My cousins who live in England came to Eretz Yisrael for Sukkos. Like all the Yidden here, they followed what was happening with great fear and pain, and they felt the fear of the war. They wanted to return to their home in England, but all the flights were cancelled.
They stayed on, angry at the airline for shirking their responsibility, and embittered by the long stay that was forced upon them, far away from the normal routine of their lives. It was really not simple for them to stay. They had no appropriate clothing, and they were missing basic items. They remained in the country for a week and a half, until a flight was arranged for them. They had to take whatever was available by default: a long, thirty-hour flight with a stopover and an overnight stay in Cyprus.
As it was wartime and many flights had been cancelled, people from all over England got onto that flight. Ordinarily, many of them would have taken a different flight and landed in a different airport. But on this flight, together with my uncle was a chareidi family, and they have a son, a masmid, learning in yeshivah in Yerushalayim. That son did not join them; he remained in the “battlefield,” to protect the people of Eretz Yisrael by learning the holy Torah.
My uncle has a daughter, and the other family had the opportunity, for thirty hours, to observe her. It was enough time to see how she acted, and how she helped her parents and siblings. They were very impressed, and they felt she could be a suitable shidduch for their son.
Indeed, the shidduch materialized. May the zivug be oleh yafeh. Od yishama b’arei Yehudah uv’chutzos Yerushalayim...kol chassan v’kol kallah!
