Our readers share the pasuk of Hallel whose strains resonate most melodiously through their life

אֵם הַבָּנִים שְׂמֵחָה 

Naomi Homnick

A glad mother of children.

I was married for three years when I was told I would never have children. I was from a family of seven and my husband was one of nine. Who even thinks in terms of no children? They wouldn’t even take our money. There was no hope, they said.

We then left the medical route and started davening. We got brachos, did segulos, and davened! We went to the Bluzhever Rebbe z”l, who told us we would have a ben zachar. Chacham Ben Zion Abba Shaul z”l gave us a brachah for shalom bayis and told us to light 26 neiros until we had a child. After 11 years of marriage, at a second Seder, I decided to start counting sefirah with a brachah. I figured that with no kids to stop me, I could do this, so I started. A few weeks in, I found out I was pregnant.

With chasdei Hashem, we had a beautiful baby boy who has since made us grandparents as well! Every time I say the line in Hallel, “Eim habanim smeichah,” I reexperience my joy in becoming a mother.

P.S. I’ve counted sefirah with a brachah every year since.

אָנָּה ה' כִּי אֲנִי עַבְדֶּךָ, אֲנִי עַבְדְּךָ בֶּן אֲמָתֶךָ, פִּתַּחְתָּ לְמוֹסֵרָי

Yael Roodyn  |  London

Please, Hashem, for I am Your servant; I am Your servant, the son of Your handmaid. You have released my bonds.

Hashem, I’m Your handmaid, and I speak to You on behalf of Your servant, my son, my second son, who I hope and pray will one day learn to speak, read, and daven himself. But right now, whether he’ll be able to do that is unknown. It’s up to me to beg and plead on his behalf, before and during every one of his many appointments; to ask You to please make each of his doctors, each speech therapist, occupational therapist, physical therapist, into one of Your shlichim to help him, heal him, contribute to his ability to become an active eved Hashem.

Hashem, until You sent me this child, nothing could ever slow me down nor stop me. Since then, I feel my hands are tied behind my back, time and again: from five days after I discovered I was expecting him, on so many occasions throughout my short pregnancy with him, during the two weeks I was in the hospital with broken waters, for the eight weeks he spent in the NICU, over the year that I pumped my own milk for him (while reading to his brother and then coaxing him to take a bottle), during the oh-so-many emergencies and hospital visits. You have forced limits upon me via this child, limits that take on meaning every time I remember Dovid Hamelech’s words at the end of this famous pasuk: pitachta l’moserai.

My hitpatchut, Hashem, my self-development, is coming from moserai, from these challenges, these limits You’re imposing upon me that stop me from saying yes to so much, that minimize my feeling alive, joyous from self-expansion, euphoric from being in free-flow mode…

But giving without limits isn’t emulating You. Hashem is “Keil shakai, sh’amar l’olam dai.” You told the world, enough, just enough revelation of Your Presence to make sure we have the free choice to look for You and find You.

These limits You put on me are my route to greatness, to my personal tikkun hamiddos. I often find these limits so, so painful, but I know it’s all from You. This is what serving You is about. Doing what You show me that You want from me.

Many women may find themselves talking to Hashem as the handmaid or the slave, or perhaps on behalf of their child. The catalyst doesn’t have to be the journey of a hearing-impaired preemie and his mother. Whatever the event that forces a woman to cry out to her Father in Heaven for help, maybe, just maybe, she’ll sincerely be able to thank Him for that opportunity to connect. And maybe, because she’s directing her request to Hashem, she knows the release from her bonds is already in the past tense.