The Segula of Ta’anit Esther

The Mishnah Berurah writes that we fast on Ta'anit Esther because on the 13th of Adar the Jewish people gathered together to fight for their lives and they needed to cry out to Hashem and fast to get Heavenly help to defeat their enemies. The fast is to remind us that whenever a person is in trouble and he fasts and makes teshuva and cries out to Hashem in tefila, Hashem will hear his prayers and bring him salvation. Rabbenu Bachya writes in parashat V’etchanan that tefilah is so great, it has the ability to change nature. Tefila is so great, it has the ability to save someone from potential harm. And tefila is so great, it has the ability to nullify any decree. The Me’iri and the Maharsha both write, tefila could change a person's mazal , which means even if a person was destined not to have something, tefila could change that destiny. The Kav HaYashar writes that specifically on Ta'anit Esther there's a segula that prayers are readily accepted in the merit of Mordechai and Esther. A person must always believe that no matter how bleak a situation appears to be, prayer can take him out of it. Sometimes it may require dozens of tefilot, sometimes it may require hundreds of tefilot, the main thing is that the prayers are said with sincerity and kavanah and belief that Hashem is listening and waiting to help. It is never too late to be helped. Recently, a Rosh Yeshiva in Eretz Yisrael was zocheh to have his first child at the age of 88. He did not merit to have children with his first wife, who passed away about six years ago. And now, after five years of marriage with his second wife, she gave birth to a baby boy at the age of 57. About a year ago, a woman got married at the age of 39. It was a tremendous simcha. Before the chuppah , a woman whose youngest child is 10 years old went over to the kallah and said, “I know that tefilot under the chuppah are very precious. Please, I'm begging you, pray for me. I've been trying to have a child for the last 10 years without success.” The kallah told her, of course she would pray, and then she said she's also going to need heavenly mercy to have children and asked that woman to pray for her. At that moment, they both exchanged names and agreed to pray for each other to have a child. And now, within a year of that chuppah , baruch Hashem, both of them were zocheh to have a baby. If the story ended there, it would be a very nice story, but there's more. Amazingly, both of these women delivered their babies on the exact same day. This is Hashem telling all of us. “I am here. I am listening to your tefilot and I can bring you salvation in an instant. It's up to us to continue believing and continue praying with heartfelt emotion, even if it's been so long without receiving what we have been asking for. B’ezrat Hashem, everyone's tefilot should be mekubal b’ratzon .