When the Shadchan is Inhuman

Stories about how mom met dad are usually pretty prosaic. Mostly they are carbon copies of everyone else's stories. But once in a while a "meeting" story is worth telling about for its very unusualness.

Most people don't have a 1996 Volkswagen Beetle as their shadchan. One very happily married couple did. The young man was on a college campus in the tri-state area to visit his friend who was the acting Chabad House rabbi. He was mulling over something he and his friend had been discussing and, because it was a campus road not a public street, he stepped into the road without looking. A young woman, obeying all the speed regulations, was crawling along the road when the young man stepped out in front of her car. Yes, she hit him. She slammed on the brakes and ran out to be of assistance. The young man was dazed but not hurt, but he couldn't convince the young woman of this. She quickly bundled him into her car and took him straight to a local emergency room. (Note: in the emergency room he finally happened to notice her long sleeves and long skirt and she happened to notice his white shirt and tzitzis out. Surprise, surprise!) She waited there with him. She took care of all the registration and made sure he was attended to. Then she drove him back to the Chabad house and put him in the hands of the rabbi's wife. She gave over all the instructions the hospital had given her about checking for a possible concussion.

Before she left the young man to his friends she took the rabbi's home phone number. She called when she got home to make sure he was okay. She also called the next morning to make sure he had passed the night well. And that ended that, sort of.

The young man, when he got over his embarrassment, thought the young woman had shown incredible midos and caring. He wanted to do something to show his appreciation to her and to his friends. A gift would not be acceptable he reasoned. So he decided to take the rabbi and his wife and this young woman out for a thank you meal. With the rabbi along how could anyone misinterpret what was going on? Fortunately, the rabbi's wife happened to know this young woman and had her phone number.

The two couples met at a local restaurant for dinner. Whatever awkwardness there might have been, given the circumstances, was soon overcome as all four people discovered mutual interests, and a lovely dinner was had by all. The young woman thought that she should be the one paying for the meal because she was the one who hit the young man. As he was taking out his credit card to pay for the meal the young woman blurted out without thinking "Then I pay for the next meal!" She was mortified--the young man was not. He had been trying to think of how he was going to get the rabbi to red this shidduch and here was his golden opportunity. He answered "Fine, how's next Tuesday?" The young woman looked at him appraisingly and said "Make it Wednesday and you're on."

Yes, they would do some checking out just to make sure that they could say they had done so. Both sets of parents listened to how they had met and decided that something greater then a mere human had taken a hand in getting these two together. Neither one was supposed to be on that campus at that particular time and yet there they were. And each one had been looking for just the qualities that were present in the other one.

"Tate, how did you meet mommy?" "Well tatale, she ran me over with her car and then we got married." Sure beats the run of the mill stories.