Amen, Fruma Chava!
For many years now, every Friday I’ve been receiving a text message from Ner Echad with a name to pray for while I light Shabbat candles.
Every name arrives with that woman’s most fervent request in life.
I’ve prayed for hundreds of women and their requests over the years, and they’re generally those garden-variety personal requests we all have.
For health.
For marital harmony.
For Divine assistance.
For financial wellbeing.
For an unmarried daughter to find her spouse (I daven extra hard whenever I get that one, cause that’s my request too:)
The most out-of-the-box request I ever got was the one I received a few years ago: “To win my court case next month so I don’t have to go to prison.”
But over all these years, the prayer request that most touched my heart was the one I just received today.
From Fruma Chava bas Sarah of Atlanta, Georgia, whose request is that I pray for “Eretz Yisroel during the war.”
Thank you Fruma Chava, from all the way across the ocean. Your request means so much to me because it means SO MUCH for people in Israel to know how deeply so many people, Jews and non-Jews, care about what we and our country are going through.
In the merit of your prayers and mine, may our soldiers return home healthy and whole. May our hostages be reunited with their families. May all the injured have a full and speedy recovery. And may Hashem bless our borders and our Land with many, many years of peace.
[I wanted to recommend a newly-released album my daughter told me about of gorgeous nigunim by the equally gorgeous Yuval Dayan, an Israeli singing superstar and baalat teshuva (she made headlines a few months ago for not shaking a certain man’s hand). My favorite is Asader l’Seudata