Ah, yes, but of course He did! Okay, There’s a neis story in the offing. Turns out, Miri has a friend Shuli*, whose teenage son, sadly, is no longer keeping Shabbos. He does, however, come to the Shabbos seudos, and a couple of months earlier, Miri had begun sending Shuli a challah every so often for Shabbos. After a few weeks, Shuli’s son told her, only half-jokingly, that the only reason he came to the meals was for “Mrs. Kramer’s challah.” As soon as Miri heard that, she made sure to send Shuli challos every single week. Sometimes she’d drop it off, sometimes Shuli would swing by and pick them up on Friday. That past Friday, Shuli called Miri at work to say she was in Miri’s neighborhood, could she come by for the challos?

“Sure!” Miri replied. “Go into my study and take from the big freezer. But take a bunch of extras from the stash, because my mixer died and I’m not baking anytime soon.”

“Miri, no!” panicked Shuli, “please, I need you to bake challah! It’s the only reason Nachum comes to the seudah, and you can’t stop. I’m sending you a picture of my credit card, pleeeease go buy a mixer before next Shabbos!”

So Miri bought a new mixer, and while it was just another usual day in the life of a very not surprised Miri Who Lives On Nissim, I was once again left breathless, because these things only happen to her. All the time.

“Baruch Hashem, our son is getting married in two months. Unfortunately, our income doesn’t allow any room at all to spend on a simchah. We’re eternally grateful to gemachim in town who help with weddings, but they usually send assistance right before the simchah, so we don’t know if or when or even how much is coming. I’m a very organized, plan ahead type of person, so this can be very challenging for me….”

It’s simchah season in Miri’s house, and for someone like Miri, who would be preparing every last detail well in advance, not being able to order or pay for anything in advance — even buying ingredients in bulk to bake — is a big deal. Oh, she knows Hashem will send it somehow, she’s sure of it, but when her girls ask if they could go look for gowns today, the answer is… no. Hashem hasn’t sent her a neis yet.

“Hashem obviously wants me to work on myself and my teva, to go against my nature of being organized and prepared, because I don’t have the finances to take care of deposits or payments that need to be given at this time: paying the shadchan, the chassan’s side of the wedding expenses, jewelry, etc. I clearly see what Hashem wants: He wants me to work on myself to not always do things when I think I need to, to release some control, to wait patiently until He works it out. It’s really, really hard….”

Miri said these words to a coworker, and then told me about her conversation. Just a day or two later, on Rosh Chodesh Kislev, she noticed a friend’s status which said that the month of Kislev is a time of great nissim, and if one does his best not to complain during the month of Kislev and says perek kuf — Mizmor l’Sodah — several times throughout the day, he is zocheh to nissim.

“I forwarded that message to my husband, and we both joked a little about it, saying we hope we didn’t mess up the opportunity; it was already the second day of Kislev, and I can’t say I hadn’t been stressed about our finances!”

But Miri’s life being Miri’s life — where she might feel the pinch, and sometimes even the pain, of hester panim while simultaneously knowing in her bones that her Hidden Father will come through for her somehow — something was bound to happen. She discussed with her husband that she really, really wanted to tap into this segulah, to not complain and thank Hashem, and they joked about how they might have missed the boat in the first 24 hours of the month but would take on the challenge from that moment, and then they hung up.

Two minutes. That’s all it took.

It was literally two minutes later when Miri’s phone pinged with a text her husband forwarded to her. He had just received a text from a family friend saying that in order to help ease their wedding expenses, he was sending them a specific sum of money that very day.

You can’t make this stuff up.

And so, while Miri struggles every day not knowing where the next penny might come from, while she struggles with the fact that she wishes it came from Hashem’s Hand directly into hers without needing so many intermediaries, while she struggles with a nisayon that can often feel so vulnerable and public and disheartening, one thing she does not struggle with is knowing Who it’s coming from and the clarity of knowing that He wants this role for her.

