A Yid told me:
Last Chanukah, my wife asked me to do the following segulah: On the day of Zos Chanukah, you write your requests on a sheet of paper and put it into the glass cups of the menorah. Then a year later you open the notes and see how your requests were fulfilled.
I wasn’t excited by the idea. We believe in tefillah and in asking Hakadosh Baruch Hu for all our needs; we have the Tehillim of Dovid Hamelech, which were composed for every Jew who finds himself in times of difficulty. Why did I need notes in the menorah?
After thinking it over, though, I decided that putting a note with a request into the menorah is not a sin, and shalom bayis is a mitzvah. So I sat and wrote down all our recent dilemmas and problems, and I davened that each of these issues would be resolved.
This year I opened the menorah and took out the notes and saw that one request was fulfilled, another request – also fulfilled, and regarding the third request, I had long ago forgotten about this difficulty.
I had always known that Hashem answers our tefillos, but for some reason, a person tends to forget his previous problems. He gets what he asked for long ago, and he forgets to say thank you. When I read all the requests from the previous year, I was able to see how much tefillah helps.
Rav Yehuda Mandel shlit”a speaks a lot about how a Yid should list all the things that he asked Hashem to give him and that he received. Every Yid could write a whole sefer about this.
The Chazon Ish said that there is a special yetzer hara that causes a person to forget the miracles Hakadosh Baruch Hu does for him, because this memory is what most strengthens one’s emunah in the Creator of the world. I have a Father who listens to all my tefillos and to every request.
Similarly, we could establish a new segulah every Erev Rosh Chodesh or every Erev Rosh Hashanah. We can write down the requests, hide the paper in a specific place, and open it afterward, to thank Hashem for all His chessed that He does with us when He hears our tefillos.
Gut Shabbat
Pinchas Shefer
Parshs Vayechi - Shemot 5785 ■ Issue 155
