Want to Lighten up the Load???

Everything feels so heavy. A burden too great to bear. She’s in a situation where she wants out. It could be something relatively small, like standing in line or it could be something big like…a job? A marriage? Taking care of a relative or raising a family?

She feels empty. EMPTY. Or is it depleted? She knows the cause for the lack of physical energy, but what about the lack of emotional energy? She asks herself, “Are they connected? Are they related?”

She picks up the mess for the tenth time that day and puts in another load of laundry. The food she cooked will be gone in five minutes and the clean dishes will once again be dirty.

She leaves for work and is gone all day. The hours fly by and so do the days and she asks herself, “Will this load ever be light enough to carry?”

Now Moses turned and went down from the mountain [bearing] the two tablets of the testimony in his hand, tablets inscribed from both their sides; on one side and on the other side they were inscribed. Now the tablets were God's work, and the inscription was God's inscription, engraved on the tablets….Now it came to pass when he drew closer to the camp and saw the calf and the dances, that Moses' anger was kindled, and he flung the tablets from his hands, shattering them at the foot of the mountain (Shemot 3:15-19).

Our sages were of the opinion that while the writing was on the tablets Moses did not feel their weight, but when the writing flew away, they became heavy in his hands and he dropped them and they were broken.-Midrash Tanchuma KI Tisa 30

She (or maybe it’s me!) takes the baby one morning to the kever machpala, the burial site of the patriarchs and matriarchs. So much on her mind, so much in her heart she makes the long trip because something inside of her tells her that this is the place where she must pray. She feels sick on the bus, but at last makes it to the destination of her journey. She weaves in and out of connection and disconnection as the baby tugs on her skirt. She picks the baby up and plants a kiss on those delicious fat cheeks. She feels moments of true elevation as she offers a tear stained prayer. She feels thankful and full of joy.

Back on the bus, in a rush. She must get home to the rest of her family. She’s on a high from her adventure and opens the door and it’s almost like she sees the letters of inspiration floating away. This one is hungry and this one made a mess and this one needs her to do this and this one needs her to do that. And I’m not even going to tell you what the neighbors above her head are doing. She doesn’t have time to even catch her breath. Wow these stones feel so heavy.

But before she throws them down, before they break, she opens her eyes and opens her hands and reaches for the letters to bring them back. She realizes that in her home with the very mundane she has the potential to go higher and higher. When she puts holiness into every act the tablets become miraculously light. She sees that with the help of G-d she can hold them up. And the prayer she offers up in her home with tears of hard work and exhaustion soar up to the Heavens reaching the Heavenly Throne.

May we be blessed with the strength to take ahold of those letters and not let them fly away! May we merit to put holiness into every act. May Hashem lift the weight of the load, the burden, the test, off from our shoulders.

Shabbat Shalom and Happy Purim Katan! May you all be blessed with great joy, simcha!

Elana