What We Daven For

Around the Campfire

by Mindel Kassorla

MYwedding day was beautifully orchestrated down to the finest details, and thankfully, I had nothing to do with it. My mother did a spectacular job. I spent my entire engagement in Eretz Yisrael, so I quite literally showed up in Brooklyn with a gown, ready to dance. It wasn’t hard for me, then, to concede the choice of song for my walk down the aisle to my mother, who has a deep love for “V’zakeini.” It was the least I could do! Besides, I was under a veil the whole time, oblivious to my surroundings, so it made zero difference to me.

At the time, I didn’t have a particular affinity for “V’zakeini.” To be honest, I was a little sick of hearing it belted out at every single kumzitz. But I’m grateful that this is the tefillah upon which my marriage began, because a short while later, I was — quite literally — singing a different tune.

For the first few years, we weren’t yet blessed with children. And every Friday night, I said the words of “v’zakeini.” Sometimes through tears, other times in an attempted song, and at times in painful dissociation. But I always said them. The tefillah was inscribed on a silver plaque by my licht, urging me to daven harder, to storm the Heavens for an answer. HaKadosh Baruch Hu ultimately granted us three incredible brachos — our children, now eleven, six, and three.

It was always an anchor for us to focus on the heart of the song, the essence of the tefillah: “U’me’irim es ha’olam b’Torah uv’maasim tovim uv’chol meleches avodas HaBorei.” Why do we ask for children? Why do we ask for anything? Not for ourselves, but to bring light into the world through Torah, mitzvos, and avodas Hashem.