WE'VE GOT THIS

“We’ve Got This” — And Why I Believe It

Until now, every update I’ve shared has carried a certain weight — a mix of fear, trepidation, and that quiet worry that comes from staring into the unknown. And yet, alongside it, there has always been hope. Hope that the tefillos, the kabbalot, the acceptance of whatever Hashem places before us would somehow tip the scales toward a better outcome.

I still have no doubt they will.

But something shifted.

Something happened that made me close all my spreadsheets. Shut down every “what if” tab I’d been running in my mind. Stop chasing dozens of different expert opinions.

For the first time in months, I felt a deep, calm certainty rise up inside me. The words came unbidden, but they were firm and clear:

I’ve got this. We’ve got this.

And the reason is simple: Hashem gives us gedolim to guide us — His representatives in our generation — and when they speak, we listen. We follow. We believe.

Back in 2006, when I was in Yeshiva in Eretz Yisroel, I began following a particular Rabbi — a giant in Torah and hashkafa who travels across the country giving drashot and bringing Jews back to their roots.

Once a week, I’d hop on a bus to wherever he was speaking — Rishon Le’Zion, Ashdod, wherever it was. It didn’t take long for my Mashgiach to notice that I was missing every Tuesday night seder. When I told him where I was going, he smiled and said, “You won’t get better hashkafa,” and gave me his full blessing to continue.

Over the next eighteen years, I followed him through digital channels — watching his shiurim livestreamed or on YouTube. And at the end of each shiur, there was always a question-and-answer session. People from all walks of life — frum, not frum — would line up. Some came with questions of belief, others asked for brachot, and many poured out their hearts about the hardships they were facing.

And sometimes, people came not to ask anything at all, but simply to come back and say thank you, for a segula they received many months or years before:

Thank you — because after a decade of treatments and doctors saying it was impossible, we finally had children.

Thank you — because we found our shidduch and got married.

Thank you — because we survived an illness that should have taken our lives.

If you know who I’m talking about, you’ll also know — he doesn’t hand out brachot freely. To receive a bracha, you must take something on. In the zechus of that commitment, Hashem — the true Source of blessing — should answer you. And what he gives you to take on is never easy. It requires time, sacrifice, and commitment. But we believe — because we know that the words of our gedolim carry siyata dishmaya far beyond what our own limited vision can see.

So when Mikki became ill, I tried repeatedly to reach him for direction. I wanted his hadracha. I wanted a segula from one of the greatest gedolim of our time — something that could lead, b’ezras Hashem, to her recovery.

But it wasn’t simple. He doesn’t have a home where people queue for hours to speak with him. His life is on the move — city to city, shiur to shiur. And from South Africa, getting that private moment felt impossible.

Then, Hashem began moving pieces.

My niece in Israel got engaged, with the wedding planned at short notice. My parents decided last-minute to go. My brother-in-law, who had lived for years in the North near Chaifa, unexpectedly moved to Yerushalayim for a short while after being let down by his landlord, and having nowhere else to stay in the interim.

When I heard my mother was going, I begged her to go on my behalf to this Rabbi in Bnei Brak — to ask what Mikki and I could take on to earn the zechusim to be saved. Because anyone who has faced illness like this knows: if your current level of observance was enough, the illness would never have come. Continuing unchanged cannot be the answer. If it wasn't enough to prevent it — how could it be enough to fix it? How can we be the same or 5% better Jews, but want a 100% miracle?

There were obstacles. My mother doesn’t speak Hebrew well, and she wasn’t staying in Bnei Brak. Even after enlisting help from acquaintances in Bnei Brak, no one could guarantee where or when he’d be available — his schedule is unpredictable.

And then, I checked his public schedule. He was giving a drosha in Yerushalayim the night after the wedding — three days after my parents’ arrival — in the very same suburb where my brother-in-law and family were (temporarily) staying. My bilingual brother-in-law, my mother, and the Rabbi would all be in Yerushalayim at the same time.

By then, I already knew Hashem was guiding this. Why would He stop at the penultimate moment?

My mother and brother-in-law went to the drosha, hoping that in the rush of hands going up during the Q&A, my brother-in-law would be chosen. Usually, the Rav gives priority to those who are not yet observant, focusing on kiruv.

And my brother-in-law — a sofer and avreich — doesn’t exactly blend into that crowd.

