ויולך ה' את הים ברוח קדים עזה כל הלילה וישם את הים לחרבה ויבקעו המים. ויבאו בני ישראל בתוך הים ביבשה ... (יד-כא,כב)
The Medrash tells us that even after Hashem told the Jewish people to move forward and Moshe stretched his staff over the water, the sea did not split. When did it finally split? After a single Jew name Nachshon ben Aminadav jumped into the water without any deliberations except knowing that this was what Hashem wanted - it was this act that triggered the mighty miracle of the Splitting of the Red Sea. Chazal teach that the same thing applies to a shidduch: To make a match, one must be prepared to jump into the sea. It’s impossible to guarantee that any shidduch will work out. However, after doing one’s best, he or she needs to have faith in Hashem that it will work, and then just jump into the water, at which point the sea will split.
When reports of the destruction of the Jewish community of Krakow reached Jerusalem in the early 1940’s, R’ Moshe Mordechai Biderman zt”l was inconsolable. He wept over the bitter end of the city where he had spent many years of his youth, and which he carried with love and longing in his heart until he was old. Jewish Krakow was filled with thousands of chassidim and anshei maaseh (men of action), who formed a bridge to past generations, and R’ Moshe Mordechai, who since the dawn of his childhood had always been thirsty to hear about the righteous people from past generations, enjoyed relating stories and sayings from his youth. R’ Moshe Mordechai particularly loved to recount stories of Reb Mendel Kinsker, a very old man, ninety years old or more at the time of R’ Moshe Mordechai’s youth, but his memory was fresh and retold pleasant stories from ancient times that would flow from his mouth on various occasions.
In one of the conversations with Reb Mendel, he told him a wonderful personal story. “I was an older man, and I didn’t do well in matchmaking. I didn’t have any money either and in the meantime I was getting older. One of the shadchanim in the city knocked on the door of a well-known gentleman, amongst the wealthiest men of Krakow, and proposed his daughter to me. The rich man, to put it mildly, did not like the idea, and in return for the humiliating offer, kicked the matchmaker out of his magnificent house. However, shidduchim, as we know, are from the Aibishter, and apparently in order for this match to take place, the rich man had to lose all of his assets and become destitute. And you know what? This is what happened ...”
Reb Mendel continued. “Very quickly the rich man lost his fortune in a difficult matter, and then the hard-working matchmaker’s path was already paved. He didn’t work too hard, and the match was concluded. This is what is called, ‘Invei Hagefen B’invei Hagefen’ - an expression for a good match being made. Two poor families matched with each other. I became engaged to the daughter of the previously wealthy man, and the city of Krakow rejoiced and was happy.
“The wedding day was approaching, and I thought to myself in sorrow, I am poor and wretched and I have nothing to go to the wedding with. I received a good and modest bride as gift from Hashem, but she is also poor and has nothing but her dress. A chosson and kallah need more. We need something special to come to our wedding with. What was left for me to do? I stood in Beis Medrash, davening from the bottom of my heart and shedding tears like water. From there, I left and went to the lottery booth and bought half a lottery ticket, since I didn’t have more money and could not afford to purchase a full ticket. That’s okay, I thought. Even winning half a lottery is something. But then I was told by the lottery seller, that the way it works at the time is that when a person buys half of a lottery, if his ticket wins the lottery, he is required to make an arrangement with the one who buys the other half, and divide it equally with that person. I didn’t know who the other person was and I hoped it wouldn’t be someone difficult. But either way, I could not think about that as I was busy with my wedding preparations.
Reb Mendel smiled. “A few days passed, and I went to check the results of the lottery as I usually did, and I saw that I had won! That is, half of the grand prize is mine, and it was a large amount. I became rich! Now I had to find out who my partner was in this win, and then the unbelievable became clear to me. None other than my bride - she was the one who bought the other half of my lottery ticket! Thus, a bride and groom who got engaged as poor and destitute, got married as extremely rich...”