A Wedding Under Fire and a Stranger’s Kindness
Reprinted with permission from Mishpacha Magazine
Avraham Levi, on the cusp of adulthood, was excitedly anticipating the evening’s bar mitzvah celebration. His parents had invested time, energy, and resources in planning the festive feast and the young yeshiva student was prepared with the tradition speech.
The morning of the scheduled bash, Avraham’s father, Doron, heard about a young woman who was scheduled to get married that evening in Ashdod–but the tense security situation meant that the majority of guests wouldn’t be participating.
The bride and her parents were dejected at the prospect of a wedding with no participants. Their story reached Doron Levi who, though he didn’t know either of the families, informed the manager of Holon’s Gallery Palace banquet hall that the evening’s scheduled bar mitzvah celebration could be pushed off to a later date, but a wedding shouldn’t be deferred– especially on the eve of the Three weeks.
While hundreds of bar mitzvah guests were informed of the delay, wedding guests were told of the change of venue. While Avraham’s parents hosted a small meal in their home that night, Doron excused himself for a short while.
He headed to the wedding at Gallery Palace. Neither the bride or groom is religious, but they and their families listened earnestly as Doron spoke about Hashem’s great kindness and providence before wishing them mazal tov and returning to his own celebration.
We all try so hard to see how challenge can make us into better people in our own daily lives, it can be a very bitter pill to swallow sometimes.
But somehow when we see how national hardship and tragedy brings out the absolute best in Am Israel it somehow makes it come alive and ring absolutely true, loud and clear.
I hope I’ll be able to live up to the amazing standards set by my people, in my daily life.