I feel like Hashem sent you to me
In last week’s blog, I wrote about the changes in communication over the last 100 years. Our daughter has a degree in theatre from the University of Southern California, with a minor in Communication and the Entertainment Industry from the renowned Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism. Quite possibly that was why she knew to “surf the web” for nanny jobs to supplement her income when she changed fields and took on a new position with new, earlier hours, allowing her time in her schedule to work for more pay. The line that stuck with her when she was hired was the mother saying, “I feel like Hashem sent you to me.”
Fast forward to our daughter Rina’s engagement celebration in December, which our friend, Rabbi Yale Fishman, who has known our children all of their lives, attended with his wife. He will be officiating at our daughter’s summertime wedding. We have remained close friends, even though the rabbi and his wife moved from New Jersey, to Long Island, many years ago. My husband and I were just at their son’s wedding in Lakewood, New Jersey, in November. Like us, Rabbi Fishman and his wife have three children; their younger son, who just married, is our daughter Rina’s age.
While at her engagement party, Rabbi Fishman spoke with Rina and her fiancé Eric and requested that they come to his office on Long Island, while they were in from Los Angeles for the week. When they got to his place, one of his first questions to Rina was, “What do you do now?” She proceeded to tell him about her “day job” and then said that she also teaches Hebrew School on Sunday mornings, and she is a nanny for a frum (religiously observant Jewish) family in L.A. on weeknights. “What’s the name of the family,” he innocently inquired. She replied with the name, which he didn't immediately recognize. Shortly thereafter, a light went on and he interjected astonishingly, “Wait, I do know them!”
Amazingly, with all the families in Los Angeles who hire a nanny, and could employ our daughter, what were the chances it would be the best friend from college of the daughter of our rabbi friend from Long Island? Equally interesting, the woman was picked up for her dates from our rabbi friend’s home in Lawrence, New York. I reiterate, “What are the chances?”
Maybe there was a reason the mother she nanny’s for had the reaction she did when she hired our daughter. She actually said to Rina, “I feel like Hashem sent you to me.” Pretty close, anyway. ;-) We hope that we will meet our daughter’s employer and mother of four only for happy occasions and that she and her husband will be out enjoying themselves at our daughter’s wedding in New Jersey this summer.
December 23, 2018. At our home, on the day of Rina and Eric’s engagement party, Rabbi Fishman conducts mincha (afternoon prayers) yahrzeit (an anniversary that commemorates a death according to the Jewish date) services in memory of my mother with my brothers Nate, Al and Stu, Rina (next to Eric), Eric, Arnee, and me gathered around with other family and friends. He then spoke lovingly about Rina’s four grandparents, whom he knew, and gave Rina and Eric a beautiful entrée into the day of the marriage ceremony.