The Engagement Ring Miracle
This past fall, I told you about my Miraculous Shabbat Guest–the Shabbat guest who turned out to have graduated from the same Quaker high school in Baltimore that I attended.
As far as I know, we are the only Baltimore Friends graduates living in Israel as well as the only Baltimore Friends graduates who are, today, religious Jews.
And the similarities don’t end there. after graduating Friends, both of us attended college, and then ended up at Neve Yerushalayim followed by the Pardes Institute.
And after that, our life paths diverged.
After spending 2 years at Pardes, I got married (24 years ago today:) to the roommate of my Pardes classmate.
And Sara joined the IDF, where she served as an APC (similar to a tank) instructor.
While in the IDF, one day a commander sent one of his soldiers to Sara to drop off some training equipment. Sara offered to help the soldier lift it all, and they began talking…And before long, dating.
Sara completed her army service, and she and Tzion began discussing marriage…
And Sara remembered that one of her married friends had worn an engagement ring that was passed down to her from her own grandmother.
And Sara thought that was a beautiful idea. But she didn’t know of any rings like that floating around in her own family.
So Sara, an only child, discreetly asked her mother, who asked her mother, who told her that she did, in fact, have a diamond ring, from her own mother, Sara’s great-grandmother.
And Sara’s mother and grandmother decided that they wanted for Sara to wear that same ring.
So behind Sara’s back, Sara’s mother secretly passed the ring over to Sara’s soon-to-be fiance.
But when Sara’s grandmother opened the box containing her mother’s wedding ring, she discovered something incredible.
Lying beside the ring was a necklace charm that said “Tzion.”
Which was very strange. Because there was never anybody in Sara’s family named Tzion.
But that will change this May 27th, when Sara marries a special (and extremely lucky) young man with that very same name.
Mazal tov, Sara and Tzion!
Such an amazing story! I too wear a diamond ring passed down from somewhere in my husband’s family.
Also, this story reminds me that after we named our baby girl Penina (who is now 4), she was laying in the bed and her siblings were around her when I told them her name. Then I noticed one of the hundreds of paperdolls from my children on my bed and I picked it up. Behind the paperdoll, my daughters would write a name for that doll. This one said, Penina.
Wow, amazing story. Sara above – also amazing story!