Priorities-Quick Story Before Rosh Hashana
Priorities
The night before Rosh Hashana. I have plans. G-d has plans. They rarely match. I start to put my toddler to sleep, thinking that I actually might have a relaxing evening ahead of me. After three days of shopping, cooking, and working. We climb into the bed when my eldest tells me on his way out the door, “Mommy, water is coming up from the kitchen floor.”
Priorities. “Let me just get Yosef Shalom to sleep,” I think to myself. “Then I’ll deal with it.”
We sing. I kiss his pudgy cheek and caress his golden curls. I go out to the kitchen. Water is coming up from the drainage hole. Water turns to sewer. For the next two and a half hours we sponga (mop) the continuous flow out of our home. It’s not so easy to find a plumber to come to your home in Jerusalem on the night before Rosh Hashana. After all, everyone has their plans and their priorities.
My husband runs to the building manager. This is not a clogged pipe, this is a major problem as the building’s sewer comes up into our kitchen floor. He tells us he’ll find us a plumber.
We mop. Thoughts go through my head during those hours where we wait and mop until our plumber/angel comes.
“Thank G-d Yosef Shalom (who loves to play in water) is asleep.”
“This too is from Hashem.”
“Why does it always have to be so difficult?”
“Can we move to Hawaii?”
“Baruch Hashem this happened today and not tomorrow night on Yom Tov.”
“Kaparot Avanot (An atonement for sins).”
“I’m so tired.”
Gabriel, literally our malach (angel), plumber arrived in his slippers with his wife giving him grocery shopping orders on the phone. He put a big metal tube into the drain hole and hooks it up to a machine.
“B’Shem haShem nase venatsliach (With G-d we’ll do and be successful)”
He looks at me and sees my exhausted, fallen face and starts to reproach me, “Rabbanit, why the face? You should be thrilled. Better this than the body! Kaparot Avanot! Ya, with this you’ll have a great year. Health for all your children.”
I look down with shame. “AMEN! You’re right! Baruch Hashem!!!”
Priorities!
He turns on the machine and the kitchen starts to shake. Things go down and then a black blob of sewer comes up. It’s down. The water/sewer goes down.
I thank him and bless him profusely. He leaves as quickly as he arrived on his way to the supermarket.
A minute later my mother calls me with good news. She found something she thought she lost months ago.
Twenty minutes later we hear the news-a devastating earthquake shook Mexico City. My husband’s entire family lives in Mexico City. Baruch Hashem his family and friends are all alive and unharmed.
Priorities
Kaparat Avanot? Who knows, but one thing I know is that it’s all from Hashem. In life, we must stay focused on our priorities. A person counts their blessings and thanks G-d for every minute that they have in this world and knows that we have our plans and He has His. May this be a year of bracha, shefa, health and peace with clarity and the right priorities…..
May the people of Mexico recovery quickly and be protected from harm.
Shana Tova u Metuka,
Elana