Hashem sees every detail and holds you close to His heart...

So my sister sent me a card today that had this pasuk from Yeshayahu on it "Search the book of the Lord and see all that He will do, not one detail will He miss... for the Lord has said it and He will make it come true..."

I'm curious... if Hashem speaks at our conception the name of our bashert ... is it ordained that we are matched up with another person?

I have often heard a lot of other people discuss their opinions and takes on bashert, zivugim, shidduchim... and never actually come up with anything serious on my own end regarding this as I find this sort of affairs to be significantly less the type of topic I can contribute anything to as opposed to my philosophy and halacha type of studies and mental inquiries... I remember once a shiur in which I heard that every person has a number of possible people that he or she can be set up with as a match. I believed at the time that I had met three of the possible number, but knew, too, that when I met each of them it wasn't appropriate, because of the timing and where each of us was with our lives. That take on shidduchim, zivugim, and bashert makes sense to me in many ways. I recall, too, that a very good friend of mine Rabbi Josh Yuter (if anyone knows Josh, you'll have to let him know that I actually called him rabbi!) had a lovely machshava shiur on bashert that I encourage anyone who knows Rabbi Yuter to ask him about it. It was very well-thought out and beautifully put. Perhaps my own thinking falls in line that whatever happens to fall in place is what is ordained to fall in place, but it can only do so by your choices and actions. Your choices and actions are like the quantum choices of an electron to be spin up or spin down, like the choice of a particle to be here or there, like the ability of an electron cloud to statistically exist in any of these spces but never at the nodes of an orbital, and like light to be both particle and wave. When one begins to see how these phenomena are possible and okay, one begins to see that he quandary of balancing free will against the belief that Hashem knows all and that somethings are ordained by Hashem is very much like the Heisenberg Uncertainty principle and the principle of statistical distribution of a particle's existence. We cannot know all the particulars until we sample.. at the moment that the quantity is sampled and tested, we know where it "is" but know nothing else about it, because it is always in flux and actually morphing as we continue to move. Our very organic world... is so extraordinarily beautiful.

Luckily, I find today that I am counting my blessings for having crossed paths with friends who have also been teachers, companions along the journey of life, and fellow avadim Hashem. To all of you who are fellow travelers... thank you so much for walking with me when we have been able to walk together and for walking on your own when we have not. I think I finally realize what Shimon menat when he said that it helps to know those people are out there doing their thing and holding down their piece of the world even if I'm out of touch with those people... I, too, am grateful even if I'm not in touch with thse people who were key to my life in so many ways that you are out there holding down your piece of the world and continuing to touch other lives.

Today is a day to recall that everything we do and everywhere we go, we are touching another person's life and that we are entrusted by Hashem with a great and powerful ability to influence another's life simply by a smile a hug or some expression of love and caring. Too little do we realize and take advantage of this. You whose paths have crossed mine in this past year are too many to be named and I am sorry for this. Please know how much I treasure your existence in my world. You have all taught me so very very much.

I don't know anymore where Asher ben David, Ephraim ben Israel, or Michael ben Adam are anymore as sadly, I've lost touch with you three, but for what it is worth, I am grateful and nostalgic today over the times we have spent together and over all I learned "in the dust at your feet."

All people are my teachers. All the world is my bechina b'torah u'v'ma'aseh. My examiner is Hashem. As Mori Ephraim ben Israel taught me: I will only know the score when I stand b'shamayim bayom hadin, so until then there is no point in counting the score, but only in continuing to do my best at the bechina. I wish that we should all succeed at our own bechinot and that we should continue in taf-shin-samekh-vav to grow to strength and greater wisdom.

Thanks to Michael who wrote that this year be filled with brachot that are revealed and not hidden. I second that wish. May this year of taf-shin-samekh-vav be filled with brachot for all of Am Yisrael that are revealed in their goodness and not hidden.

As I watch the world suffering one by one regionn after region seeing calamity and more calamity, I pray in these aseret yemei tshuva that Hashem grant that we might be allowed to see our geulah bimheirah byameinu.

G'mar Chatima tov
v'hatzlacha b'yadeikhem

Chatul