A few days before Rosh Hashanah, a profound realization hit me: My bechor’s bar mitzvah was Shabbos Shuvah. Yes, I know I stated that before, but it didn’t dawn on me until I was standing helplessly in front of my only refrigerator that this tiny space had to somehow fit all my cooking for a two-day Yom Tov plus everything I needed for the upcoming simchah. Chanukah would’ve been a better time to make a bar mitzvah. Tu B’Shevat would’ve worked, too. Really, I should have planned his birthday a little better.

That Rosh Hashanah was my ex’s turn with the kids, so my boys flew off to Florida to spend the holiday with their father, his wife, and their children. It’s hard when I’m alone, but I was determined to make the most of my davening time without them. During the intense tefillos of those days, I decided that I wanted to focus on developing my bitachon in the coming year. Apparently, my prayers were answered immediately because Hashem, Who loves me so much, blessed me with lots of opportunities to practice in real time.

At the beginning of Yom Tov, my air conditioner gave out (in Texas, we need air conditioning until November). Then I heard water leaking in my kitchen. As I later learned, the main pipe from my sink had dissolved and water was pouring into my foundation. Breathe in, breathe out. A small kapparah on the house means that nothing else bad will happen, right?

Motzaei Chag, a Tuesday night, my ex called. My children’s flights had been canceled due to the massive, category 4.9 hurricane that was about to slam into Florida. It was predicted to be catastrophic. The airline rebooked them for a late Thursday night flight. The same Thursday night that most of our out-of-town company was flying in and expecting to be fed. My guests would be there, but not the bar mitzvah boy.

What-ifs started flooding my brain. What if my son doesn’t make it back in time? What if they have a makeshift bar mitzvah in Florida without me? What if the entire infrastructure of Florida is destroyed and he doesn’t come back for weeks? I know, not logical at all, but my mind was spinning. I couldn’t function, and I sat on my bed, weeping.

I never cry. Even during allergy season, my eyes barely water. But here I was, sobbing my eyes out. I lay there feeling utterly helpless and alone until my father called. He’d found a way to help. There was a flight leaving Florida the next morning (Wednesday) at 5:45 a.m. and he’d booked tickets for my kids.

My ex kindly agreed to get the kids on the flight, even though he thought there was no way it would take off. I wasn’t convinced it would either. I stayed up most of the night watching flight updates, Tehillim tumbling out of my mouth. In an act of incredible kindness from Hashem, the flight took off on time and landed safely in Texas. I think it was the last plane to leave Florida before the hurricane.

At that point, I looked up at the sky and started to talk to Hashem. I thanked Him profusely for bringing my boys home and then added, “Hashem, I know this is all a test. But please know that I did not study for this test! I have failed it and don’t want a retest! Please, no more tests!” I felt confident we had an understanding.

Now that my sleepy boys were safe and sound in Texas, nothing else mattered. The plumber says my kitchen leak will cost thousands of dollars to fix? Yikes, but that’s for later, not now. Three more people coming? Sure, no problem. One backed out? Sorry to hear, no worries. The DJ canceled three days before the bar mitzvah? Okay, we’ll manage.

The AC got fixed, everyone’s flights arrived on time, and we had a lovely welcome dinner on Thursday night. Baruch Hashem.

Early Friday afternoon, we were supposed to take family photos since this was the first time, in a long time, that my entire family was together. My mother — the Bubby Supreme — had even picked out adorable outfits for all the grandchildren. “Be on time,” everyone was told. And I was going to be, really. But five minutes before we were supposed to meet the photographer, my younger son vomited. You see, when he drinks too much too fast, he throws up. And someone had apparently given him a huge fountain drink, and then another relative had gifted him with a Slurpee. So now there was vomit everywhere. On his clothes, bed, bathroom. All. Over. I wanted to breathe in and out, but it stank too badly.

I quickly found a backup suit and changed him. Every other boy in the family would be in a blue suit and he’d be in gray pinstripes? So what! Not important. We flew out the door, made it to the photo shoot, smiled, and raced back home before Shabbos started. I had a few minutes to clean up the mess we’d left behind, but in the process, some vomit got on my new dress. Bitachon, right? I frantically scrubbed it off, sprayed myself with perfume, and came to terms with the fact that the Bar Mitzvah Boy’s Mother was going to smell like Chanel with puke undertones.

