Change!

It’s over for now. Baruch Hashem (thank G-d)! The refrigerator saga ended. How? We go back a few weeks to before Rosh Hashana. I left a message for a busy friend wishing her a healthy, good new year. We fast forward to Sukkot and a returned phone call. This friend wanted to call before, but didn’t have the time. I randomly (!) told her about my broken door refrigerator, how we were making it through the holiday with string and tape.

“Oh, that happened to me! We were told that there was no means of repair. The only option would be to purchase a new refrigerator, but my mother gave me the name of a refrigerator repair man who said he could fix it. He did something with bolts and screws and fixed it. Where did I put his phone number? I’ll call you back if I find it…”

I didn’t wait for my friend to call me back and called her mother directly. The moment the holiday and Shabbes ended I called Mr. Refrigerator Repair Man.

“Do you know how many calls I have now after the chag (holiday)? How many people need me to come and fix their refrigerator? I am making no promises! Give me your address and we’ll see when I can get to you.”

I gave him our address in Har Nof, our home phone, and my husband’s cell number.

“Chalavai,” I told my husband, “if he can fix it and we won’t have to buy a new one!”

The next morning I went out to the grocery store not knowing how I would put food into our now “not even tape and string holding together” refrigerator.

Mr. RRM called my husband’s cell phone while I was out. He was on his way, what was the address again? My husband gave it to him.

I arrived to Mr. RRM shaking his head and talking as he lifted, bolted, drilled and screwed things into my refrigerator.

Why was he shaking his head?

“You don’t understand,” he says. “I wasn’t supposed to be here. You guys are the last on the list. Don’t you know how busy I am? How did I get here? I was on my way to a different home and by accident (!) I called your number instead. Don’t only Americans live in Har Nof? But you (my husband) answered and you’re not American and I didn’t even know I was coming to Har Nof. How am I here?

My husband, “Nothing is an accident!”

He finished, the door attached and capable of opening and closing. He asked my husband for a cup of coffee, grabbed the paper that was on our countertop, covered his head and made a bracha (blessing).

We thanked him and I gratefully put the groceries into our refrigerator.

Random? Accident? Coincidence?

You realize don’t you that this happens all the time. We hear, we see, but we still don’t get the million and one messages sent to us. Life is random? Accidental? Coincidental?

Make yourself an ark of…(Bereishit 6:14)

There is much relief and salvations before Him (i.e., G-d has many ways to bring about salvation.) Why, then, did [G-d] trouble [Noah] with this construction? So that the people of the Generation of the Flood should see him busy with [the ark] for a hundred and twenty years, and ask him, (‘Of) what (use) is this to you?’ He would say to them, ‘In the future, the Holy One, Blessed is He, is going to bring a flood upon the world.’ (Thus, through the construction of the ark,) they might repent-Rashi

One hundred and twenty years and maybe they thought to themselves, “What a coincidence that Noah is making an ark when we are being threatened with a flood! How random!”

Life is random? An accident? Coincidental?

***

It’s the same story every week and at this point I feel just as stuck as she does- not sure how to help her or what to do about it. Her situation: frustrating, depressing, miserable. But the saddest thing about it is that together we came up with technical ways to unburden the load, make things easier, better, and yet she finds an excuse week after week of why not to implement any of them.

And I ask myself, “Why is change so daunting and difficult?”

She’s miserable, but she’s comfortable in her misery. After all it’s what she knows and what she’s used to. Or maybe that is the answer. For so many of us we actually become comfortable, too comfortable in our miserable (exiled) state.

Noah. Noah, your name means comfortable.

Noah, and his sons, and his wife, and his sons’ wives with him, went into the ark because of the waters of the Flood (Bereishit 7:7)

Noah too was one of those with little faith; he believed, yet he did not believe…and he did not enter the ark until the waters compelled him to. -Rashi

Noah, don’t be so comfortable! Don’t get so used to those undulating waters. G-d is telling you not to get stuck in the flood. Get out. There is always some way out. I truly believe that. It might be a long way out. It might be difficult. If only we can find the faith and the courage (which we have) to unstick ourselves from this destructive comfort, make a change, and get out.

***

Now here’s a story, the same, but opposite. She’s scared and she’s waiting. The waiting feels like forever. She’s waiting to completely and totally get over the trauma of that last birth experience before she can think of having another one again. It’s two years now. Her body’s healed. She received emotional and therapeutic help and she waits for…that perfect state of comfort?

She waits until she realizes that maybe she just needs to move on and go forward even if it’s not so peaceful or comfortable….

Another woman in a similar position she’s waiting for that perfect man to get married. The years pass and she waits. When is he going to come? She tells me she will NOT compromise. She wants a perfect life of rest and comfort. She waits until she realizes when she meets him that no, he’s not perfect, but he’s perfect for her. It’s going to be a lot of work, a lot of growth. Comfortable? She’s not sure, but says yes. They are both willing to make changes and put in the effort. She’s no longer stuck; her life moves on.

Maybe it’s the perfect school, the perfect job, the perfect home. Waiting. Hashem send me that life, the one I want, the perfect one with rest and comfort.

And he waited again another seven days, and he again sent forth the dove from the ark. And the dove returned to him at eventide, and behold it had plucked an olive leaf in its mouth; so Noah knew that the water had abated from upon the earth… and Noah removed the covering of the ark, and he saw, and behold, the surface of the ground had dried up. And God spoke to Noah saying: "Go out of the ark, you and your wife, and your sons, and your sons' wives with you. Every living thing that is with you of all flesh, of fowl, and of animals and of all the creeping things that creep on the earth, bring out with you, and they shall swarm upon the earth, and they shall be fruitful and multiply upon the earth."

bring out: It is written הוֹצֵא, but it is read הַיְצֵא הַיְצֵא means: tell them that they should come out. הוֹצֵא means: if they do not wish to come out, you take them out. — [from Gen. Rabbah 34:8]

Noah, I understand why you’re scared, you and your family and all the animals. But Noah, Noah whose name means comfortable, enough with the waiting. We’re here in this world to work Noah, and you do work so hard. Go forth Noah, you and your family and the animals. Move on, don’t stay trapped in the myth of comfort.

***

I’m asking so much of you and I bless us all that we have the faith and the courage to do it…To open our eyes and see that life is not random, there are no accidents, no coincidences. Hashem watches over everything, controls everything and sends us messages and signals all the time. I bless us that we should never stay comfortable in our misery and know that we can always change, the situation can always change. I bless us that we have the desire, clarity and energy to work hard in this world and find fulfillment in doing so.

Chodesh tov u mevorechet! Shabbat Shalom,

Elana