Shemirat halashon segulah

A few weeks ago, I wrote about a segulah for a shidduch that I had just heard about. To read the post click here. Someone contacted me, saying she was interested in organizing a group for shemirat halashon. Months ago, Hamodia published an article by a woman who had a son who needed a shidduch. She joined a shemirat halashon group. The day was divided into 9 segments starting form 8 am -10 am, 10am - 12pm...... and the last segment was from 12am-8 am. Eighteen women signed up for a 2 hour segment. Thus, there were two women who covered each time segment. During those two hours, the woman took upon themselves to refrain from speaking lashon hara. In addition, they learned two halachos about lashon hara daily. At the beginning of each week, the women would say a short prayer, having one person from the list in mind. Since there were eighteen names on the list, the women committed themselves for a period of eighteen weeks.

The woman went on to describe how her son became engaged during the eighteen week period.

At the engagement party, she found out that the kallah's mother had also been part of the group and that they had both been refraining from speaking lashon hara during the same two hours.

I mentioned the story to a friend of mine, and she immediately set about to form such a group. The end result was that one boy on the list got engaged during the week we were praying for him.

After the eighteen weeks elapsed, my friend began a second cycle. I told her that I would love to participate for a second time because I had gotten used to saying the 2 halachos a day and found I was much more careful with my speech.

The woman who contacted me is interested in organizing such a group. She allowed me to publish her email address, in case you would like to join. Her address is rachelfranrachfran@yahoo.com. You can also contact me at devorah@live.co.uk.

Additionally, my email correspondent alerted me to a website which organized prayer for refuah, shidduchim, and so on. To access their website, click here.

Finally, as regards any segulah, let us keep in mind the following words from http://kallahmagazine.blogspot.com/2008_06_01_archive.html.

"According to the Chazon Ish, bitachon does not mean that you believe if you really pray with all your heart, you will get what you ask for. It means that you accept that whatever happens is for the good even if it doesn't match what you had envisioned. It is like the story in which someone attempted to test a little girl's faith by telling her to go ahead and pray for what she wanted to see if G-d listens to her. But the girl was wise and said, G-d listened, and he said, "no." Hashem is not bound to alter the Divine plan because someone just followed the halacha by taking off challah. "