All the important things — the ones that really matter — those went beautifully. Kabbalas Shabbos was uplifting, the seudah was delicious, and everyone went home happy. On Shabbos day, my son’s leining was flawless and his speech to the shul was clear and to the point. I stood side by side with my son’s stepmother and we both smiled at each other with pride. For the kiddush, our shul was packed to the brim with relatives, friends, and community members who wanted to share in our simchah.

Finally, I thought. I can let down my guard. I can simply enjoy the moment. But just as the crowd was beginning to peter out, an announcement was made in shul. “A suspicious bag was found in the shul. Everyone needs to evacuate immediately. The bomb squad is being called.”

No, I’m not joking. This actually happened.

As people poured out of the shul to safer grounds, I cracked. All I could do was laugh. Standing there, in front of friends and family, I laughed so hard tears were streaming down my face. I couldn’t stop. Who else has a bomb threat at their son’s kiddush?! How could I be upset? It was hilarious. People slowly backed away from the crazy lady (me).

Meanwhile, my cousin, a firefighter, saw what was happening and decided to act. He knew that the bomb squad would first evacuate the neighborhood for a radius of a quarter mile, and the whole procedure would take a minimum of four hours. And since our meals were all in the shul social hall, it would be game over for lunch. So he asked a few salient questions and made the decision to open the bag on his own. (Public Service Announcement: That was stupid, don’t try that at home!) Inside the suspicious bag was a change of clothing for a waitress.

Now that the bomb scare was canceled, we made our way back inside the shul for lunch. Still laughing, I washed and sat down. It was only when I stopped to look around that I realized my ex and his wife weren’t sitting. Come to think of it, many of my family members weren’t around. What was going on? Why weren’t they joining the meal?

Turns out, my son’s six-year-old stepbrother was missing. People were concerned, but not panicked. I asked the bar mitzvah boy and his friends to help search the shul. The boys zoomed off, checking to see if the boy was looking for candy somewhere or simply playing hide- and-seek. The shul’s security guard — an amazing, off-duty tactical police officer — was also searching. I could see the worry lines on his forehead. He was still shaken by the bomb scare and now he was dealing with a missing child.

Half an hour later, the boy was still missing. We’d searched every bathroom stall, every closet, every bush around the perimeter. Nothing. Now we had bypassed worried; we were terrified. We’d had over 500 people show up to the kiddush and during the bomb evacuation, it was chaos. Every single terrible thought, every parent’s darkest anxiety, was seizing control of my brain. I tried to appear calm, but the “what ifs” were racing through my head. I didn’t even attempt to have bitachon at this point.

The clock ticked by. This precious six-year-old had now been missing for 45 minutes. There was talk of an Amber alert, of bringing in a bigger response team.

Then a thought occurred to my ex: Maybe the boy had returned to the hotel where they were staying? We all thought it was far-fetched. It was a seven-minute walk, and the child had never been to Texas before. And why would he have gone there alone anyway? But it was a lead, the only one we had, and my ex went to check the hotel. I stood pensively outside the shul, not sure what to do or say. How do you comfort a mother whose son is missing? What could I possibly say that wasn’t trite? So I just stood quietly next to her.

The community police liaison arrived to step up the search investigation, and almost at the exact same moment, my ex appeared in the distance, holding his son’s hand. All the people who had been searching let out a huge cheer as the boy was reunited with his mother.

I went weak in the knees with gratitude. In that moment, with cheering all around me, I felt like paradigms shifted, priorities were rearranged, and old hurts simply vanished. What I thought was significant — plumbing issues, seating charts, expectations of what a perfect bar mitzvah should look like — suddenly became insignificant.

Apparently, the boy had wanted a snack and, in his six-year-old mind, it made perfect sense to walk back to the hotel to get it. He’d been seen wandering around the hotel alone and had been brought to the management office, where my ex found him.

Seeing my ex-husband’s wife interact with her son, I developed a whole new appreciation of her. There was no yelling, no hysteria; she just calmly explained that what he’d done wasn’t safe. I was awed by her equanimity, her ability to maintain her composure. After she finished speaking to him, we hugged. In that moment, we were both just mothers.

