A woman I know was married in 1970. Her dress was especially
designed and hand-sewn for her. She inspired a Spanish style
with a long train and a fitted bolero with long sleeves. The
bodice was satin and the entire dress and headpiece were
lovingly covered in Chantilly lace. It was beautiful and she
looked beautiful in it.
When she came on aliya, she brought the dress with her. On
her tenth wedding anniversary, she got divorced. For some
reason, she kept the dress, afraid it would be bad luck to
give it away. She has moved apartments six times since and
the dress moved with her. In her last apartment, she
discovered she had nowhere to store the dress and asked a
downstairs neighbor if she would store it for her.
Ten years went by, and she had all but forgotten about it
when the downstairs neighbor asked her to take back the dress
as she needed the room. It was still wrapped in the bag it
had been stored in twenty years earlier. My friend took out
the dress and emotionally appraised it. The satin had
yellowed and stained and she realized that it was
unsalvageable. She separated the lace from the bodice and the
headpiece. There was nothing that could be done with the
satin but she didn't feel it was right to throw the lace out.
Instead, she stuffed it into a pillowcase for safekeeping,
where it remained for another ten years.
Recently, as she was going through some things to give away,
she came across the lace. She thought she could make
something from it but she didn't know how to do it. The lace
also had holes in it. A friend suggested she just throw it
out but she couldn't do it. It seemed such a shame. She
decided she would give it to another friend, a seamstress.
Maybe she'd find a use for it.
That evening she got a message on her voice mail: "You don't
know what a tzaddekes you are! The lace wasn't in my
house for two hours when a rebbetzin called me to ask if I
had some lace. She is making tablecloths for hachnossas
kalla. So I gave her your lace. It went from kalla
to kalla." The lady who told me this story was `blown
away', like a piece of fine lace carried on the wind. What's
even more amazing is that this rebbetzin and the seamstress
have been friends for fifteen years and not once before had
she ever asked her friend for anything.
"There's a time for everything under the sun," says Koheles.
"A time to rend and a time to mend." What one person rends or
throws out, another person can mend and use. We live in a
very disposable world where there is a great deal of
consumption. Yet there is also great lack and if we think
about it, we can all, in some way, fill the lack of
others.
Everything we own can be used for a mitzva. What is
outdated for us can be a blessing for someone else. The
prohibitive commandment of bal tashchis applies to
anything that can be salvaged, saved, recycled and passed on.
Hashem has an address for everything. And sometimes, things
have to lie around a long time before He directs them to that
address. We, as keepers of these Divine gifts, have to be
patient and recognize when the time is right to pass them
on.
My friend was very happy that her lace found a good home.
Actually, it found several good homes. The wedding dress
begat a progeny of tablecloths. And one day, those
tablecloths may further beget veils, or doilies or trim on a
new wedding dress. [At worst -- a Purim costume.]
"A virtuous woman who will find?"
She seeks out lace and delivers it to the seamstress.
