Some women do more than dress up for their sisters’ wedding day. They plan and finance the entire simchah, in the place of a parent who can’t
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hat a young mother you are!” a woman exclaimed as she offered a mazel tov to Miri, who was standing next to the bride. “You barely look older than the kallah!”
Miri laughed but didn’t say anything. She was very close in age to the beaming kallah — in fact, the two sisters are only a decade apart. Since their mother’s passing eight years ago, Miri has served as a stand-in for that role.
“I remember the moment after the chuppah, when the chassan took my sister to the yichud room,” recalls Miri. “Through my tears, I said to myself, ‘I can’t believe we’ve reached this point. From now on, there’s someone else who’ll take care of her — she has her own home now.’ I felt like someone had lifted a heavy load off my shoulders and my heart.” A 33-year-old interior decorator, Miri is also a mother of five — her eldest is 11 years old and her baby just over a year.
Most mothers Miri’s age are busy juggling their home responsibilities, children, and work stress. Few have the additional mammoth obligation of raising a sibling, helping her navigate the world of shidduchim, planning her wedding, and setting up her new home.
Here, three young mothers who escorted their sisters to the chuppah share their stories.
Answering the Knock
For Miri, stepping into the role of “second mother” started with a knock on her door.
“After my mother was niftar, Tikva came to us one evening for ‘the time being’ and stayed until her wedding day,” says Miri. “At the time, I was 25 years old, married for five years with three small children.”
The family dynamic changed abruptly and dramatically with Tikva’s arrival. “It wasn’t like we suddenly had a live-in babysitter,” emphasizes Miri. “Think about what a high-school girl’s daily schedule is like. Tests, studying, activities, school politics… and we were a young couple, just starting out.
“After a day of formula, diapers, ‘Mommy, I have a boo boo,’ ‘He took my…’ and chasing three active little kids, I longed for the evening so I could finally sit down with my husband. But then Tikva would come home and want to share what happened during her day and who said what to whom, who was insulted, and just how sick and tired of all this studying she is.
“I couldn’t say to her, ‘Can you go to your room so I can have some quiet?’ Her emotional condition was delicate and she needed a listening ear. I had a lot of misgivings that maybe I wasn’t giving her enough, and she wasn’t getting what a girl her age needs, because of my lack of maturity.”
There was also the significant financial burden. “Before Tikva showed up, my husband and I were trying to figure out our budget. You know how it is, we were a young couple counting every dollar, and suddenly, not only did we have another mouth to feed, but we had a teenager who needed money for clothing, summer camp, and school books, who sometimes was just in the mood for pizza, and who wanted to offer expensive nosh to her friends who’d come to study for a test. It was a serious financial strain,” says Miri. “At a certain point, we realized that we would be the ones who would have to marry her off — there simply wasn’t anyone else to do it.”
Miri had no choice but to grow up quickly. “At 28, instead of making cakes for my first-grader’s siyum, I was occupied with shidduch inquiries and negative responses, with comforting and supporting my sister, as well as managing financial negotiations,” she says.
Hindy also raised her younger sister and brother from a young age. “Rechie and Hershie came to me when they were 16 and 14,” says Hindy. At the time, she was a 28-year-old mother of four—her oldest was eight, her youngest a toddler.
“The story behind their coming to my house is a painful one—my parents aren’t functional and are out of the picture for various reasons,” says Hindy, who’s now 35. “In addition to the emotional challenges of raising them, we had substantial financial difficulties as well. Social Services was involved, so we got a tiny stipend, but it barely covered expenses.”
Despite the challenges, she escorted both of her siblings to the chuppah and helped them build happy, stable homes.
Tzipporah’s story is a little different. Even though her younger sister, Ahuva, never officially moved in with her, Tzipporah was the one who married her off. The two sisters’ elderly parents are thankfully well, but are religiously very far from the world of their daughters. Tzipporah became committed to Yiddishkeit as a teen and is now a kollel wife, mother of four young children, and a teacher in a small high school; Ahuva eventually established a kollel home as well. Since the sisters and their parents don’t always see eye-to-eye hashkafically, Tzipporah ended up being the one to marry Ahuva off, helping her navigate shidduchim from her first date until her wedding day.
Making a Match
Even parents with many years of experience in shidduchim only get through the parshah by clinging to emunah. The same was true for these “mothers” of siblings.
“For me, the whole situation was a reminder that Hashem is with us every second,” reflects Hindy, who had not one but two siblings to marry off. “It’s impossible to get through this period any other way.”
Hindy’s sister was the first to enter shidduchim. “Because of our family background, Rechie got crazy suggestions. I’d start to make inquiries, hear details, and burst out crying. This is the bochur they’re suggesting for Rechie, my wonderful sister, the most incredible girl I know? I was so young, I didn’t have the tools to deal with this injustice.”