The rest of the bar mitzvah passed in a blur. Happy children, beautiful speeches, playing cousins. When a bunch of little kids dismantled my half-finished succah in the backyard, I simply thought, Oh well. At the siyum on Motzaei Shabbos, people were joking that maybe the smoke alarm sprinklers would go off, or some other natural disaster would occur. I glared at them and made a mental note to get my ayin hara checked.

Matching outfits, perfect appetizers, spot-on speeches… none of these things were important in the end. What really mattered was the safety of our children and that we, as divorced parents, were able to get along and set an example for our children. I hope my bechor, in seeing how hard his father and mother worked to give him a simchah where he felt loved and cherished, got a glimpse of how much Hashem loves him.

Bitachon, I’ve learned, isn’t a promise that hard things will never happen. But it is a promise for no stress. When we really think about how much Hashem loves us, how He is rearranging the entire universe just for our benefit, then instead of feeling flooded with overwhelming stress, we can feel flooded with His overwhelming love for us. Even if, in the moment, what we’re going through doesn’t feel like love.

I am nowhere near that level of bitachon yet. But I am trying. I found a Shaar Habitachon shiur that resonates with me, and I’m working on building up my bitachon muscles during life’s small tests so I can handle the big ones when they come.

And maybe, if I work hard enough, I’ll never have to plan a bar mitzvah for my younger son because we’ll all be in Eretz Yisrael with Mashiach. veryone said my son’s bar mitzvah on Shabbos Shuvah was unbelievable. Not just “unbelievable” as in “incredible,” but also “unbelievable,” as in, “Did that actually just happen?!” Because on that Shabbos, Hashem shook up everything in my life to show me what really matters (and what doesn’t). And I’m still grateful.

Baruch Hashem, my bechor was born on Alef Tishrei. For 13 long years, I knew that I would be making a Yamim Noraim simchah. But I wasn’t panicked — after all, if I could make a shalom zachar, Shabbos bris, and pidyon haben during Yom Tov, could a bar mitzvah be so much worse?

Apparently, yes.

There are complicated logistical issues when planning any bar mitzvah. Now just ramp it up 20 notches when you’ve never done it before, you live in Texas (read: without Amazing Savings), your ex-husband lives in Florida with his new family, and both of your extended families are flying in for the simchah.

Finding airport rides and housing for 50? I’ve got this! Making seating arrangements to accommodate complex family dynamics? Baruch Hashem for good stress! Every time I joyfully announced that I was printing the “final list” of guest housing and seating, someone else decided to join us. Al tiftach peh l’satan! I’m not complaining, not at all, but couldn’t they have told me before I printed table charts?!

Stress was my baseline. My students kept asking me if I was feeling well because, “You don’t look so good.” My friends and fellow teachers started to speak in soothing tones to me. “Everything’s going to be okay,” they repeated, while offering to host, cook, bake, and run carpools. What I really needed was about four more hours in my day, but evidentially they don’t sell that on Amazon (I did, however, buy just about everything else from there).

A few days before Rosh Hashanah, a profound realization hit me: My bechor’s bar mitzvah was Shabbos Shuvah. Yes, I know I stated that before, but it didn’t dawn on me until I was standing helplessly in front of my only refrigerator that this tiny space had to somehow fit all my cooking for a two-day Yom Tov plus everything I needed for the upcoming simchah. Chanukah would’ve been a better time to make a bar mitzvah. Tu B’Shevat would’ve worked, too. Really, I should have planned his birthday a little better.

That Rosh Hashanah was my ex’s turn with the kids, so my boys flew off to Florida to spend the holiday with their father, his wife, and their children. It’s hard when I’m alone, but I was determined to make the most of my davening time without them. During the intense tefillos of those days, I decided that I wanted to focus on developing my bitachon in the coming year. Apparently, my prayers were answered immediately because Hashem, Who loves me so much, blessed me with lots of opportunities to practice in real time.

At the beginning of Yom Tov, my air conditioner gave out (in Texas, we need air conditioning until November). Then I heard water leaking in my kitchen. As I later learned, the main pipe from my sink had dissolved and water was pouring into my foundation. Breathe in, breathe out. A small kapparah on the house means that nothing else bad will happen, right?