There are people today who live with nissim, with a date tree and a stream keeping them alive.

I’m blessed to know one of them.

Miracles Sometimes Come in Twos

Ahava Ehrenpreis

IT began during a summer visit to Israel, where our family enjoyed the special air of Yerushalayim while my husband lectured at Hebrew University, as he had done for years. Our eldest daughter had just completed her master’s degree in biochemistry as a companion to her master’s in scientific journalism. I suggested she might enjoy remaining in Eretz Yisrael for the Yamim Noraim, and then return to America to seek employment.

When her talents as a science writer led to a position at an Israeli high-tech company, she decided to extend her stay even longer. Aliyah had never been on her radar, though, so I assumed she would return to America sooner than later.

But a few months later, a call from her hinted that there might be someone we would want to meet on our next trip to Israel.

The rest, as they say, is history.

In the crossroads of the Holy Land, my daughter’s bashert had made aliyah from Down Under. They young couple met, became engaged, and were married in the Great Synagogue. They settled in Jerusalem to start a family.

It was to be a long and difficult wait. Year after year, their dream was not realized. They made the decision to accept the Heavenly decree and applied to Sherut L’Ma’an HaYeled, the government agency that handles adoption.

Israel has very strict adoption rules; foreign adoptions are highly regulated and “black market” nonlegal adoptions aren’t acceptable. After officially applying, my daughter and son-in-law filled out medical and financial information forms, wrote personal essays, chose just the right headshots, and spent an entire day at an evaluation institute in Tel Aviv, responding to a series of trick questions (when I am angry, I… [Choose the correct answer:] “Scream and jump up and down versus calmly express my negative feelings). They drew pictures and were interviewed by a team of psychologists.

It would be almost two years before they received formal approval. By then, a miracle had happened — they discovered they were expecting a baby. Heaven responded to their eight years of beseeching when their daughter was born the following Succos. Their joy knew no bounds.

But as the years passed, their beloved daughter became more aware of her adored and treasured but very much “only child” status. The personal yearning to extend their family multiplied manyfold, as they wanted to give their daughter what only the One Above could grant… a sibling.

So as their daughter turned seven, they reapplied to become adoptive parents. Having done all the original paperwork and testing, they were accepted with no problem, but were told that there would be a wait, and that their status was now changed. Because of the limited number of babies that were available for adoption, couples with their own biological children were automatically disqualified from the “infant roster” and placed on the “children roster.”

But many of the children on the roster had experienced multiple transitions and very often had serious emotional or physical challenges as a result. During the application process, they had been asked to fill out a “what do you think you can handle” questionnaire by listing which issues they were willing to contend with: dysfunctional family background, familial medical issues, physical health conditions, mental health conditions, etc. The more open they were to challenging circumstances, the greater their chance of adopting a child.

As much as they wanted to increase their likelihood of being adoptive parents, they had to deal with the possible long-term consequences of adopting a child with significant issues.

In the meantime, they traveled to Australia to spend the Yamim Tovim with their paternal grandparents. When they returned, my daughter’s phone screen flashed with the message, “Sarit calling!”

Sarit? Sarit from the adoption agency? There had been long periods when my daughter had called Sarit on a regular basis, only to be told that there was nothing new to report.

Until that phone call.

Sarit asked if they would come in, explaining that she couldn’t discuss matters on the phone, as this was possibly a life-altering meeting.

Monday morning saw my daughter and son-in-law awaiting Sarit in her office. She asked them, “So, what would you think about adopting twin baby girls?”

My son-in-law paused and asked with Aussie honesty, “You mean a five-year-old boy with asthma, right?”

No, they weren’t on the “infant roster,” but the agency had determined that twin babies might be too overwhelming for a couple who had never had a child. So yes, this was a genuine offer for them to adopt twin baby girls.

Sarit gave them time to consider the offer, but would expect the answer within a week.

