Rivki Faces Marriage Alone After Losing Her Mother and Home Stability

Rivki’s life was upended about eight years ago when her mother died after an eight-year battle with a serious illness. Those years were marked by hospital treatments and constant prayers for recovery, and her mother’s death shattered not only the family bond but also Rivki’s sense of security.

Afterward, her father remarried, started a new household, and the family grew by six children. As the years passed, Rivki felt increasingly alienated in the home where she grew up and tried not to burden the expanding family. She eventually moved in with relatives who were willing to host her, but even there she remained aware that she was a guest dependent on others’ kindness.

Now Rivki is preparing to marry and build her own home, but she faces the process alone. Unlike many brides whose mothers help cover expenses and whose families stand beside them under the chuppah, she must confront the high costs herself. She says she does not want a lavish wedding or luxuries, only the basic ability to begin married life with dignity and without fear of the debts that may follow the wedding day.

In her plea, Rivki said, “I am not asking for grandeur. I am not asking for luxuries. Only for the basic possibility to begin my life with dignity. To stand under the chuppah without fear of the day after. To know that even an orphan who has no mother, and who did not find her place in the home where she grew up, has an entire people holding her hand at the most important moment of her life.” The article says her case is one of 92 orphans, brides and grooms currently marrying who still lack basic wedding needs, and cites a special effort led by Rabbi Benyamin Finkel, Rabbi David Cohen and the Rebbe of Rachmastrivka, together with the Vaad Harabanim for Charity in Israel, which called on the public to donate 10 shekels for each of the 92.