But he was chosen. He asked on our behalf. And the Rabbi told him exactly what Mikki and I need to take on — the spiritual direction that could, b’ezras Hashem, arouse mercy and bring a refuah shleimah.

And here is where emunah becomes real: when a gadol tells you what to do, you don’t just nod politely. You believe. You follow. You act with the certainty that Hashem Himself has guided these words to you.

I’ve written before about how, even when Hashem seems hidden, He is orchestrating events that will lead to the salvation He already has planned. Long before Haman’s decree, Hashem had placed Esther in the palace. And Mordechai said to her: “Mi yodea im l’eis kazot higa’at la’malchut” — Who knows if it was not for just such a time as this that you were appointed Queen?

This is my l’eis kazot. 19 years ago I stumbled accross this Rabbi to get this segulah now.

And it’s not the only Hashgacha Pratit — Divine Supervision — that we have seen. My sister-in-law’s husband has a brother in America, a Rabbi. One of his congregants is the world’s leading expert on Hepatocellular Carcinomas — Mikki’s exact diagnosis — and is the global lead on all current and recent frontline trials for it.

I send him the medical updates; he gives me insight I could never have accessed otherwise.

Go back even further — to our childhoods, our personalities, the traits Hashem placed in us decades ago. Almost forty years of preparation for 2025.

That is what gives me incredible hope. You see the tapestry. You see the Weaver. And you stand back in awe, realising how small your own view is. “You see a handbreadth, and Hashem sees from one end of time to the other.”

In a previous blog, I wrote that there are two kinds of sickness:

• Sickness as a precursor to death (as requested by Yaakov Avinu).

• Sickness during one’s lifetime, which can be reversed with teshuva and prayer (as in Chizkiyahu’s case).

  
  

I always wondered how you know which is which? Lo Aleinu we have seen young people pass away, so one can not say definitively that if a person gets sick in the prime of their life, it falls into the category of Chizkiyahu. At which does the one become the other? I don't have an answer. It bothered me.

But today I know with certainty Mikki falls into the latter. Why else would Hashem have spent years arranging things so that we now have both the Rabbi for spiritual direction and the world’s leading doctor for physical intervention in our lives at the exact same time?

When the Jewish people were still in Egypt, our sages teach that Hashem longed to redeem them — to take them out from the crushing exile. But there was a problem: they had sunk to such spiritual lowliness that they lacked the merit to be redeemed.

So Hashem, in His kindness, gave them two mitzvot to perform before leaving: the Korban Pesach (Paschal sacrifice) and Brit Milah (circumcision). These were not just rituals — they were acts of commitment and faith, especially in the face of danger. The blood of the Pesach on the doorposts and the blood of the Brit Milah became their protection, their declaration of loyalty, and their passport to freedom.

The message is profound: Hashem wanted to take them out — but He gave them something to do so they could earn the redemption. It wasn’t because He needed proof; it was because He wanted them to take ownership of their miracle, to be partners in it.

That is why I feel hope today. The fact that Hashem has spoken to us through one of the great Gedolim — giving us a clear path of mitzvot and actions — tells me He wants to heal Mikki. Just like in Egypt, He is giving us a way to ‘earn’ the miracle He is ready to give.

When you believe that Hashem sends His messengers to guide you — and you listen — fear turns into determination. And that’s why I can say, with complete conviction:

We’ve got this.

Before I end, I want to say thank you.

There are over 600 people in the Tehillim group, and around 400 people who read these updates here on the website. I am ashamed to admit that there are many names I don’t even recognise — people who may know Mikki, or her mom, or one of my sisters-in-law, or someone who knows someone who knows one of us.

But I believe, with all my heart, that whatever the connection, Hashem placed each and every one of you in our lives for a reason. For the Tehillim you are saying, for the chesed you are doing, for the merit you are bringing into the world in Mikki’s name.

We feel it. We appreciate it. And we believe it is part of the tapestry Hashem is weaving for our salvation.

I’ll end with some words of wisdom my mother shared with me from a friend of hers. She said: “Stop worrying about the scans and the bloodwork. That’s for the doctors — that’s their job. They need to do their job, and you need to do yours. Your job is to daven, to accept this with love and with emunah, and to do your individual segulot.”

And please G-d, at a future date, either Mikki or I will be able to stand up and say:

“Ten years ago, we asked the Rabbi for a Segula…”