My daughter and son-in-law wavered between thinking, “Of course we want to adopt them, it’s a miracle,” to “Can we really, totally change our lives to go back to diapers and sleepless nights — and in doubles!” Their daughter was decidedly in favor (“Being an only child was good — but now it’s time to move on,” she announced). During the following days, they debated back and forth, swinging between wild enthusiasm and genuine anxiety.

The next Monday morning, my daughter called Sarit back. “Yes, adopting the twins would be right for us!” she told her.

When they met their new daughters, it was “love at first sight.” It felt as if the twins had been waiting in the home of their foster family for their Abba and Ima to find them. The twins met their new big sister as well, and the joyful preparations began.

It was to be a period of glorious anticipation and frenzied shopping, as they set up a nursery with two of everything. It alternated with periods of great frustration, as the legal wheels turned painfully slowly. There was even a period of a few weeks when they weren’t allowed to visit the twins, and my daughter’s maternity leave was halted as they awaited all the legal issues to be resolved.

Then, miraculously, as Chanukah and the twins’ first birthday approached, all the legal barriers were removed.

In two car seats in the back seat of their new parents’ car, the twins arrived at their new home, where they were greeted by crowds of joyful neighbors, balloons, welcome signs, and singing. My daughter’s entire yishuv had come out to rejoice with them.

The Chanukah menorah that year shone brightly on the miracle of their family — Abba, Ima, and their three daughters.

Miraculous Return

Esther Mandel

MY grandmother, Bella Salaman, grew up in Mandatory Palestine, in Rechavia. Her father, my great-grandfather Elijah, moved the family over from London when my grandmother was a baby and her brothers Desmond and Sam were just toddlers, after he was offered a job setting up an American Express office in Palestine. Grandma attended the Evelina de Rothschild school on Ussishkin Street. The school had been founded by Annie Landau, the formidable, Frankfurt-educated headmistress who insisted on giving her girls a wholesome British upbringing. Miss Landau took strings of garlic and vials of amulets out of her charges’ hair and from around their necks, calling these “superstitious.” Her goal was to save the starving Orthodox girls from both the streets and conniving Arab suitors, but, “ein bayit she’ein bah meit” — there was no household that didn’t lose a girl one of these ways.

The school was also set up to combat the two already existing Christian girls’ schools Soeurs de Sion and The Jerusalem Girls’ College — which had opened near the Old City. They gave Jewish girls free bed and board and clothed them. For some poverty-stricken parents, the temptation was irresistible, and they sent their daughters to the Christian schools. While both schools declared that baptism was not a requirement, it was strongly encouraged, and attending Christian prayer services was mandatory. It is unknown how many girls were lost to the Jewish people in this way.

The poverty around her was dire, but Grandma lived a charmed life as a British citizen. Curfew didn’t apply to the family, who were British. They had special passes and were even invited to the King’s birthday party to hobnob with the British civil servants.

From 1936, the southern wing of the King David Hotel was commissioned by the Mandate for administrative and military purposes. Many Jewish soldiers who had been stationed in Palestine during World War I decided to stay and started working for the British as civil servants, based at the hotel. It also became the hub of secular Jewry’s social life. Many irreligious Jerusalemites, often German Jews fleeing Hitler’s steady rise, attended the weekly dances at the King David. This is the type of society Grandma’s parents would have likely mingled with. Despite being frum, they were, after all, proudly British.

(On July 22, 1946, Great-Grandpa Elijah sent his son, my great-uncle, Desmond, then a teenager, on an errand to the King David Hotel’s offices. “I had to deliver a package for him,” Desmond explained. As Desmond stepped out of the hotel — “the entire thing blew up behind me. I just lay on the ground, watching the bodies being hurled from the building and smashing with an awful crunching noise against the YMCA building opposite the hotel, leaving thick trails of blood as they slid down the walls. Those brownish stains were there for ages.”

