Change your Reality!

She’s upset because honestly, her home is a disaster. She doesn’t have it together. She has no idea where anything is. Open a closet or pantry and everything comes flying out at her. I don’t blame her. She has small kids. I understand, it’s normal. I ask her if she can spend thirty minutes each evening after the children are asleep to make a little bit of order? One closet at a time, one drawer. Okay so next time she goes to the supermarket and unpacks the groceries once again there might be disarray. But slowly, slowly, every day, for just a half an hour, maybe they’ll be able to maintain some sense of order?

She hesitates. Why? Because then she tells me about this course that she wants to take and the business she wants to start, and the list goes on and on and then we find ourselves back to square one that her home is a mess and it makes her feel insecure, inadequate, and is a source of tension and strife between her and her husband. And you know what, coming from where I come, I totally understand her. And so I tell her, what I’ve told myself many times over and over…

First I remind her how her home is a mini Beis haMikdash-a miniature Holy Temple. The cohenim-the priests did their holy work which were the most seemingly mundane tasks day in and day out. They cleaned ashes and swept the floors. Did the “laundry” and prepared food. All the tasks that we are not allowed to perform on Shabbat-the most ordinary of ordinary tasks: sewing, washing, cooking, baking, sifting, kneading…were the jobs of the holy for the Holy. I reminder her that she’s holy and her home is holy and the work she does, so mundane and boring, so unglamorous and apparently unsatisfactory is actually on a level of priesthood in the Beis haMikdash.

And then I tell her, “Focus, priorities. First your home. Nothing in life lasts

forever. Not even the stage you’re in. For now, you need to drop a ball.”

A ball? Yes, a ball.

Juggling, juggling, juggling. How many times have I called myself a juggler? Nowadays everyone I know is a juggler. The question is a juggler of what? And a juggler of how many balls? I throw one up into the air. I can catch it. I get my rhythm going and I can throw two. Maybe three if I really practice and I’m good at it. But if you throw me one more ball or add that second or third one before I’m ready…I know. I’m going to drop them all.

And he (Avraham) lifted his eyes and saw, and behold, three men were standing beside him, and he saw and he ran toward them from the entrance of the tent, and he prostrated himself to the ground (Bereishit 18:2).

and behold, three men: One to bring the news [of Isaac’s birth] to Sarah, and one to overturn Sodom, and one to heal Abraham, for one angel does not perform two missions (Gen. Rabbah 50:2).

So the Torah is telling me that even angels only juggle one mission at a time? But they are angels and I’m not! They have a mission from G-d. They have clarity! I also have a mission. I just need to focus, be honest with myself, not get distracted. I need to find and maintain clarity.

Missions change. Circumstances change. But one ball at a time, clarity.

***

“Mommy, do you think it’s going to get cold and rain?” I looked out at the clear blue sky and felt the heat coming in from the balcony.

“It’s so hot and clear skied. I doubt it.”

But how could I doubt such a thing? The previous night we changed the blessing asking for rain. How could I doubt such a thing when looking at the clear blue sky and feeling the Jerusalem desert heat?

At 1:25 AM that night what happened? Reality changed. I woke up with a start to a crash in the sky. Thunder, lighting and…rain.

Not a miracle. Reality changed.

We changed the blessing, we asked for rain and G-d, He changed the reality.

***

She’s been married for eleven years and has no children. What words can I use to describe how she feels? The way she goes about her day? She’s so so unhappy. Rightfully so. She can’t help herself, she tells me herself that she’s unpleasant. She complains all day. Her husband comes home, and she has no strength to do anything. Her husband asks her how her about her day and she tells him. It was miserable.

I ask her something difficult. It’s painful. I ask her to change her reality. As she goes through this month’s IVF treatment I won’t let her mention anything negative, not one complaint to her husband. To me, or a friend, yes as much as she wants, but not to him. Not at home. I ask her to change her reality and build her home, make it a warm, pleasant place. I ask her to let G-d (G-d willing) be the one to make a miracle, or maybe instead of calling it a miracle, to change their childless reality.

And he said, "I will surely return to you at this time next year, and behold, your wife Sarah will have a son." And Sarah heard from the entrance of the tent, and it was behind him. Now Abraham and Sarah were old, coming on in years; Sarah had ceased to have the way of the women. And Sarah laughed within herself, saying, "After I have become worn out, will I have smooth flesh? And also, my master is old (Bereshit 18:10-12)."

Wait a minute Sarah, your menses had already ceased? This was your reality? But the Midrash tells us that when Avraham asked you to prepare bread for the visitors that:

Sarah had begun menstruating for the course of (younger) women returned to her on that day…Bereshit Rabbah 48:13

It was more than a miracle for this very old Sarah to conceive and carry a child. Her menses returned to her. Not just a miracle, REALITY changed.

Reality. It’s not that G-d only performs miracles (which He does twenty-four hours of our day) He actually and truly changes reality.

Can we believe to laugh from joy and not from disbelief? That within a moment, a day, maybe it will take more maybe not, that in a split second the sky can open up and it can rain? Our reality can change.

May we be blessed with clarity to know which balls to juggle and how many. May we stay focused on our holy tasks and missions and may we feel fulfilled when doing them. May we believe and laugh from joy and know that it one second G- can change reality and can and will shower us with bracha (blessing).

This was written for the refua shleima, total and complete recovery, of a dear Safta and neighbor, Chana bat Fraicha.

Shabbat Shalom,

With love and blessing,