She remembers one shidduch suggestion in particular. “I got a lot of pressure about a boy who, in my opinion, wasn’t suited for Rechie. Everyone told me, ‘Rechie needs to compromise, and this compromise isn’t so terrible.’ But after Rechie met him, I saw the despair on her face. She was afraid to say no, even though she didn’t like him at all, because who knows what else she could get. I called back the shadchan and told her, without worrying about the future, ‘No, thank you—he’s not for us.’
“I can’t say that I wasn’t scared—maybe I was ruining my sister’s future. But I knew my job was to fight for her. It wasn’t her fault that her parents can’t do it! In the end, we saw how Hashem is calling the shots. Two months after we said no to that boy, Rechie got engaged to a wonderful bochur, who today is her devoted husband.“
Miri was trying to finalize her sister’s shidduch while in the middle of her third trimester—Tikva’s vort took place a few short weeks before Miri gave birth. “Whenever I had no more strength, I’d remind myself, ‘Whoever raises an orphan in their home, it’s as if they gave birth to him.’
“Still, sometimes, I’d say to myself, ‘That’s it. I can’t anymore.’ But moments like that passed, and we overcame the crises. I felt Hashem supporting me along the way.”
The Pre-Wedding Whirlwind
It took siyata d’Shmaya for these young mothers to find a match for their siblings—and then more siyata d’Shmaya to get them to the chuppah.
Whenever Miri went shopping with the kallah, there was a prayer on her lips: “‘Mommy,’ I’d say to my mother in my heart, ‘I’m going shopping instead of you, please daven that we’ll be successful…’ Baruch Hashem, we had unbelievable siyata d’Shmaya. For example, we found an apartment immediately. When we left the first apartment we looked at, my sister said to me, ‘It’s as if they built that apartment for me.’”
Still, Miri was out of the house a lot and worried about the impact it was having on her young children. “During the weeks when we were shopping night after night, I once met a lovely neighbor who asked me how I was managing,” remembers Miri. “I told her that everything’s fine, but the children and baby aren’t seeing much of me. She said something that gave me a lot of chizuk: ‘Your kids won’t lose out from it! They’ll only benefit from the chesed their mother is doing.’ Her words gave me strength, and every time I left the baby, I said to myself, ‘He won’t lose out, he’ll only gain.’ And I left feeling much calmer.”
Acts of chesed made the process smoother. “The day before the wedding, I went to the sheitel macher for some finishing touches on my wig,” remembers Miri. “Her lines are always long, and I thought to myself, Here’s another day when I won’t be home when the kids walk in the house.
“I got there and there were lots of women ahead of me, as usual, and suddenly the sheitel macher announced, ‘Everyone out of the way! It’s Miri’s turn now.’ She said to me, ‘Come, sit down. It’s not easy to make a wedding at your age, and the kids are waiting for you at home. You don’t have any older kids to take care of them instead of you, like most mothers who are marrying off kids.’ Fifteen minutes later, I was outside. I quickly flagged down a cab and managed to arrive home at the same time as the children.”
For Tzipporah, the preparations for her sister Ahuva’s wedding were a balm for her soul because of the contrast to her own chasunah—she married herself off without any backing from her parents, either financial or emotional.
“By Ahuva, everything was different,” she says. “I decided that I’d serve as her mother, and I really did feel like I married off a daughter. I bore the burden and responsibility for all the wedding preparations. We developed an incredible relationship during that period. My younger sister turned into my friend, despite us being ten years apart. It was good for me to be there for her, to give her all I hadn’t had. It was a wonderful, happy time.”
There were, of course, challenges along the way. “Moneywise, we had an abnormal financial burden. We couldn’t ask my parents for money to buy the things you need to set up a home. In my parents’ reality, a couple makes their own wedding,” Tzipporah explains. “My husband and I were a young couple with a mortgage to pay, but we committed to buying my sister everything, including a wig, clothing, linen, and basic furniture.
“It doesn’t make any sense, but somehow everything fit into our budget. I’m not a ‘sale’ type, and suddenly we found unbelievable bargains. We got through the wedding without going into debt. How did it happen? I can’t explain it. I wrote down all the expenses in a notebook, and it was like I submitted it for reimbursement. I felt Hashem with us at every purchase.”
Hindy’s husband also agreed to shoulder the financial load of his sister-in-law Rechie’s wedding. “But he was very stressed during that time,” Hindy admits. It was also difficult for her, schlepping from wedding halls to shopping malls to gowns fittings. “My kids went from one babysitter to another.”