The Irgun had filled 36 milk churns with explosives and stashed them in the King David’s basement. The resulting explosion led to the untimely deaths of many of Great-Grandpa Elijah’s friends and acquaintances. Uncle Desmond staggered away miraculously unharmed. “I remember clearly Colonel Barker raising his fist to the sky and shouting, ‘We will be revenged upon Tel Aviv!’ ”

At the start of World War II, my Great-Grandfather Elijah was called up. It was his job to recruit Jewish boys for a Jewish unit. The boys were eager to join — though not due to their patriotism to the British, as Elijah believed.

In 1945, Elijah, otherwise known as Major Salaman, was posted in Western Italy, training a Jewish Battalion of Palestinian recruits. He notes in a letter to his son Sammy, posted in the Western Desert (near Tripoli) that he is “…located miles from civilization, just undulating country and snow-capped mountains in the distance… I saw Cassino… such devastation of a city seems almost unbelievable. It is completely razed to the ground. Every house and building is merely a rubble heap. One is sickened by the sight….” Elijah struggles with the inclement weather: “Excuse bad writing. It is so cold I can hardly hold a pen… I am done up like a Teddy Bear.”

“Those Jewish boys who Daddy signed up, they always had something to say. They always wanted to go on leave,” Grandma tells me. “ ‘Your wife can’t be having another baby!’ Dad would say, and, ‘You’re taking so much leave, you’re not even half a soldier!’ They’d reply, ‘Better half a soldier than no soldier.’ ” It was only much later that it would become clear the boys had joined the British Army in order to pilfer weapons for use in the upcoming Israeli War of Independence.

And while on leave, some men from Elijah’s unit would assassinate Lord Moyne in Cairo, leading to Elijah being court-martialed, though eventually exonerated.

Light humor is sprinkled among the war news throughout Great-Grandpa’s correspondence. April 3, 1943: Elijah and the other officers over 40 are challenged to a game of football by the young O.R.s. “Not having kicked a ball for at least 20 years… I felt quite proud of myself, as we played a reasonably good game,” he writes. “Still, the result was somewhat one sided — officers lost — 9-0, but I enjoyed every minute of it, am still somewhat stiff although it was a week ago,” Elijah admits. “I am sure,” he adds darkly, “that you are chuckling.”

Grandma laughs when I read out that part of the letter.

“So why did you leave Palestine?” I asked her. It seemed incomprehensible to me. To leave just as Israel was being founded!

“Well, my father got a job in 1946 setting up the American Express offices in Cairo, so we moved there first,” Grandma explained. “But I was desperate to leave Palestine, we all were.”

“What?” I was shocked.

“Darling, it truly was a forsaken, poverty-struck, dusty backwater of the crumbling British Empire. You simply can’t understand it — there was no future there! There was nothing to start off with, and there was the constant unrest, the constant poverty… the war coming up that the Jews had no real way of winning… there was no logical future for us here!”

I was 17 years old when I first heard this, and I was shocked. I was sitting with Grandma Bella at a café on King George Street, downtown Jerusalem bustling all around us. Grandma pointed up the road. “Jerusalem ended there,” she said softly, waving in the direction of Rechavia. “Beyond that, there were just sandy hills filled with olive trees. We’d watch the shadowy figures of the Syrian monks moving between the trees, picking the olives. Far beyond, in the distance, was the tiny Arab village of Baka.”

Grandma fell silent. “There was nothing here. There was no way we were going to win the War of Independence. You’ve all forgotten. We simply couldn’t see a future here.” She looked at the lively streets, people weaving in and out of shops, laughing, chatting, living. “Don’t forget, darling. This is all a miracle.”

Out of Breath

Penina Steinbruch

“Mommy, the baby’s choking! Come now!”

Despite the urgency in my husband’s voice, I wasn’t worried. He tends to panic. I’m the calm one.

