raise money, then you’ll have more time to devote to Torah, prayer, and improving your soul.

3. Ask Hashem to give you what you need as a free gift! Tell Him that you want to be a proper, ‘kosher’ person, but that it can’t happen overnight. So in the meantime, ask Hashem to send you your needs as a free gift, so that you will have the breathing space you need to really start serving Hashem, and to become a genuinely good person.

4. Resolve to do specific things to start improving yourself. For example, undertake to set a specific time to study Torah, give 10% of your income to charity, etc. If you don’t make these resolutions – and stick to them – you won’t have anything ‘concrete’ to back up your argument that you need Hashem to give you the wedding expenses so that you can work on your soul.

5. The most essential ‘resolution’ you have to make is to do an hour of personal prayer every single day. As Rebbe Nachman teaches in Likutei Moharan 100, no one can become an upright person if they aren’t doing an hour of personal prayer a day.

When Hashem sees that you really are sincerely trying to get close to Him, He will surely listen to your arguments about why you urgently need the wedding expenses for your child without traveling abroad like an refugee; He can save you the anguish of exile and absence from home and family.
 
By contrast, if you spend all your time trying to rustle up more cash on your own – and there’s still no time for Torah study, or doing an hour a day of personal prayer – it’s clear that you aren’t particularly interested in using this trial as an opportunity to get close to Hashem.
 
Remember, financial difficulties  are relatively ‘light’ tribulations. Thank Hashem for this challenge, for marrying off children is certainly a joyous challenge.
 
The path of prayer, as detailed above, is really the most pleasant way to raise money. A person who is being squeezed financially needs to get closer to Hashem. But if he tries to circumvent Hashem by using his own cunning, then he won’t succeed in the long run. We all know people who thought up their own ‘solutions’ to their financial challenges; usually, their problems and only ended up even worse. Hashem is the only real solution to our problems financial or otherwise.
 
A man came to me in desperation, telling me that he lacked thousands of dollars while his daughter’s wedding was only a month away. I told him to do a 6-hour personal prayer session. He argued with me and said he’d prefer traveling abroad. “How can I do personal prayer for six hours straight when I can barely speak to Hashem for a few minutes?” he asked me.
 
I told him that if he couldn’t commit to do the six hours, his situation obviously wasn’t troubling him as much as he claimed. If he was as desperate as he said he was, he’d be happy to pray for 24 hours, let alone six! As it is, he had planned to go to the USA for three whole weeks, until a week before the wedding! Without emuna, people prefer three weeks of exile to six hours of prayer; that’s a tragedy…
 
Many fool themselves into believing that they can manage without Hashem. You can spot these people a mile off, because they don’t pray! People who believe they can cope without Hashem’s help don’t ask for it – as a result, they are very far away from Hashem and from fulfilling their true purpose in the world. And, they’re chasing around the world like exiles.
 
Use the prayer option, and may Hashem grant you everything you need to honorably marry off your children. Mazal Tov!!