Shira didn’t fit into any shadchan’s box. Too much of an independent thinker to swim along with social norms, she liked mint-green nail polish and dangling scarves. Too much of a free spirit to want any run-of-the-mill bochur, she kept us tossing at night with her search for the perfect son-of-a-Zulu chief convert who had spent most of his adult life searching for truth and was now waiting in the wings to marry her — except that she was barely 22 and wouldn’t know Zulu if she heard it.

And — here’s the zinger — Shira was also too emesdig to fall for the long flowing sheitels so many of her friends were wearing, but not exactly enamoured with the short sheitel look either, so she’d already decided she would stick to headscarves.

I had no problem with that. If I was honest with myself, and even if I was not, I’d be hard put to refute her position. But she still wanted a boy in her age bracket, someone who was prepared to sit and learn, and who had a good, honest, frum outlook on life.

Well, in our neck of the woods, most serious yeshivah bochurim are somewhat more… mainstream.

The dichotomy wasn’t lost on my daughter, and there were days when she’d declare, with downcast eyes, “I’m beginning to think I’ll never get married, Mummy.”

Me? I knew there was someone out there, somewhere. But I understood why her forecast felt so bleak.

Miri’s simchah came at a very raw time. Incredibly, Shira had just been suggested someone who checked all her boxes perfectly: exotic background, independent personality, brilliant learner, good middos (in ascending importance).

They met just the once, and he turned her down. She was still too raw, he said. Not yet sure who she was, or where she was going. Ah, well. I kept my mouth shut.

Only two days before, Miri had called with her exciting news, and obviously Shira was there for her now, thrilled for her friend, and helping set up the engagement party. But as soon as the petit fours were laid out, and the hall filled with guests, Shira made a discreet getaway to the stairwell out back, and she cried like she’d never cried before.

She turned to Hashem, begging for guidance, asking for a miracle.

Fast forward nine months…

It had been a long, hot summer.

Since Pesach, Shira had been teaching in a dorm for struggling girls. The position was stressful, fraught with politics and strife, and she was desperate for time out.

When the wind turned crisp, and the autumn leaves began to yellow, a staffer from another school, where she’d taught only briefly, invited her to join some students on a once-in-a-lifetime trip to Poland.

Shira was already booked on a flight to Uman with a friend, but this was so much more her thing. She cancelled her ticket and changed course for Lizhensk.

As she approached the tziyun of her ancestor, the Noam Elimelech, a solemn sense of connection stirred within, and once again, all pent-up tears broke loose.

She wasn’t the only one…

Earlier that year, a devout Israeli boy learning in France traveled with his yeshivah to daven in Uman.

He wasn’t your conventional litvisher boy. He liked wearing open-toed sandals, letting his tzitzis fly free, and learning Noam Elimelech with his father. He felt stifled in the regular Israeli yeshivos.

In France, he could delve into his Gemara like the serious learner he was, but against an expansive backdrop of lush green meadows. Here, he could lead the weaker boys in song as he slammed away on his darbuka at the kumzitz.

But when this boy and his friends reached the Ukrainian border, his idyllic existence spun out of control. Due to a passport technicality — an overlooked expiration date — the entire yeshivah was given free pass to Rebbe Nachman, while he, only he, was turned back.

With Rosh Hashanah just days away, the young man traveled alone through Poland, desperate for a place to stay. Somehow, he found himself in Lizhensk.

Alone and disappointed, his wings shorn and bruised, he no longer felt quite so carefree. There, at the grave of the Noam Elimelech (the brother of his ancestor, Reb Zusha), he cried for a miracle.

Winter set in. His yeshivah relocated to Eretz Yisrael. His older siblings, all 11 of them, were bent on finding a wife for their sweet brother. One sister in particular, made this her own special mission. Taking a walk one evening, wrapped in thought as she tried to solve this matrimonial puzzle, she just happened to glimpse our daughter in passing.

A girl she happened to have taught back in seminary… a girl she knew well.

To cut a long story short—

One carefree spirit met another. And, what do you know? The first time they met, he shared an unexpected secret. He had a dream. He knew it was unlikely. Far-fetched. But he had always nurtured the hope that his wife would agree to forego sheitels.

Within a week of their first meeting, they were chassan and kallah.

Same date, same place, as where my daughter had first cried, “Hosha Na!” precisely 12 months before.

(Originally featured in Family First, Issue 813)