Kisses from Hashem
Kisses
The week before the New Year begins, the week before Yom HaDin (Day of Judgement). There are so many thoughts going through my racing mind. With the busyness of life, the busyness of the season, some thoughts I let park and some just race by.
It’s erev Shabbat and I’m cooking with my brand-new bottle of extra virgin olive oil, bought especially for making delicious food in honor of yom tov and shabbat. I put it down for a moment on a stool. As I am always doing-rushing, rushing from one thing to the next, I forget to take it and put it back on the countertop.
Someone comes and knocks the bottle down. It crashes and breaks. Oil spills onto the floor. Add it to the list. Yesterday we already spent three hours cleaning our bi-annual sewer flooding apartment end of the year test. Kaparat avonot (atonement for sins). The spill is not worth making the other person feel bad or putting myself down. I bend down and start to clean up the mess.
A mental note made: Buy a new bottle! Each time I make the trip to the supermarket I’m overwhelmed and in a rush. I buy all that I need except for the olive oil bottle. Everyday passes during the week I tell myself, “The olive oil.” I continue to rush from one thing to the next.
The thoughts race by, the New Year approaches.
I’m challenged to think. What are my goals? My wants? My needs?
Thursday arrives, it’s almost erev Shabbat. “Elana,” I tell myself. “Just take deep breaths.”
A client of mine, a regular, who has now also become a friend, calls, “Do you have time for me this morning?”
“Yes!”
She comes an hour later. I open the door to her smiling face.
She has a present for me for the new year. Honey? A box of dates? Something that would make sense?
No, but something that makes so much more sense.
She hands me a bag of organic spelt flour (thoughtful as always, she knows that I can’t eat wheat and that I make my own challahs) and…
A bottle of olive oil.
A kiss from Above. A kiss from Hashem.
There are no coincidences in life only kisses.
My mind continues to race, but I stop it and I think, “All I want for the New Year is to feel and know this closeness. Kisses from Hashem, may we all be blessed.”
Shana tova u metuka, a Sweet happy healthy new year.
With blessings and kisses from Jerusalem,
Elana