I’d been in the kitchen cleaning up after the Friday night seudah while the kids played in the living room. Motzaei Shabbos would be the first night of Chanukah and anticipation already laced the air. Two of the boys were playing kugelach, a game of small metal cubes.

My brain pulled up the last lines I’d heard but not processed, the way you can spit back the last line the teacher said in class while you were daydreaming as soon as you’re accused of not listening.

Then my 11-year-old said, “Eliyahu grabbed the kugelach we were playing with and put them in his mouth. I took one out, but maybe he swallowed one?”

I’m still pretty calm, even as I see my 16-month-old sitting on my husband’s lap. He doesn’t look quite right. He looks like he’s crying, but no sound is coming out and little bubbles foam around his mouth.

But this is kid number ten. I’m not easily rattled. I do a quick finger sweep, expecting the metal cube to come right out. I feel nothing. I turn him upside down against me and bang the middle of his back between his shoulders. When I don’t hear the clink of the cube hitting the floor tiles I’ve been expecting, I turn him over and pound his chest. I’m singularly focused on listening for that clink, until I’m aware of one other thing: My son’s chest isn’t moving at all. He’s not breathing and completely limp in my arms.

Something shifts in my brain. He’s not breathing. If the cube isn’t coming out, he won’t begin to breathe. But if he doesn’t breathe….

“Magen David Adom!” I shout. “Dial 101!”

I’m vaguely aware of my other children screaming and running around in my peripheral vision as I continue banging on my limp baby.

I want to daven, to beg Hashem to help us, but it’s Shabbos, and I have this thought that you’re not allowed to daven for something personal on Shabbos. (I later learned that you are allowed to daven for a sick person who is facing an immediate emergency.) I hear the dispatcher tell my husband to move away from the screaming, and then hear my husband give our address.

My high school daughter approaches. She’d learned first aid that week. They hadn’t covered babies, only children too big to flip over. But he’s not breathing and it’s the best she can do. I try to hand her the baby, but she avoids taking him from me, instead trying to use what she learned while he’s in my arms. She only admits to me later that she hadn’t wanted to be the one holding him when  he— “Mommy, you were holding him against you, so you couldn’t see his face, it was purple. And his mouth was all foamy.”

I’m trying to think, to clear my head and think if there’s anything I can do, when I see the most amazing sight in the entire world. My son’s back is rising and falling.

“He’s breathing! He’s breathing!” I scream, scanning the room to make sure everyone hears what I’m saying. I flip him upright. He sags against my shoulder and pats my back weakly. It’s the cutest thing ever.

In the next moment, Hatzalah volunteers are at my door. Even though we’d called Magen David Adom, both groups listen to each other’s radios, and in our neighborhood, Hatzalah is closer. “Hu noshem, he’s breathing,” I tell them with relief.

He then passes out, but I’m not concerned, since he’s obviously still breathing.

We quickly review what happened. The medics check him. He’s groggy but conscious. What had seemed like forever at the time was really just a few minutes. They advise me to go to the hospital even though he’s breathing. We never heard the cube come out of his mouth. It could still be somewhere in his lungs and had just dislodged enough to allow him to breathe.

There’s an ambulance waiting for us outside. It’s Shabbos. We live around the corner from the hospital. I could walk, I say, the baby is breathing. I’m told the cube could move again and am encouraged to go in the ambulance just in case.

I lie the baby down on the couch to put on his coat and the medics caution me to keep him upright as much as possible, in case the cube moves. I have the presence of mind to take an umbrella stroller. If all is well, I’ll need to walk back home in a few hours.

The medic in the back of the ambulance with me is a sweet young woman with a blonde ponytail. She talks to me and tries to make sure I’m okay and calm.

