Are you STUCK?
It came like, well, it came like a plague. She feels like it came out of nowhere. Fast and furious and painful. She feels swarmed or is it invaded? Over-taken by this test. This test of…fill in the blank. The what doesn’t really matter. It’s the invasive feeling that’s eating her up. It’s eating her up and up.
And then, just when she thought, “Enough is enough. I can’t take it anymore.” It was gone.
How could that be?
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. The locusts ascended over the entire land of Egypt, and they alighted within all the border[s] of Egypt, very severe; before them, there was never such a locust [plague], and after it, there will never be one like it... and the Lord reversed a very strong west wind, and it picked up the locusts and thrust them into the Red Sea. Not one locust remained within all the border[s] of Egypt. (Shemot 10:13-19).
It came fast and furious out of “nowhere” and it left fast and furious out of “nowhere.”
Or is there always Somewhere or I should say Something, Someone (Hashem) in our lives blowing the test in and then blowing it, in the blink of an eye, away? With His power it comes and with His power it’s gone?
***
She came for something physical, but you know me by now with me you come and no matter who you are along with the physical you will also get spiritual.
Physically there was stagnation and I wanted to diagnose her with the plague of our generation, the plague of inflexibility. The plague of, “I’m stuck.” It’s one of the worse illnesses that there is. Afraid to go here, afraid to go there. Everything in her life has to be so controlled and so perfect. Here she is frozen in fear.
She tells me, “I want so much for things to be a certain way that in the end, I don’t do anything.”
Yes, it’s terrible. No movement, no flow, no flexibility.
The expectations are high. Either of herself or of what she thinks everyone expects when maybe they do or maybe they don’t. And who says one needs to care? But she does, and so she doesn’t do anything at all.
Up, down, falling, going forwards and at time backwards. Starting all over from the bottom to climb up and down and up again. And what if after all this movement she doesn’t get there? Is that the goal? To get there? Well, you certainly won’t go anywhere if you don’t move at all.
So Moses stretched forth his hand toward the heavens, and there was thick darkness over the entire land of Egypt for three days. They did not see each other, and no one rose from his place for three days, but for all the children of Israel there was light in their dwellings.
and there was thick darkness… for three days, etc.: Thick darkness in which they did not see each other for those three days, and another three days of darkness twice as dark as this, so that no one rose from his place. If he was sitting, he was unable to stand, and if he was standing, he was unable to sit.-(Shemot 10:22-23)
That’s right the plague of darkness was devastating, it affected more than it did not. And what was so devastating about this plague? They were stuck. Those standing couldn’t sit and those sitting couldn’t stand.
Thus, we see that being in the “dark” is being stuck. And movement is therefore light.
So in a home, in a body, where there is Torah, connection, movement, flexibility, a focus on a process and the effort (not the number or mark of the exam, not on how many or how quickly accomplished and done) there is light.
When there is a feeling of shleimus (content, wholeness) with the imperfection, with the falling and the ups and downs, in such a home, in such a person we see growth, we see faith, we see balance, we see LIGHT.
***
May we have faith that the troubling storm which blew in, can just as easily blow away. May our homes be filled with light, connection, flexibility, and healthy movement.
With blessings, Shabbat Shalom,
Elana