Maybe It Does by Rivki D. Rosenwald Esq., CLC, SDS

A Tehillim-Based Mortgage

Finding a home is one story. Getting a mortgage is another. With our growing family, it was clear that we needed to jump into the grueling process. After an intensive search in the saturated real estate market in our community, we were lucky to find a home that seemed perfectly suited to our needs.

Then we began to work on the mortgage. We gave in our application and waited to hear back from the bank. The response we got was not the one we had hoped for. “Declined!”

Without the necessary funds, the entire deal would fall through! I was despondent and desperate. Our lawyer encouraged me to hand in an appeal and begin the request again, even though “the chances of it going through are very, very weak,” he explained. This was the most we could do.

I decided to get some advocates on my behalf. I would join the thousands of Tehillim Kollel members and have the special minyanim daven for me every single day.

That was on Monday morning. Just two days passed. On Wednesday, I received a notice from the bank: my request was accepted! The mortgage went through!

I was so excited. After moving into our new home, I called the Tehillim Kollel office to share my excitement. “Everything went so smoothly. All the typical complications and legal issues totally jumped over us. Yes, I myself witnessed how great daily Tehillim b’tzibbur is.”

WEEKLY COLUMN OF RECENT EPISODES BY TEHILLIM KOLLEL

Life C ach Maybe It Does?

By Rivki D. Rosenwald Esq., LMFT, CLC, SDS

Life goes exactly as you plan! And if you believe that one, have I got a plot of land to sell to you. And it’s exactly what you want. Swamp and all!

Often, we get discouraged, because we expect things to go as we assume they should.

We talk to G-d and appeal for the things we want. And we figure that if we

pray hard enough and often enough, we’ll get it.

Yet, we don’t. And we get plenty upset!

But come on… Does that actually make sense?

Just think: no matter how much your first grader would lobby you for a cellphone, would you think it wise to give it to them? If they asked to drive the car, would you let them? Even if they promised to be careful? How about if they begged you to let them get married, and I don’t mean “some day”! I mean now! Are you on board?

Probably not. And why not?

Because we know that we know a lot that they don’t! We are attuned to the damage, the danger, the challenges. We can say that we are saving them, even while they think we are disappointing them.

Ergo, just maybe, we don’t want life to proceed exactly as we plan….

Maybe, we do want it to go exactly as the Omnipotent/Omniscient One plans for us.

This might be a hard plan to swallow.…

But it might very well be the perfect plan to digest.

We can say that we are saving them, even while they think we are disappointing them.

Rivki Rosenwald is a Licensed Marriage & Family Therapist working with both couples and individuals and is a certified relationship counselor. Rivki is a co-founder and creator of an effective Parent Management of Adolescent Years Program. She can be contacted at 917705-2004 or at rivkirosenwald@gmail.com.