There goes my phone, I actually wouldn't mind talking to somebody and letting off some steam....Oh no, it's HER again....the shadchan, the pushy one, the one who won't take no" for answer....what does she have for me this time?....I'll just ignore the call, but then....
Hello? Oh. Hi Mrs. Cohen, how are you?...............yes......yes,....uh-huh......the name was actually mentioned a few times before...I didn't think it was...........yes, of course....
You know Mrs. Cohen, I'm taking a little break from Shidduchim right now, but I'll write it down for when I start again in a while, OK?"
What's the use?
Kriyas Yam Suf. A chain of supernatural events. No sooner does Avraham Avinu begin to worry about Yitzchak's shidduch prospects when a message arrives: Mazel Tov! A daughter was born to your nephew, Besu'el"...He dispatches his trusted servant Eliezer, and with a little Kefitzas HaDerech action, Eliezer makes it to the place in no time at all. Lo and behold, the first girl" comes right along, and, after pulling off a couple of her own miracles (see Rabbeinu Bachya, 24:19), she receives her kallah jewelry before she can even tell him her name. Then he meets the family" [the girl's problematic" father is quickly eliminated by a Malach] and he begins to present his case. Look, this has got to be the one for your daughter, all the arrows point in the right direction. Will you consent?
What if they say....no"? How dare they? (Didn't they see what happened to Besu'el?) They wouldn't. No, they just couldn't!?
Eliezer, the Torah tells us, didn't think this way.
Yaffa sichassan shel avdei avos miTorassan shel banim" Our Holy Torah, usually so sparing of words, dedicates so much space to describe and retell the story in tremendous detail. Chazal, in their infinite wisdom, detected countless eternal lessons to be learned between the lines of the conversation, especially for those of us in the Parsha".
Throughout the story, we see Eliezer truly and honestly letting Hashem run the show". He starts with the plea Hakrei na!" Please, preordain the events for me, Hashem, and I'll do my part and play along". If, at the point when everything looked perfect, like never before, a dream come true", the other side" were to say no, then what would our Eliezer say? The Pasuk tells quite clearly: ve'im lo, haggidu li, v'efneh ahl yamin oh ahl s'mol", if you're not interested, no problem, I'll go straight to the next one on the list, the daughters of Yishmael or Lot....
What?! After hearing all those bells ringing with Rivkah, you're going to say yes" to Lot? Shouldn't you perhaps take a break and re-think your strategy a little? The lesson from Eliezer is that if you have the proper attitude, the right mix of bitachon and hishtadlus, in the end you won't have to settle" for anything less than the best.