#6- Your Mail

Being in shidduchim can be really hard at times for so many different reasons. There’s the waiting, the emotional roller coaster, the unknown, the comments...

One of the most painful parts, in my opinion, is when there is "Radio silence." And I know I’m not the only one who has been through this; it’s fairly common. The phone isn’t ringing off the hook, and it’s easy to start feeling like “Nobody remembers about my existence” or “Nobody cares about me.”

Rabbi Elimelech Biderman related the following story, which was told to him by Rabbi Shalom Mordechai Rubashkin.

When Rabbi Rubashkin was in jail, he received an extraordinary amount of mail from Jews worldwide. The jail warden would come once a week with the mail and call out the recipients' names. Rabbi Rubashkin usually received most of the mail.

One day, as Rabbi Rubashkin’s name was repeatedly being called repeatedly, and every piece of mail was his, the other inmates started accusing him of stealing their mail. Rabbi Rubashkin showed them clearly that all the mail was addressed to him; some letters were even written in Yiddish! It bothered him that the others were jealous; how could they accuse him of taking their mail? Then he thought a little more and took a great lesson from it. He said, “I’m guilty of the same thing!”

Many of the inmates who made appeals to shorten their sentences or end their sentences were successful, and Rabbi Rubashkin would always wonder, “Why does it always work out for everybody else and not me? Why is everybody else getting out of jail, and I’m not?”

Now he realized he couldn't think like that! Everybody gets their own mail! Hashem knows everybody’s address and sends them exactly what’s meant for them at the right time. And that gave him a lot of chizzuk.

Every person, in their own circumstances, can apply the same lesson. A single who hasn’t had any opportunities in months or years, and everyone else around her is getting married; it seems like everyone has forgotten about her, shouldn’t despair! Hashem knows her address; Hashem knows how to send her the right person at the right time!

We shouldn’t look around and think others are getting what’s supposed to be ours.

Because we each have our own address, with our own mailbox!