When The Kallah Runs Off to Cry

COMMUNICATED CONTENT

There I was, in tears. My life was over. Then, the phone rang.

“Sara,* you’ve been accepted into the program.”

“Baruch Hashem,” I stuttered. “How much can you can help me?”

“There’s no way to know just yet.”

My heart hummed with joy and fear.

Let’s go back in time, to another call.

When we got the news that my parents had died in a car crash, myself and the rest of the kids were at home.

Our lives would never be the same. At 18, I was the oldest, and that was when I became the “mom” of the house. Moved from foster parents to foster parents, we forgot what it was like to be normal kids.

When I got engaged, I was ecstatic. For a moment, the pain went away. I felt like a princess in my borrowed dress, guests came from far and near to wish me “Mazel tov.” Until one friend made her way through the crowd, looked at me with pity in her eyes and said:

“Oy, nebach. How are you going to pay for the wedding? Don’t you know you’ll never be a normal kallah?”

I locked myself in the bathroom, and cried the tears of a girl truly alone in the world. She was right: How could we ever afford a wedding? How will we find a place to live?

That’s when the phone rang.

My chassan and I had been advised to submit our application to Kupat Ha’Ir, and we had been accepted. They looked into our backgrounds and financial situations, and we were to become two of “Rav Chaim Kanievsky’s orphans.”

This month, we will be getting married with their help. That is, if we can raise enough.

This is just my story, but there are 29 other orphans like me, each with their own past, who are part of this program.

Only Hashem knows the loss, humiliation, and suffering we’ve all been through. And we are counting on you. Please click here to help us.

Thank you so much,

An Anonymous Kallah*

*The kallah in the story above is allegorical, not literal. Each of the 30 orphans has their own story of loss.