Moving Closer to the Light
One year, Mr. Tourgeman of Belgium spent the festival of Shavuot in France. Together with a friend, he came to visit me. As I escorted them out, I spoke with the second man. Mr. Tourgeman found himself standing on the sidelines, wondering when he would get a turn to speak to me. At that point, he was not yet married. This bothered him very much.
As he was thinking about this, I suddenly turned to him and asked what was on his mind. Dumbstruck, Mr. Tourgeman finally stuttered that he was very depressed that he had not yet found his life partner.
“Where do you live?” I asked.
“The Rav knows that I live in Belgium. Why does the Rav ask?” he replied.
“I meant to ask where your parents live.”
“In a settlement called Ohr Akiva, in Eretz Yisrael.”
“In that case, you must relocate from Belgium to this settlement. The name Ohr Akiva means the light of Akiva. It is there that the light of Hashem will shine upon you, for your soul-mate is waiting there for you, near your parents.”
Mr. Tourgeman, steeped as he was in faith in the Sages, accepted my words without question. After quickly liquidating his business in Belgium, he ascended to the Holy Land and moved in with his parents.
One week later, his mother turned to him with a suggestion of a wonderful girl who lived not far from them. She possessed both fear of Heaven and wonderful character traits. With tremendous siyata di’Shemaya, only a short while later, the shidduch was finalized. Mr. Tourgeman merited building a Torah-true home.
