WE ARE ALL BLIND UNTIL HASHEM OPENS OUR EYES

Dear Vaad Harabbanim,

I would like to share my story with you, and thank you for helping me.

I was enjoying the Pesach preparations – the organizing, and removing all the chametz – but I was really looking forward to the actual cleaning.

Finally, the moment I had been waiting for came later that night. I felt energized for the task. I removed from my drawer all the fine jewelry I had recently received as bas mitzvah gifts, and began scrubbing the drawer. I left it to dry before putting my precious jewelry back in.

In the meantime, I became preoccupied with other tasks, and I almost forgot to put the jewelry back. Late at night, when I finally went to bed, I was so exhausted. At first I thought it wouldn’t be such a big deal if I were to just put the jewelry away in the morning, but then I pulled myself together, got out of bed, and put everything away. I was too tired to put each piece in its proper case, but I made sure to dump everything into one of the bigger cases. I figured that way they will be safe until the morning.

But in the morning, when I started organizing them, I noticed that my gold ring and gold necklace were missing! And these were very expensive gifts from my grandmother! My first thought was to double-check the shelf where I had left them yesterday, hoping that I was just too tired last night to notice them. Unfortunately, they were not on the shelf, or anywhere else nearby. I even checked in all the spaces in-between the shelf and the drawers. Where could they possibly be??

I decided to wait a little bit to see if they would turn up as we finished our Pesach cleaning, but we still didn’t find them. Then, I tried every segulah that I knew, but still, to no avail. At this point I would have given up and accepted that I just wasn’t going to find my sentimental bas mitzvah gifts, but then my mother announced that we were going to spend Shabbos together with all the cousins at my grandparents’ house. Now I had to find them! What will I tell my grandmother when she sees that I’m not wearing the gold ring and necklace she gave me?

On Erev Shabbos I sat on the couch feeling depressed, trying to think what I will tell my grandmother, when I noticed Vaad Harabbanim’s book, Hivtachti v’noshati, about people in a predicament who pledged to contribute to Vaad Harabbanim, and saw yeshu’os. I immediately pledged 20 NIS if I would find my jewelry before we left for my grandparents. 20 NIS isn’t so much money, so I figured I had nothing to lose.

Just before we left, I opened my drawer to put on my watch and my bracelet, and lo and behold, I discovered my missing ring and necklace sitting there in the drawer!