Yehudis Sherman makes sure that no divorced woman faces life alone

From a mother of nine, Yehudis became a mother to hundreds when she opened her heart and home to host divorced women for Shabbos and Yom Tov through her organization, Mishpachteinu.

After raising nine children and marrying off four of them, I never thought becoming single again was even a possibility. But it happened, and my husband and I got divorced. I’m a positive person, and while I try to see the good in everything that happens in my life, finding the silver lining in the aftermath of my divorce was a struggle.

I distinctly remember my first Purim as a single mother. My kids weren’t with me for the seudah, and the pain of my empty home threatened to swallow me. Determined not to let my loneliness get the better of me, I’d invited six women in similar situations to join me for the seudah. I’d thrown myself into the preparations and patchkeh’d for days, hoping the distraction would help me find a bit of the simchah so integral to that time of year.

But as the day drew closer, one by one the women I’d invited explained that something had come up and they wouldn’t be able to make it. Purim day came, my table set with a feast — and there I sat, alone. One woman came over to wish me a freilechen Purim. She took one look at my face — and I burst into tears. I remember crying and davening to Hashem, “Please, don’t ever let me be this lonely again.”

Like I said, I try to see the good in every aspect of my life, but in that moment the pain pierced straight through my heart. My cries, however, must have pierced the Heavens, because since that Purim, my house has never been empty, and I’ve never been alone again.

That Purim was the catalyst for my founding Mishpachteinu. I had to understand what loneliness was. I had to experience complete aloneness to embark on the mission Hashem had in mind for me.