People tell me: On the phone line people relate so many incredible stories. In the newsletter you publicize all sorts of beautiful success stories. When will we be able to come and tell our own story? I want to give thanks already, to sing Hashem’s praises. My Mizmor l’sodah is ready and waiting to burst out in pure joy; I long to give thanks for the miracles and the wonders and yeshuos. But the situation right now is that I am still in pain.
People are waiting for shidduchim, whether it is the parents or the young man himself. When finally he gets engaged, they need money for the wedding expenses, and it is really not simple. We await a yeshuah, and in the meantime we become pressured and wonder – Mei’ayin yavo ezri? The wedding takes place, and then we wait to see children, the family’s continuity. Here we may discover that we need medical treatment, there another type of yeshuah is needed. Nachas – everyone wants nachas. All day long we ask for and anticipate Hashem’s salvation. Each person, at whatever point he is in life, with the particular yeshuah he is waiting for, asks himself this question: When will I finally be able to sing my song of thanks?
The answer to this is: Right now!
In the beginning of Parshas Bo, before makkos arbeh, there is a passuk from which we learn the mitzvah to retell the story of Yetzias Mitzrayim: “...so that you will relate into the ears of your son and your son’s sons, how I mocked [the people of] Mitzrayim.... And you will know that I am Hashem” (Shemos 10:2).
The situation right now is that Am Yisrael is still in Mitzrayim. Another three heavy makkos are still left, among them makkas choshech, during which many of Am Yisrael who were not worthy of leaving Mitzrayim died. It would seem that it would have been more appropriate to insert the passuk cited above at the end of the story, when the nation is already completely separated from Mitzrayim, after Krias Yam Suf. But Hakadosh Baruch Hu determined that this passuk appear specifically here, when the process is still underway, several months before the wondrous culmination of Krias Yam Suf and the call of zeh Keili v’anveihu, “This is my L-rd, and I will glorify Him.”
The reason the passuk appears here is to teach us that the right time to give thanks is not only at the end of the story but also when we are still in the midst of it. Within the longing and hope for salvation, there is time to stop and think about the mercy and chassadim that Hashem yisbarach has done for us until now.
There is a beautiful story about a bachur who came to Meron, to Rabi Shimon, and gave thanks for the fact that he would be leaving that place as a chassan, and a girl in the ezras nashim gave thanks for the fact that she would leave that place a kallah. Someone made the connection between the two of them, and a beautiful shidduch was the result. This is a nice story to publicize and everyone opens their mouths in wonder at the clear display of hashgachah here. If we speak about a bachur who came to Rabi Shimon and went home still single and searching like before, then what type of story have we told? This is not a story, but only part of a story, and that is the point: to give thanks to Hashem at a time when there is still pain, at the time when we are in Mitzrayim. Already then, we should be giving thanks for everything Hashem gives us: for our health, for the ability to travel and daven, for all the small manifestations of hashgachah pratis, for the mercy and chassadim that accompany us all the time. This is the time to give thanks for the full story which we will yet be able to tell. This is the best time to come to the point of, “And you will know that I am Hashem.”
The story is told of a couple who came to the gaon and tzaddik Rav Yehoshua Leib Diskin zt”l and expressed their great pain over the fact that all the children born to them had passed away a short while after their birth. The tzaddik asked them, “Are you healthy? Do you eat?” They answered, “Yes.”
The tzaddik explained: In Birkas Hamazon we say the word “zan” four times. In the first brachah, birkas Hazan, authored by Moshe Rabbeinu, the word zan appears three times, and in the brachah Nodeh l’cha, composed by Yehoshua bin Nun, it appears once. The letters of the word zan have the numerical value of 57, and four times 57 is 228.
228 has the same numerical value as the words chozek ha’emunah – “the strength of emunah.” If we add another 4, for the four times that the word zan appears in Birkas Hamazon, the sum is 232, which is the numerical value of tze’etza’im – offspring.
After all these calculations, the tzaddik instructed the couple to accept upon themselves to recite Birkas Hamazon with deliberate concentration, and to thank Hashem for all the good that He gave them, and in that merit they would have living children.
The couple took upon themselves to say Birkas Hamazon with kavanah, and indeed, Rav Yehoshua Leib’s blessing came true, and they had children and many offspring who are alive today as a result of this blessing.
May Hashem enable us always to see His great chessed, to give thanks and praise for all the stages in our lives, and to see, speedily, the complete yeshuah and geulah.