Motzaei Chag, a Tuesday night, my ex called. My children’s flights had been canceled due to the massive, category 4.9 hurricane that was about to slam into Florida. It was predicted to be catastrophic. The airline rebooked them for a late Thursday night flight. The same Thursday night that most of our out-of-town company was flying in and expecting to be fed. My guests would be there, but not the bar mitzvah boy.

What-ifs started flooding my brain. What if my son doesn’t make it back in time? What if they have a makeshift bar mitzvah in Florida without me? What if the entire infrastructure of Florida is destroyed and he doesn’t come back for weeks? I know, not logical at all, but my mind was spinning. I couldn’t function, and I sat on my bed, weeping.

I never cry. Even during allergy season, my eyes barely water. But here I was, sobbing my eyes out. I lay there feeling utterly helpless and alone until my father called. He’d found a way to help. There was a flight leaving Florida the next morning (Wednesday) at 5:45 a.m. and he’d booked tickets for my kids.

My ex kindly agreed to get the kids on the flight, even though he thought there was no way it would take off. I wasn’t convinced it would either. I stayed up most of the night watching flight updates, Tehillim tumbling out of my mouth. In an act of incredible kindness from Hashem, the flight took off on time and landed safely in Texas. I think it was the last plane to leave Florida before the hurricane.

At that point, I looked up at the sky and started to talk to Hashem. I thanked Him profusely for bringing my boys home and then added, “Hashem, I know this is all a test. But please know that I did not study for this test! I have failed it and don’t want a retest! Please, no more tests!” I felt confident we had an understanding.

Now that my sleepy boys were safe and sound in Texas, nothing else mattered. The plumber says my kitchen leak will cost thousands of dollars to fix? Yikes, but that’s for later, not now. Three more people coming? Sure, no problem. One backed out? Sorry to hear, no worries. The DJ canceled three days before the bar mitzvah? Okay, we’ll manage.

The AC got fixed, everyone’s flights arrived on time, and we had a lovely welcome dinner on Thursday night. Baruch Hashem.

Early Friday afternoon, we were supposed to take family photos since this was the first time, in a long time, that my entire family was together. My mother — the Bubby Supreme — had even picked out adorable outfits for all the grandchildren. “Be on time,” everyone was told. And I was going to be, really. But five minutes before we were supposed to meet the photographer, my younger son vomited. You see, when he drinks too much too fast, he throws up. And someone had apparently given him a huge fountain drink, and then another relative had gifted him with a Slurpee. So now there was vomit everywhere. On his clothes, bed, bathroom. All. Over. I wanted to breathe in and out, but it stank too badly.

I quickly found a backup suit and changed him. Every other boy in the family would be in a blue suit and he’d be in gray pinstripes? So what! Not important. We flew out the door, made it to the photo shoot, smiled, and raced back home before Shabbos started. I had a few minutes to clean up the mess we’d left behind, but in the process, some vomit got on my new dress. Bitachon, right? I frantically scrubbed it off, sprayed myself with perfume, and came to terms with the fact that the Bar Mitzvah Boy’s Mother was going to smell like Chanel with puke undertones.

All the important things — the ones that really matter — those went beautifully. Kabbalas Shabbos was uplifting, the seudah was delicious, and everyone went home happy. On Shabbos day, my son’s leining was flawless and his speech to the shul was clear and to the point. I stood side by side with my son’s stepmother and we both smiled at each other with pride. For the kiddush, our shul was packed to the brim with relatives, friends, and community members who wanted to share in our simchah.

Finally, I thought. I can let down my guard. I can simply enjoy the moment. But just as the crowd was beginning to peter out, an announcement was made in shul. “A suspicious bag was found in the shul. Everyone needs to evacuate immediately. The bomb squad is being called.”

No, I’m not joking. This actually happened.

As people poured out of the shul to safer grounds, I cracked. All I could do was laugh. Standing there, in front of friends and family, I laughed so hard tears were streaming down my face. I couldn’t stop. Who else has a bomb threat at their son’s kiddush?! How could I be upset? It was hilarious. People slowly backed away from the crazy lady (me).

Meanwhile, my cousin, a firefighter, saw what was happening and decided to act. He knew that the bomb squad would first evacuate the neighborhood for a radius of a quarter mile, and the whole procedure would take a minimum of four hours. And since our meals were all in the shul social hall, it would be game over for lunch. So he asked a few salient questions and made the decision to open the bag on his own. (Public Service Announcement: That was stupid, don’t try that at home!) Inside the suspicious bag was a change of clothing for a waitress.