Hindy remembers one especially taxing day. “We went to another city to shop for robes, tichels, and linen. It was hot, there was a lot of traffic, and I was exhausted from a day of shopping. All I wanted was to put my head down on my pillow in my air-conditioned room. The whole way home, I planned out what I had to get done before I could go to sleep. But there was road work being done the main road, and I realized that yet again, I’d go to sleep in the wee hours of the morning again. I was so tired and frustrated.
“I davened to Hashem, telling Him that I’m expending all this effort for my sister who doesn’t have anyone else to marry her off. In that zechus, I’m asking that I have a baby girl, because at that time I had only boys. I remember that moment so clearly, how I had a deep feeling that my prayer was answered.
“A number of months went by, and I had a baby…boy. I feel uncomfortable saying this, but I felt bad. I devote my life to two orphans, and this is my reward?
“I went around with mixed feelings for a long time, until I spoke with a wise mentor enlightened me. She helped me understand that we’re not in charge here. Everyone has a Divine plan prepared for her good. The child who was born is the best one for me, even if I don’t understand it.
With time, I made peace with it. A number of years have passed since then, and I can tell you that this boy is a particularly special child,” says Hindy. “He truly is a gift from Heaven.”
At her lowest moments, Miri could see Hashem’s guiding Hand. Her eyes fill with tears as she remembers one such incident, which occurred around a month before Tikva’s wedding. “It was important to my husband and me to marry my sister off respectably—she went through so much and we wanted to cushion the way for her financially. For that, we obviously needed a lot of money. The weight on my husband’s shoulders was tremendous, and he tried to raise money from whomever he could.
“One time, he asked me to speak to a woman who was a well-known philanthropist. The phone call was scheduled for four. I planned on having the conversation while preparing supper for my children—something I was often unable to do during that period because of all the running around. That morning, each child had told me what he wanted, and I promised them that I’d make them a very special supper.
“When I called this wealthy woman on my cell, I remembered I didn’t have reception in the kitchen. I waved goodbye to the peeler and potatoes and went to the edge of the living room, where there’s better reception. I stood there talking for an entire hour. When I hung up, I glanced at my watch—it was 5 p.m. Today, yet again, there wouldn’t be a special supper for my children.
“It sounds like something trivial, so the kids won’t have something special…but for me, it was a difficult experience. Why is it their fault that their mother’s busy marrying off her sister? Maybe I shouldn’t have had the conversation at their expense? I was so frustrated that I davened to Hashem and said, ‘I want to be a good mother to my little ones, and I want to marry off my orphan sister respectably without anyone losing out. Please help me.’
“Suddenly, I heard knocking. On the other side of the door I found a delicious aroma and bags of food with a large note attached: ‘Dear Miri. Two months have passed since you gave birth, and I only got around to making you a meal now. Better late than never. Mazel tov!’ My sweet friend had sent us supper in honor of the birth of my two-month-old daughter. Inside the bags were my kids’ favorite foods. That meal,” says Miri, “was a loving statement from Hashem: ‘My daughter, I’m with you all the way.’”
A Mitzvah Done Right
Thankfully, these situations are unusual. But if Hashem hands you the task of marrying off a sibling—or anyone whose parents can’t pitch in—aim to do it the best way possible: Don’t forget that Hashem is the One taking care of the kallah’s needs. Hashem made you His partner in the mitzvah, not the sole activist. Turn to Him with any problems that arise, and He’ll help. And don’t slip into thinking that if the kallah were living in her original house or if her mother were marrying her off, things would be much better. Hashem created this reality, and He’s supporting both of you.
Be careful with the kallah’s dignity. When you want to ask for a discount, never do so in front of the kallah. It’s mortifying for her. You can call before you go, make arrangements in advance, or arrange for the kallah to walk out of the store, and then ask. Better to pay full price than to embarrass an orphan or needy kallah. Remember, too, that the money the kallah needs is being channeled through you, and it will come! Try to give her whatever you can. Make sure your own children don’t pay too high a price because their mother is doing chesed.
“Get yourself as much help as you can—the help is part of the expenses,” says Devora Rosengarten, a life coach and parenting teacher. You don’t always have to pay for help: See if your local hachnassas kallah organization will provide babysitting or meals. If possible, “try to include your kids in what’s going on,” suggests Mrs. Rosengarten. “‘Today we’ll go find shoes for Rivky.’ ‘Today we’re going to buy the young couple towels.’ Including them leads to cooperation. The children will be excited to be part of things.”
When you face challenges, remind yourself that this too will pass. Remember that the day will come when He’ll pay you back for everything—with interest. “Don’t forget what you’re gaining,” says Mrs. Rosengarten. “And I’m not talking about the heavenly reward that you’ll get. I’m referring to the experience that you’re acquiring. This merit will standby you in the form of life experience that will help you when you marry off your own children. Do this noble mitzvah with joy and you upgrade the chesed.”
(Originally Featured in Family First, Issue 578)
