When I was 12 years old I received a white leather ArtScroll women’s siddur for my bat mitzvah. That same year my father received the news that he had heart disease.
The following 15 years were filled with daily prayers to Hashem for my father’s health, well-being and long life. A decade and a half of facial oil, makeup and tears dyeing the page of Shema Koleinu in the Amidah, and a decade and half of wonderful moments and memories with my father.
This year, on the second day of Pesach, my father passed away.
While he had lived with heart disease for a while, he had been doing well, and his sudden loss was a painful shock to my whole family.
On the second day of sitting shiva, when the minyan convened so my brother could say Kaddish at Shacharit, I opened my white ArtScroll siddur to join them. Upon opening the very book in which I had spent the majority of my life praying for my father, the page of Shema Koleinu fell out.
I immediately began to cry. Fifteen years of prayer, and clearly God had other plans. All my teffilot for my father literally lay there at my feet.
I could not stop the sobs but, ironically, a shiva house is not the best place to cry if you prefer to weep in privacy … especially when 15 men are davening in the dining room.
I excused myself to take a moment alone on the front steps, letting myself cry in earnest.
Through bleary eyes I suddenly saw a rush of motion.
Looking to my right, I saw a fox run across the front lawn. Not 10 feet away, red fur, bushy tale—a fox in Teaneck, New Jersey!
I then called my brother-in-law—who is a rabbi with the last name Fox.
“Daniel! What does a fox mean?”
Ending our call, he told me it was a good sign.
“I thought foxes were bad? I thought there was a prophecy about foxes running across the ruins of the Beis Hamikdash after it was destroyed?”
Joining me on the steps, my brother-in-law said, “Yes, there is a story in the Talmud about Rabbi Akiva…” and he told me how, upon seeing the foxes run across the ruins of the desecrated Beis Hamikdash, all the rabbis began to cry—all the rabbis except Rabbi Akiva, who began to laugh.
When asked why he was laughing, Rabbi Akiva said simply, “There are foxes running from the Holy of Holies across the grounds of the Beis Hamikdash.”
The other rabbis replied, “Yes! That is why we are crying! Why are you laughing?”
Rabbi Akiva responded to them, saying with conviction, that seeing this prophecy come true, while sad, also means that the other prophecies—the good ones that say Mashiach will come and the Beis Hamikdash will return—will also come true.
“So now foxes have come to mean that Hashem keeps His promises, that even in bad times, good things are coming,” my brother-in-law concluded. After a moment, he stood up and headed back inside to check on my sister—his wife.
So there I sat, on the steps.
Hashem keeps his promises.
Even in bad times, good things are coming.
Hashem listens.
The Beis Hamikdash will return. Mashiach will come … and the revival of our departed (Tchiat Hameitim) will happen.
A message to me, in direct response to seeing the page where all my prayers for my father were held fall out of my siddur: God was saying, “No no, I do listen. Good things are coming.”
And while nothing can really relieve the weight and pain of my grief—I will miss my kind, funny, passionate, brilliant Abba every moment of every day of the rest of my life—it felt like the sharp edges of that grief had been slightly smoothed. The weight was still there, but it didn’t pierce me as it pressed down.
Hashem keeps his promises.
Even in bad times, good things are coming.
I will see my (Abba) dear father again.
*B’zchut for an aliyah of the neshama of HaRav Yosef Yitzchak ben Reuven HaLevi, Rabbi Ian Azizollahoff, on the 30th day since his passing (Shloshim)