Now that the bomb scare was canceled, we made our way back inside the shul for lunch. Still laughing, I washed and sat down. It was only when I stopped to look around that I realized my ex and his wife weren’t sitting. Come to think of it, many of my family members weren’t around. What was going on? Why weren’t they joining the meal?

Turns out, my son’s six-year-old stepbrother was missing. People were concerned, but not panicked. I asked the bar mitzvah boy and his friends to help search the shul. The boys zoomed off, checking to see if the boy was looking for candy somewhere or simply playing hide- and-seek. The shul’s security guard — an amazing, off-duty tactical police officer — was also searching. I could see the worry lines on his forehead. He was still shaken by the bomb scare and now he was dealing with a missing child.

Half an hour later, the boy was still missing. We’d searched every bathroom stall, every closet, every bush around the perimeter. Nothing. Now we had bypassed worried; we were terrified. We’d had over 500 people show up to the kiddush and during the bomb evacuation, it was chaos. Every single terrible thought, every parent’s darkest anxiety, was seizing control of my brain. I tried to appear calm, but the “what ifs” were racing through my head. I didn’t even attempt to have bitachon at this point.

The clock ticked by. This precious six-year-old had now been missing for 45 minutes. There was talk of an Amber alert, of bringing in a bigger response team.

Then a thought occurred to my ex: Maybe the boy had returned to the hotel where they were staying? We all thought it was far-fetched. It was a seven-minute walk, and the child had never been to Texas before. And why would he have gone there alone anyway? But it was a lead, the only one we had, and my ex went to check the hotel. I stood pensively outside the shul, not sure what to do or say. How do you comfort a mother whose son is missing? What could I possibly say that wasn’t trite? So I just stood quietly next to her.

The community police liaison arrived to step up the search investigation, and almost at the exact same moment, my ex appeared in the distance, holding his son’s hand. All the people who had been searching let out a huge cheer as the boy was reunited with his mother.

I went weak in the knees with gratitude. In that moment, with cheering all around me, I felt like paradigms shifted, priorities were rearranged, and old hurts simply vanished. What I thought was significant — plumbing issues, seating charts, expectations of what a perfect bar mitzvah should look like — suddenly became insignificant.

Apparently, the boy had wanted a snack and, in his six-year-old mind, it made perfect sense to walk back to the hotel to get it. He’d been seen wandering around the hotel alone and had been brought to the management office, where my ex found him.

Seeing my ex-husband’s wife interact with her son, I developed a whole new appreciation of her. There was no yelling, no hysteria; she just calmly explained that what he’d done wasn’t safe. I was awed by her equanimity, her ability to maintain her composure. After she finished speaking to him, we hugged. In that moment, we were both just mothers.

The rest of the bar mitzvah passed in a blur. Happy children, beautiful speeches, playing cousins. When a bunch of little kids dismantled my half-finished succah in the backyard, I simply thought, Oh well. At the siyum on Motzaei Shabbos, people were joking that maybe the smoke alarm sprinklers would go off, or some other natural disaster would occur. I glared at them and made a mental note to get my ayin hara checked.

Matching outfits, perfect appetizers, spot-on speeches… none of these things were important in the end. What really mattered was the safety of our children and that we, as divorced parents, were able to get along and set an example for our children. I hope my bechor, in seeing how hard his father and mother worked to give him a simchah where he felt loved and cherished, got a glimpse of how much Hashem loves him.

Bitachon, I’ve learned, isn’t a promise that hard things will never happen. But it is a promise for no stress. When we really think about how much Hashem loves us, how He is rearranging the entire universe just for our benefit, then instead of feeling flooded with overwhelming stress, we can feel flooded with His overwhelming love for us. Even if, in the moment, what we’re going through doesn’t feel like love.

I am nowhere near that level of bitachon yet. But I am trying. I found a Shaar Habitachon shiur that resonates with me, and I’m working on building up my bitachon muscles during life’s small tests so I can handle the big ones when they come.

And maybe, if I work hard enough, I’ll never have to plan a bar mitzvah for my younger son because we’ll all be in Eretz Yisrael with Mashiach.

(Originally featured in Family First, Issue 913)