Out of the Dark into the Light
You meet a person and listen to them and their story and you hear how they feel like they are in a hole, a bottomless pit of desperation. Like there’s no way out in sight. It’s not just that they are in a rut. They’re in a hole.
The bills are piling up and they say, “There’s no way to get out of this.”
The woman goes out date after date. It feels pointless, hopeless and she says,
“I’m not going out anymore, it’ll never happen.”
How many years can go by without the positive sign on a pregnancy test?
She waits and waits, passes the due date and it feels like this pregnancy will never end.
They throw their hands up in the sky. They feel helpless, they don’t know what to do anymore with this child.
The loneliness, the depression, the madness, it grips you in it’s claws and holds you prisoner and you doubt that there’s anyway to break free from it’s clutches.
She called me yesterday and I recognized the voice. Not the owner of the voice, but the tone of the voice. It was a voice of desperation, a voice of, “I can’t anymore. I’ve reached the bottom. I’m tired. I’m too low. I can’t get out.”
So Pharaoh sent and summoned Joseph, and they rushed him from the pit (Beresheit 41:14)
And they rushed him: Every case of Divine salvation comes hastily and unexpectedly.- Sforno.
You’re right. Alone you can’t get out of a hole that’s a pit. It’s too dark, too deep, too empty. But I am going to tell you something. This is from my personal experiences-and I’m going to make myself vulnerable and open up to you that time and time again I feel like I’ve reached the bottom of that hole- and from the experiences of the hundreds of women that I work with and personally witness their salvations. It doesn’t come from below, it (the salvation) comes from Above and it happens so quickly and unexpectedly. One minute you are down there and the next, He rushes and lifts you up.
Hold on to this teaching, it will be a flicker of light for you in the darkness.
***
She thought that the more one has the more one knows. Like the more children you have, the more experience you have; the more you know how to raise them? The more classes you attend the more you know the subject matter? The more births you have the more you know the nature of your body and know what to expect?
Well it seems that this child, which is not the first, nor the second….proved her theory wrong. Years of parenting classes, dozens of parenting books, advice sought from mentors, teachers, Rebbetzens and friends. She seeks out specialists and she even humbly (or so she thinks) seeks out the novice for any insight or new technique that they can offer. But this child, he just won’t follow the books. He goes by his own rules and has his own way of doing things and he leaves his parents crying in frustration, confused, feeling inadequate and baffled.
Then one day she hears something, something so powerful and so true. She hears that she’s not in control and that relinquishing control, throwing up her hands, not as a sign as, “I give up on this child,” but as a sign of, “I’m giving it over to Something so much bigger and Something so much more powerful than me,” this, and this alone is the only thing that can work and that really, she can do.
And may the Almighty G-d (G-d of Enough-Sufficient) grant you compassion before the man, and he will release to you your other brother and Benjamin, and as for me as I am bereaved, I am bereaved (Bereshit 43:14).
the Almighty God: Heb. א-ֵל שַׁדָּי, Whose grant of mercy is sufficient (שֶׁדַי) , and Who has sufficient power to grant, May He grant you compassion. This is its simple meaning (Zohar , vol. 2, p. 257a). Its midrashic interpretation, however, is: May He Who said to His world, “Enough!” (שֶׁאָמַר דָּי) say to my troubles ,“Enough!” for I have not enjoyed tranquility since my youth…. (Tanchuma Mikeitz 10).
Jacob you had four wives! Imagine all the parenting advice they gave you! You learned in the best Yeshivot from the best Rabbis and grew up with righteous parents. You fathered a dozen sons and a daughter(s). Jacob, you must have known it all! So tell me Jacob, because I’m so curious, Jacob, now, now you say “Enough!???” Only in your righteousness and greatness did you make it so far!
And now, what are you teaching us, the children of your children’s children? What do you teach as you send all your sons out into the unknown; and you see that you have no control over them or the situation that they’re in? Have you reached the point where you see that you can’t do anymore and you have no more left to do?
That’s it. You send them now with what you can- the most important thing of all-you send them with… a blessing, a prayer that the Almighty G-d, the G-d of Enough, would watch over, protect them, be the One to take care of them. You teach us the clarity of “ENOUGH!” I can’t do this Hashem, but You, the G-d of Enough, You can. Enough with me doing and looking for the answers. The answer is You! The outcome and even the path isn’t up to me, it’s up (and I’m at last understanding that I have to give it over) to You.
***
We enter this beautiful holiday of light that illuminates us in the dark. We grope in the pitch-dark night for a way out of our hole. In the blink of an eye the flame ignites and there’s clarity and light, yes, a way out IS in sight. May we merit to see it and believe it will come. May all our troubles hastily end. May we turn to Hashem, the Almighty, the G-d of Enough, always (not just when we’ve had enough) and may we always see His Divine intervention, Greatness, and Love.
Chanukah Sameach! Shabbat Shalom,