Hashgachah Pratis in the Sefarim Hakedoshim
Excerpts from the popular shiur by Harav Yehuda Mandel shlit”a from Lakewood
The Incredible Remote Control we have in Hand
“Rabbi, what should we do?” a respectable Yid asked me. “We married off our daughter to someone whom we understood was an excellent bachur, only to discover after the wedding that he is not at all what we thought. We thought he was immersed in Torah and yiras Shamayim, and that is not the case. We thought he had good middos, that he was a pleasant bachur with a positive disposition, but we discovered the opposite. What should I do? Will I remain in this pain forever?!”
I get many such calls, from parents of boys and girls, from men calling about their wives, and from wives calling about their husbands.
I have one excellent response, something I heard from mori v’rabi Rav Ozer Schwartz zt”l:
“In a shidduch, you receive exactly what you want; and if you don’t, you can change it easily.”
This means that you’ll always have the perfect spouse. Whether your choice was indeed perfect, and your spouse is exactly as you imagined, or even if not – it is in your hands to turn everything around and to make him perfect in every respect.
How do we do this?
Get to know the most complex and incredible system that exists in the world – it is a type of remote control. A little bit of work with the remote control in your hands, and you can transform the person you wanted to change.
This really works, and most importantly, you don’t need to talk, criticize, or argue. Without any of this effort, you’ll get a new person.
This works not only with a spouse; parents who want to change their children can use this system too.
I know hundreds of people who have done this and succeeded.
Here’s one example: A woman married someone who seemed to be heartless. He had terrible middos and no yiras Shamayim. He did not learn, did not daven, and did not even don tefillin. He acted coarsely.
She decided that she would change him, not by use of comments and criticism, but by remote control.
And she succeeded, big-time. Today she is reaping the fruits. Her husband is blossoming – he is a tzaddik with good middos.
What did she do? Every day she would close herself in her room for twenty minutes to daven to Hashem. She would speak about her husband, saying things like, “My husband is a tzaddik, a yarei Shamayim, a lamdan, a good man, dignified, pleasant, and considerate.”
She did this day after day. It was not easy. But the results were dramatic, and they made all her huge efforts worthwhile.
This is how we change people! By giving them the benefit of the doubt!
This is not my chiddush. It is written in sefer Peleh Yoetz (on the entry of Sanegoria):
“For everything that a person speaks makes an impression and arouses the Heavenly Courts. If he speaks accusingly, he arouses the prosecuting angels, and if he speaks [positive,] defending words, he arouses the defending angels, and his words bear fruit.”
Try it, and you’ll see yeshuos.
