Mazel Tov SM and EM!

We get a Mazel Tov! My brother "SM" got engaged to an amazing, sweet, beautiful and wonderfully kind and sensitive girl, with great priorities. (Did I miss anything? What more could there possibly be? She really is an amazing chickita!)


And as happy and excited as we are for the couple, it's hard to be so far away. BH we at least know her, so that makes it much easier. IY"H some of us will make it for the wedding, but so begins the next string of smachot that we'll be absent for :(. Needless to say, the past day or two I've been feeling kind of distant. 


Then Hashem sent me something to make me smile tonight, a reminder . BAW was saying Shema and doing the bedtime rituals when he urgently called me upstairs. I dropped everything and ran up, worried. He was laying in bed with S and R and told me to listen to S sing his daily davening. S started again for me in a sweet 6 year old sing-song:

משיב הרוח ומוריד הגשם, ותן טל ומטר לברכה על פני האדמה. אבינו מלכנו שלח רפואה שלמה לכל חולי עמך ישראל. והחולה שירה בת מעיין. והחזר את חיילי צה''ל (צבא הגנה לישראל) הביתה בשלום. ואת החיל החטוף גלעד בן אביבה שליט 

שיר המעלות אשא עיני מעין יבוא עזרי

"Mashiv HaRuach U'Morid Ha'geshem, v'tein tal u'matar l'vracha al pnei ha'adama. Avinu malkeinu shlach refuah shelaima l'chol amcha yisrael, v'lichol cholei amcha yisrael, v'hachola Shira batMaayan. V'hachzeir et chayalei tzahal hganah l'yisrael habayta b'shalom, v'et chayal hachatuf Gilad ben Aviva Shalit.

Shir Hamalot Esa einay...."

"Make the wind blow and the rain fall, and give dew as a blessing on the whole ground. Our Father, our King, send a full recovery to all of the sick of Am Yisrael, and to the girl Shira Bat Maayan. And return the soldiers of Israel to their homes in peace, as well as the soldier Gilad ben Aviva Shalit. 

Shir Ha'Maalot...."

How beautiful is that? These 6 year old boys are davening every day for the return of Gilad Shalit. I don't know who the "cholah" is, and would love to hear if anyone knows who she is. I did a search but didn't come up with much. 

So while it doesn't make me miss my family and the current simcha any less, it's just another gentle reminder that we are here, and it is good.

It is very, very good.