Clarity
Written for the refuah shleima of Tinok harach ben Esther Mazel and Doniel Tzvi Avraham ben Masha Miriam amongst all the Cholei shel Am Yisrael.
She forgets why she is doing it…Doing what? The what doesn’t matter so much, it’s the why that drives her to those thoughts of… sadness, despair, frustration.
It’s a few minutes before school and the teenager isn’t ready. She’s not ready because she waits for the last minute to find what she needs. The child calls out, “I can’t find…” It drives the mother CRAZY. No, it doesn’t drive the mother crazy. The mother drives herself crazy. She knows that she’s responsible for her own state of being, but this is certainly a good trigger.
“Will she ever learn?” The mother asks herself rhetorically. She asks the wall that answers nothing. Maybe she shouldn’t help her? Let her learn to prepare her things the night before. But she tried that technique already and obviously it didn’t work. She lectured, bribed and threatened to no avail. The child sighs, the mother sighs. The hands on the clock tick, “You’ll be late if you don’t get out the door.”
The mother knows that she’s going to help her daughter find the missing object. The one that should have been found the night before. Why? You want the real reason? Because she’s her mommy and this is what mommies do.
So now that she has a bit of clarity that she’s going to help she takes a deep breath and prays for more clarity and then it comes.
“If I am doing this anyways I might as well do it with happiness and compassion.”
It’s a blessing, clarity. Clarity to know why you are doing what you are doing and then comes the clarity of how to go about doing it….
***
We continue the tale of clarity, the take of not so much how, but why she does what she does. Remember, the what doesn’t matter so much as the why.
***
She enters the supermarket, more than two weeks before Rosh HaShanna-the New Year holiday. She’s surprised by the long lines and cart loads full of people. She’s thinking about what to buy for Shabbat and they are already planning their holiday menu.
Her face gets all scrunched with frustration, her shoulders tense up and she clenches her jaw. She thinks, “What a waste of time, this standing in line!” Then she has a bit of clarity. Reframing, she takes a deep breath and stops squeezing her muscles.
She turns to her daughter and exclaims, “Do you realize that every second we stand in line we receive scar (reward) for preparing for Shabbes Kodesh (the Holy Shabbat).”
Ahh, this is why I am standing in line. The entire experience turned upside down, but right side up.
Gone is her frustration, her anger.
***
We see in this week’s parsha laws about what not to mix.
“Male garb shall not be on a woman, and a man shall not wear a feminine garment….(Devarim 22:5)”
“You shall not sow your field with a mixture…You shall not plow with an ox and a donkey together. You shall not wear combined fibers, wool and linen together (ibid 22:9-10) “
Why?
I don’t know why. Really, no one does, these are laws for which we don’t know the true meaning. But I have an idea as to one of the messages these laws teach us….Have clarity! Know what you are doing and why you are doing it. Don’t make your life more confusing than it already is! When doubt creeps in and there is a lack of purpose, sadness and depression follow suit and they trigger you to do things that you really don’t want nor shouldn’t do.
They are like Amelek (gematria-safek=doubt) at the end of this week’s parsha that attacks you when you are weak and tired.
***
May we merit to do, what we are doing anyways, with joy and a sense of purpose. May we have clarity and know what we have to do and how to do it.
With blessing.
May we all be inscribed and sealed in the Book of Life.
Shabbat Shalom,
Elana