You never know how it will happen...
Tuesday, in the midst of preparing for a sheva bracha, I took a minute here and there throughout the day to write some words on the Parsha. The baby didn’t want to take a nap all day and the pouring rain leaked into our living room/dining room/salon. Somehow with all this I still managed to write a full page.
The food miraculously got cooked and smelled delicious. Our home was set up with tables and chairs. On the ceiling we taped a plastic table cloth over the leaks to keep the dripping off the food and off our guests. I go to my computer to see what I wrote before the bride and groom come and…it was gone! My writing on the weekly Parsha-it’s gone. I try to find it, to get it back, but it’s disappeared.
I’m frustrated and upset but there’s nothing to do, thank G-d no time to act on those emotions.
What I wrote is gone and I realize that it wasn’t meant to go out. Now it’s erev Shabbes. Will I have a moment to something new?
A thought came to mind…here we go…
***
Let me tell you a little story. I met a couple nearly twenty years ago in a faraway land that for a few years I called home. I became friends with the mother. We connected. But we moved away, moved on, and we didn’t keep in touch. Fast forward a dozen years their daughter, who I remembered as a preschooler, grew up and came to Israel to learn in a seminary. She came to us for Shabbes, a lovely woman whom I grew to adore. She made aliya and for the next few years continued to come.
The shidduchim started and her mother called me. “Elana, can you please help us? We are here, she’s there and she’s all alone.”
“Of course, with pleasure!” Afterall, I too, came to love her and I really really care.
For two years I made calls and investigated. I put prayer, time, energy and love.
“Matchmaker matchmaker make me a match!”
I spoke to everyone I knew about her.
I thought to myself, “Chaval, Avraham Nissim (my thirteen-year-old son) is too young!”
This one wasn’t right, nor that one and time kept going forward.
Then one day her mother called me…
“Elana! Mazel tov! She’s getting engaged right now!!!!”
I felt such joy, but I was also in shock. Wait a minute. I didn’t do anything here! No one called me about this boy. What happened? I felt left out.
On second thought, not really. I felt relieved and grateful, a stone of responsibility lifted off my shoulders. Baruch Hashem!
And then I realized. Yes, take responsibility. Make an action. But don’t think that it’s your particular action making things happen. Put your heart and desire into the matter. These drops of effort do fill the cup. But take the weight off your shoulders. Don’t think you know the only way that it can or should come.
No excuses for relinquishing control like, “If I don’t do it, it won’t get done…”
The Lord said to Moses, "Stretch forth your hand over the land of Egypt for the locusts, and they will ascend over the land of Egypt, and they will eat all the vegetation of the earth, all that the hail has left over." So Moses stretched forth his staff over the land of Egypt, and the Lord led an east wind in the land all that day and all the night. [By the time] it was morning, the east wind had borne the locusts (Shemot 1:12-13).
If you push more and more the rock still might not budge. Then one day you’ll sneeze, and the rock will go rolling. The key is to have faith and to know that it’s Hashem who can and will make ANYTHING and EVERYTHING happen.
And so this past Tuesday I danced at our beautiful bride’s wedding and on Wednesday we had the honor of celebrating some more.
I didn’t think that I would have time to write again, but Hashem gave me an hour while Tehilla Bracha, my baby, took a nap and is now playing beside me on the floor.
I have more thoughts, the ideas that I wrote before, but Shabbes is approaching and it’s not the time to write anymore.
With blessings and Mazel tov to our dear Chatan and Kalla,
Shabbat Shalom,
Elana