It’s funny the things you remember. When she escorts us into the pediatric ER, she asks some standard questions, ready to write them down on her clipboard. But it’s Shabbos and I’m not sure if all this information is really necessary. She picks up on my hesitation and accurately guesses the cause. “Don’t worry. I’m not Jewish. I look Jewish because my father’s Jewish.” I simultaneously feel warmth at her instant recognition of Shabbos and sadness at the unknown intermarried father.

We are sent for an X-ray and told where to wait for the doctor. My baby is back to his normal, opinionated self. He’s getting tired of being examined and keeps saying “daaaai” while he pushes away the hands of anyone who tries. I’ve calmed down significantly and have never felt so grateful in my entire life.

But while we wait for the doctor the entire episode replays itself in my head over and over again. I’d barely been aware of my other kids, but now I remember seeing the ten-year-old curled on the couch sobbing, my high school girl and 11-year-old pacing in a panic, holding their heads. My five-year-old crying. That moment when I realized the cube wasn’t falling out and Eliyahu wasn’t breathing plays over and over and over.

This could have ended so differently. Thank You, Hashem. Thank You, Hashem. Thank You, Hashem.

The doctor finds me in the waiting room. She’s gentle, asking me if I’m okay. She explains that the X-ray was clear. They didn’t see anything in his lungs or stomach. Over and over again every medic and doctor had asked if there were any cubes missing, but since the kids had been playing with more than one set, they weren’t totally sure. And they’d been so flustered they couldn’t even count the cubes properly at the time. Over and over again, I’m asked by each professional if maybe the cube came out while I was banging and in the chaos we’d missed it? Over and over again I explain the only thing in the world I was paying any attention to was waiting to hear that clink of that cube coming out, so I don’t think there’s any way I could’ve missed it.

My head is spinning. Had we been through this whole ordeal for nothing? Was there never a cube stuck in my baby’s throat to begin with?

Not so fast, she tells me. Not everything can be seen on an X-ray. Just because they didn’t see it, doesn’t mean it’s not there. She gives me instructions to be vigilant over the next few days and what signs to look out for.

Finally, we’re released and I walk home, grateful I’d thought to bring a stroller. My appreciation for life, and for each of my children, even in their most annoying moments, is so sharp it is almost a physical thing inside my body.

I get home to find all my children still awake. They’ve pushed the two couches together in the middle of the living room and they’re all huddled together inside. As soon as we walk in, they all want to see for themselves that their little brother is okay. But he’s not having any of it. He doesn’t get what all the fuss is about and just wants to be left alone to play with his cars.

I let everyone know what the doctor said, assure them Eliyahu has been given a clean bill of health and mostly just listen to them talk. Let them spill out their fears and memories and process the experience. Everyone has their own version, but there’s one thing they all — including my husband — agree on: “You didn’t see his face. He looked like he was—” No one would finish the sentence.

They didn’t have to.

As far as we could tell, all the kugelach were accounted for. We never found any evidence Eliyahu had actually swallowed a cube. Perhaps when his gag reflex was triggered when his older brother took the cube out of his mouth, he stopped breathing for long enough to scare us and then shortly after resumed breathing.

I struggled with this thought over Shabbos. After all our trauma, it had never really been an emergency.
By Motzaei Shabbos, it was time to light the first flame of Chanukah. While each family member took a turn lighting their menorah, all I could think was how different this night could be. I imagined getting instructions from the chevra kaddisha, chas v’shalom, instead of this blessedly beautiful night watching my family light the first ner Chanukah. It didn’t matter if in retrospect, the danger might not have been real. We had all thought it was, and nothing could change our gratitude and relief.

People like drama. People like a good story. And we love miracles. The more outlandish the odds of survival, the better. But isn’t the message of the flames, the message of the miracles that Hashem is always with us? The miracles are just a reminder that even when we don’t see Hashem’s Hand, it’s there?

I sat in front of the flames with Eliyahu on my lap for a long time celebrating all the things that could have been but weren’t. Bayamim haheim, bazeman hazeh.

(Originally featured in Family First, Issue 924)