A Walk to Amuka

It is told that a young man had spent a full year in shidduchim without finding a single promising match. One day, frustrated, he went to his rosh yeshivah and asked for a segulah that would speed up the search for a wife. The rosh yeshivah answered at once. "Go to Amuka," he said, "and go soon."

As Chanukah approached, the young man and his roommate, Yechezkel, planned a trip to Amuka during their yeshivah's two-day break. They agreed to begin in Tzfas, with a dip in the mikveh of the Arizal, davening at dawn with the Breslover Chassidim, and then to walk into the mountains, speaking only words of Torah on the way. For a whole week rain had poured down almost without pause, so the two figures in hooded coats, trudging along the roadside, made a strange sight for passing drivers.

Before dawn they went down the worn stone steps toward the mikveh, with rainwater reaching nearly to their knees. They came to the cave that holds the icy, spring-fed pool cut into the mountain rock. There, to their delight, someone had left a single lit candle, no doubt a tzaddik who had come to immerse earlier and left some light for those who followed. Tzfas seemed filled that morning with a quiet joy, and they davened with growing fervor.

They returned to their hostel, ate a quick breakfast and set out again toward the edge of town, ignoring the rain, which seemed set on turning them back, and the astonished looks from passing cars. Not far along the highway, a rough road turned off and led up into the hills. As they began the steep climb, something remarkable happened. The downpour weakened to a shower, then a sprinkle, and then only a mist, and within a minute the storm had simply stopped, as if the Soton had tried everything to turn them back and finally given up. They glanced at each other, pulled off their hoods, and soon stowed the ponchos in their packs and attacked the mountain with fresh energy.

The sky stayed gray and their clothes clung to them, but their spirits carried them along. As they walked, they reviewed the sugya they were learning, shared thoughts on the parsha, debated points of hashkafa, and corrected each other whenever the conversation drifted from holy subjects to ordinary ones. After two or three miles they turned onto a rocky dirt road that dropped more steeply than the climb. The air was thick with the smell of pine. At a crudely painted sign with unclear directions, they hesitated briefly and then scrambled down the path on the right.

Within minutes they came out of the woods into a wide, uneven wadi. In the middle stood a concrete ohel some twenty feet wide, enclosed by a low iron railing, its wide roof resting on heavy pillars. Cement steps led up to a platform with a tapestry-covered structure resembling a tomb, which held nothing. They knew that this whole structure had been built only a few years before, after many pilgrims had left in frustration, unable to find the simple marker that had shown the tzaddik's resting place for centuries.

The space under the roof was divided, with one side raised to serve as an Ezras Noshim. Soon after they arrived, a dusty silver van pulled up and let out half a dozen eager seminary girls. The two young men stepped outside to wait. The driver, a short, lively Chassid, climbed out and called in clear, accented English that the girls had fifteen minutes. The girls took no notice.

He lit a cigarette and wandered over to the two young men. "Sholom aleichem," he said, and they answered in kind. He asked how they had come, and Yechezkel said they had walked. "Gevaltig," the driver cried. "Anyone who walks here will surely see results." Then he turned and called to the girls that ten minutes remained.

Inside, the girls had begun saying Tehillim, and the two friends began to do the same. The young man could not help glancing at the girls and picturing that one of them might be his wife within a year. Then he noticed that Yechezkel had gone back to his own quiet prayer, and he understood that it was time to return to the task.

Before long the girls were gone, but neither of them felt any rush. Only when the sun began to sink in the afternoon did they agree that it might be time to leave. Since they doubted they could reach a minyan for Minchah in time, they decided to daven right there. They began Ashrei together and, as they rose and took three steps forward, the clouds finally broke, and bright rays of sun lit up the wooded hills.

Does the segulah work? The writer says only that he can speak only for what happened to him. Yechezkel became engaged to his wife only a fortnight afterward, and his wedding took place just before the yahrzeit of Yonasan ben Uziel, on the 26th of Sivan. The writer himself took a bus to Yerushalayim that same afternoon after the hike back to Tzfas, and he met his wife the next night. They were married in the first week of Adar, less than two months after his visit to Amuka.