On December 11, 2019,  yud gimmel Kislev, in the early afternoon, my Bubby, Tzerel Mindel (Celia) Neuman, a”h, was niftera. That is one sentence. But it took me a long time to be able to write it. My grandmother was the strongest, most incredible woman you could have ever met. She was sweet, funny, and kind. She was a huge part of my life, for all of my life. The memories are endless. And the world needs to know what it lost – because she was not just a light that flickered and went out. She was a grand finale firework that kept the night alight.

How can I express it? How can I make you understand why my heart now feels like shattered glass after her death? I don’t know how, but I’m going to try.

This is for you, my fellow single Jewish women. Essentially, anyone may be able to relate to this article, but right now, I’m writing for you. All of you are in my mind. At times, it may feel like you’re alone. But you aren’t. Because we are all in this together. In the world of shidduchim, it’s easy for us to feel like we are just one of a million resumes. My intention in this article is to show that you are not one of a million, but one in a million. 

So here’s the thing: I thought about writing an article with all of the procedural tasks that may lead to getting more shidduch suggestions. The problem is that you probably know all of them. And I can say them in one sentence: Daven (pray), get a resume, meet shadchanim, email reminders to shadchanim regularly, and tell shadchanim who you are and what you want. Done. Finished. Good night ladies and gentlemen; you’ve been a magnificent audience!

Okay, so the procedural stuff is easy. But the dreaded burnout doesn’t come from these tasks alone. It comes from performing these tasks over and over again without results, or at least without the desired results. It comes from trying and trying, until you just want to give up. Let’s face it. We’ve all done what everyone has told us to do. Some of us have been going to events and meeting shadchanim for years. Whoever you are, and no matter how long you have been in the parsha, there was probably a time when you were frustrated. But here is what amazes me, and should amaze you as well: We always get up again. We keep trying. And with a strong mindset, no matter how long it takes, no matter how hard it becomes, we can do anything. So I started wondering, what if all of this was meant to make us into certain kinds of people? The types of people who don’t give up – not on ourselves and not on the future bayis ne’eman that we all want to build.

There it is – the monster that lives in all of our shadows, the scaled dragon lurking behind us with its bated breath of negativity. It is the parallel universe, the one where we didn’t make the mistakes and the decisions that we did. You know – that world – where, instead of going right, you went left. And sometimes you wonder…you wonder what your life would have been like had you not said or done that.

You see, human beings are made up of contradictions. We are reflexively more comfortable with what we can see, and yet we still believe that there is a hidden, parallel universe where we might be happier, smarter, stronger, or fitter. We put our faith in that parallel universe, and in return, we get to believe that our life as we know it did not necessarily have to come out this way.

But think about it. What benefit does belief in that parallel universe really give you? The ability to bully yourself? To make you dwell on the past, the same past that helped you become who you are today and who you will be tomorrow? Does it give you the ability to analyze and reanalyze every situation inside and out so that you come out with two new best friends: regret and self-loathing? Call me crazy, but those kinds of friends don’t sound very helpful to me.

Here is the funny thing: When disappointing events happen in life, we think that something went wrong. Sure, we know, theoretically, that life isn’t perfect – that there are ups and downs. But when the downs actually occur, we think there must have been some mistake that changed the course of events that were supposed to occur. You were supposed to get the highest grade in the class or get married at twenty or get that job promotion. But you think that you made certain decisions that somehow altered the event that was supposed to happen.

The truth is, the outcome that you wanted, the one you thought was written in some parallel universe – was never meant to happen. If it were, then it would have occurred. Sure, we all have free will. But I once had a teacher who told me that whatever decision we make is the right one. And if you ask me, those decisions got you here – here, where you were meant to be.

When the tragic synagogue shooting occurred in Pittsburgh, it was a given that every law school in the country would talk about it in some form. I can guarantee you that the secular professors and students discussed freedom of religion with as much intellectual theory and doctrine as possible. What I can’t guarantee is that they understood the personal pain that every Jew feels when we hear of anti-Semitic events both great and small. And why should they?

By the same token, the word Holocaust cannot possibly mean the same thing to them as it does to me, someone who cannot ask her Bubby about the multitude of family members killed in the Holocaust without it causing her Bubby to cry. Oh, yes, you’ll find that the Holocaust is a very common comparison used in both undergraduate and graduate discussions. When these discussions come up, I rarely express my personal connection to it. Usually, my colleagues know that I’m Jewish, and to me, it’s important that I don’t complain about what the world did or what it has come to. Instead, I choose not to be a victim. I choose to be a solution. The question then becomes, how?

I’m in the middle of davening Mincha in an empty classroom. I’m a college sophomore, but it’s my first semester in a secular university. I have no idea how I’ll handle the situation if someone comes in and sees me bowing and muttering to what looks like a book. My mission: Don’t. Get. Caught.

When I hear the door open in the middle of Shemonei Esrei, I freeze. Uh oh. 

I met these students earlier, so they are more likely to talk to me. Mission failed.

They are asking me a question. Ladies and gentlemen, at this point, we are past “uh oh.” We are now down right in trouble!

“Hey, Rena, right? Is there going to be a class in here now?”

Ah! Hashem, why? What do I do? What do I do? I can’t talk. I can’t even move. Lest we forget, I’m in the middle of Shemonei Esrei! But they won’t understand that.

Forgiveness. We think that we know what it means. Forgiveness. One word represents the tidal wave that is time, encompassing past, present, and future. It was just Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, when friends and family are asking each other for one thing: forgiveness. We always answer with the same “Yes, yes, of course” or “You know that you never did anything to me.” But did we actually forgive?

Then there are the people who don’t ask for forgiveness, though you wish they would. And there are the people whom you don’t know whether you can forgive, even if they did ask. Those are the people we feel negatively impacted our lives. Hurt us. We all have those experiences. But the thing about forgiveness is it only has one face. It’s the same words in every situation, no matter the situation. Forgiveness is an ending - and it’s a beginning. But how do we do it? It’s easy to say that you forgive. It’s easy to say that you want to. But it’s not so easy to let go of the past, of the hurt that now defines a piece of your heart. The answer to how to forgive is actually simple. Once we know the secret, we can forgive at the flick of a wrist.