As we grapple with the l’mah, we must seek the action Hashem wants us to take in response to His Heavenly Plan. The search is often a long process.

As I navigated the waters of living on my own without a spouse, each financial hurdle left my accountant asking in despair, “Why didn’t you ask?”

“Because I didn’t know what I should ask!” I replied.

As I navigated Yamim Tovim and even Shabbosim alone, my dear friend who is an editor suggested I write a book for other women living alone. For a few years, I laughed off her suggestion. “I write magazine articles, submit, and see it in print!” I told her. Immediate gratification! But with time came the realization that writing a book, might, indeed, be my “l’mah.”

An even longer period was needed as I searched for a way to memorialize my son Akiva a”h, a brilliant, charismatic young talmid chacham who was doing kiruv from a young age. But at the right time, we launched a kiruv program in Brooklyn, which is now flourishing in a large community of unaffiliated Jews.

Think, my friends, of the chesed born from those searching for an appropriate response to Hashem’s bewildering plan for their lives. From those who have searched for a refuah have come massive campaigns for tefillos, for Tehillim, for extra learning. Organizations were formed to provide joy and support to families with children suffering from life-threatening diseases or for children growing up without a parent. So many gemachs and organizations were founded by those searching for meaning.

Everyone’s search for “why” is as individual as a thumbprint, yet each of us must find the ability to accept and seek a response that generates positivity in Hashem’s world. Several years ago, I wrote a piece about turning Plan B into Plan A. The catalyst for the article was the last-minute cancelation of a trip to Israel for a family simchah because of a middle ear infection.

Well, Hashem in His infinite wisdom has definitely raised the bar on Plan Bs. I’ve learned that you can’t necessarily make Plan B into Plan A that in any way resembles the Plan A you had always imagined… but still, we search to find a “why,” a “l’mah.

Like searching for chometz every year in the same corner, drawer, or pocket, we may have to continue our search on a fairly regular basis. Writing a book about the world of special needs to memorialize my son Saadya a”h after he succumbed to COVID-19 was by most standards a “l’mah,” but it did not fill the abyss of missing his smile, his infinite simchas hachayim. We launched a weekly Zoom series on the concept of simchas hachayim, with different speakers each week, an ongoing testimony and a valid “l’mah,” yet it does not fill the vacuum of his absence.

So we continue to search — not for the “madua” of Hashem’s inscrutable plans, but to find the “l’mah” — the actions we’re meant to do as we try to bring His world to the ultimate perfection.

Keep searching!

(Originally featured in Family First, Issue 789)