A Wink and a Prayer: The Surprising Shidduch That Happened the Very Same Day

Shimon was beside himself. For several years, his daughter had been waiting for a shidduch, yet not a single suggestion had reached the stage of “breaking a plate.” The sorrow and pain, Rabbi Shimon Spitzer recounts in the journal HaVeineni, seemed to rise straight to the heavens.

Turning Pain Into Words

Unable to carry the burden alone, Shimon decided to share his heart with his study partner. As they continued learning together, they arrived at a teaching of Chazal: “A person must bless for the bad just as he blesses for the good.”

They paused and reflected. Blessing the Creator is one of the three pillars of prayer, they realized, and it must include not only gratitude for what feels good, but gratitude for what feels painful as well.

A Small Agreement With Big Intent

Because they lived close to one another and prayed Shacharit in the same synagogue minyan, they made a simple agreement. At the end of the prayer, whenever their eyes met, they would give each other a quick wink. That silent signal would remind them both to pause and thank Hashem specifically for the bad.

The routine settled in naturally, becoming part of their daily prayers.

An Unexpected Turning Point

A few months later, as they left the synagogue together, one of them remarked casually, “By the way, it’s already been more than a month since we started regularly thanking for the bad.”

That very day, toward evening, Shimon received a phone call from a matchmaker. A positive response had arrived from the other side.

Within a week, the shidduch was finalized, accompanied by evident blessing from Above.

The Power of Gratitude

“The power of thanking for the bad,” Rabbi Spitzer concludes, summing up a story that surprises precisely because of its simplicity.

Sometimes, the turning point is not a dramatic action, but a quiet shift of the heart.