Inner Connections Bursts 17 Tammuz
One, two, three, four...fifty, fifty-one...sixty, sixty-one, sixty-two...
I counted up the stairs today to see how many stairs there were from our street to the street where my son's school bus picks them up.
My five year old started in a similar fashion. One, two, three...twenty and then somehow he got to 800 and then 1,000!
The two year old's count went something like this in "parrot" like fashion.
One, two, three, ten, 800, 1000, one, two, three, fifteen, ninety.
Needless to say it took a lot of concentration, a lot of focus for me not to lose count. But I did it. Eighty stairs for me, 1000 for my son and somewhere in the nineties for my daughter. They were the same stairs, different counts, different counters.
Wow, one has to stay focused in life in order not to make mistakes!
Today is 17 of Tammuz. 17 is the gematria (numerical value) of "tov" good.
But how is the 17 of Tammuz tov???
Many many years ago Moshe went up to Sinai to learn Torah from Hashem. He said he would be back in 40 days. Everyone started to count, but some people got confused and they lost count or they miscounted. They reached a conclusion that Moshe didn't come when he was supposed to.
There was worry and fear and confusion and because of this they did a lot of things wrong. They killed Hur, Miriam's son, they danced around the golden calf worshipping it, and tragically they disconnected from Hashem.
This was just the beginning of a very challenging time that starts today on 17 of Tammuz and goes until 9 Av. Twenty-two days of fear, worry, and confusion. Twenty two days when Hashem tells us, 'Just stay focused, don't listen to those other voices, connect with clarity.
Twenty-two days which correspond to the twenty-two days of simcha and techuva that are from Rosh Hashanah until Simchat Torah/Shemini Atzeret.
How is it that 17 Tammuz can be tov? Because there is only One Source of it all and that Source is good and we can take these twenty-two days of 24 hours and look at them as an opportunity to turn these days of suffering into days of joy and connection. How? By praying for clarity, staying focused, and not losing sight of our goal.
May we merit to see these days as they should be-days of simcha and good.
With blessings,
Elana
Elana