When the Time Is Right
A chatan and kallah from New York asked that I bless them for a good marriage, in the merit of my holy fathers.
This young woman had approached me seven years earlier for an appropriate match, but had only recently found her intended. Curiously, I asked how she ended up finding her life partner. She explained that the young man was actually a neighbor from the building where she lived. They had never met before. Each sought his shidduch somewhere else. But Hashem put them together, when the time was ripe, as they waited side by side, one day, for the elevator. From that time, things looked up for both of them.
Just as one’s soul-mate is determined before he is born, so, too, is the time for finding one’s partner predetermined by Hashem. As much as one attempts to find his intended, he will not succeed before the designated time. It is imperative to pray to find his correct match at the correct time, as we read in Tehillim (32:6), “For this let every devout person pray to You at a time of finding.” The Gemara, in the name of Rabbi Chanina, expounds (Berachot 8a), “This refers to a wife, as the pasuk in Mishlei (18:22) states, ‘One who has found a wife has found goodness.’”
