The Best Time

There really never is a good time for your father's business to collapse. Nor is there ever a time when it is easy for you and your family to start accepting tzedakah instead of giving it. But the time when a girl is crossing the threshold of school, and entering the new phase called "real life" seemed, to me, like the worst possible time.

Here I was, just finishing my seminary year, about to step into a new world. The world I had envisioned stepping into was one of shadchanim, of young men shyly stepping up to my door to take me out. It was a world of resumes and job applications. It was a world of professors and term papers. It was a world of fun and friends...that I would remain a part of until I would enter the world of my marriage.

It was, also, as it turned out, the world of my dreams. Because I soon discovered that I was wrong. That was the world that others stepped into. Instead, I stepped into a world of collection calls and credit cards. A world of negligent mortgage payments and late insurance payments. A world of leaky roofs and broken appliances. A world of tomchei shabbos boxes and battered pride. In short, the world I had unwillingly stepped into was one of financial ruin. It was a world that was as far from the world I had envisioned as two worlds could possibly be.

So I moved into my new world with more than a little reluctance. While my friends were concerned with which job they would enjoy the most, I was concerned only with which would pay the best. And while technically, I was in shidduchim, we were obviously not actively pursuing much. If a yom tov was enough to push us over the financial brink, surely an engagement and the ensuing wedding was far beyond the scope of our financial capabilities.

And college...! Nobody could understand why the smartest kid in the class, the one for whom all teachers had such high hopes, would stop her schooling so abruptly. But what they didn't realize was that after all the numerous financial obligations I had, there was nothing left from my paycheck to even consider anything as unnecessary as college and the pursuit of higher education.

Throughout numerous seminary classes on chashivus hatorah, I made up my mind. From the minute I would get my first paycheck, up until the day of my wedding, I would save my money, carefully and scrupulously. The money would then be deposited into my savings account, which, in my mind, I had lovingly dubbed "the Kollel fund." Using the money I had saved, I would be free to pursue my lofty dream of building up a home of torah.

In this new world which I had so reluctantly stepped into, I was about to discover that some dreams, no matter how lofty, have to step aside to make room for the sometimes bitter reality.

It was with this realization that I took on my second job. It was with this same realization that I pulled out my debit card, week after week, to buy the shabbos groceries. It was also this realization that led me to pay off the balance at the grocery store and give my father the money to pay a backlog of unpaid telephone bills.

Each occasion was a stab through my heart. Each occasion was a little needle being savagely thrust into the little bubble of dreams residing deep inside my heart. Each time I pulled out my card, my hand shook. Each time I my father asked me for money and I answered "sure ta, how much?", my voice quivered.

It was with a heavy heart that I listened to shidduch talk all around me. When other girls spoke about support, so their future husbands could learn in Kollel, my heart contracted in pain. I sat there thinking to myself, "Hashem, they talk about their new clothes and shoes, and I don't feel a tinge of jealousy. It is with no trace of envy that I listen to them talk about their upcoming vacations to Israel. But here, they talk of husband in Kollel, of the sweet sounds of Torah resonating in their homes, and my heart fills with such envy I can barely contain it. Please Hashem, Asei Le'manacha im lo le'maneinu! I am not asking for myself, for any kind of personal comfort or glory. I am asking for the sake of You and Your heilige Torah! Please Hashem, grant me the zechus to be able to build a home around the beauty of Limud Torah."

And that is how I started on the next phase of my life. As I sat there with these thoughts, I came upon a new realization.

All of these girls thought that their fathers are sending them a monthly check to help with their expenses. But, I suddenly realized, they were wrong. Because there is only one source of money, or any kind of goodness, and that is Hashem. The same One who sent the money to these girls, in their case through their fathers, can just as easily find another means to send me sustenance.

Suddenly, there was a new bounce in my step. There was this new found feeling of joy and excitement in the very actions which had pained me so deeply. My hand, instead of shaking as I wrote out a check, was completely steady. Money comes and money goes. For the first eighteen years of my life, my father had the money, and he supported me. Now, things have shifted. I now have the money, and I am helping him. One day, when I need the money again, G-d will find an alternative way to provide.

So now, when people ask me what I am looking for in a boy, my answer is simple. I say I am looking for a boy who, when I say that I have a very rich Father who is promising to give me everything I need for the rest of my life...he won't think I am joking. Because I am completely serious.



There never is a good time to have a mountain of financial troubles heaped upon a girls head, is there? But, I must say, if they are going to happen anyway, there are certain times that are better or worse than others. And a time when a girl stands at a crossroads of major life decisions is starting to seem like the best possible time...