Inner Connections Parshat Eikev and "The Day After...."

For three weeks there’s a buildup. There’s an intensity in the air. The mourning gets more intense as we go from certain restrictions to more restrictions until we find ourselves on the floor, fasting, in dirty, sweaty clothes. We get to the day of the destruction.

Each person sits in his or her own sorrow. And then what?

Nothing changed except for the date of the day and we are told to get up.

Friday, I didn’t have the time nor the strength to sit down and write anything. I felt depleted from the fast, no not just physically, emotionally. There was a feeling of “now what?” Did anything really change from yesterday to today?

Did anything in my life change? Did the situation of anyone that I know change from yesterday until today?

No.

That’s so sad! That is so depressing!

Wait a minute, something did change.

On Tisha b’Av as I wrote before we didn’t say the blessing of “Who has provided me with my every need.” We don’t say this blessing because halacha (Jewish law) tells us on this day not to wear leather shoes. The next day we once again say the blessing.

What’s the big deal with shoes?

Imagine being on a bus and as you get off the bus you leave behind one of your shoes. The door closes, the driver speeds off. You are left with just one shoe.

Now try walking with only one shoe.

Such a small thing, but really a shoe is not so small.

In this week’s parsha, Eikev, yes let’s move on quickly this week to a fresh new start, a new parsha, a new week, Moshe tells us “And it will be, because you will heed these ordinances and keep them and perform, that the Lord, your God, will keep for you the covenant and the kindness that He swore to your forefathers.”

Rashi explains, And it will be, because you will heed: Heb. עֵקֶב, lit. heel. If you will heed the minor commandments which one [usually] tramples with his heels [i.e., which a person treats as being of minor importance]

In other words, it’s those little things that matter. The ones that you don’t think are necessarily so important, but they are the details that build a relationship and make all the difference.

So let’s get back to those shoes. Rav Shimshon Pincus z’l makes this beautiful connection.

Imagine your life without a shoe?

It seems so minor, but try to walk and go without it. How far can you get? How comfortable is your journey?

And what is in a shoe? Actually, we see a lot.

How does a Jew put on his shoes?

We are taught (halacha- SA OC 2:4) a Jew puts on his right shoe first and then the left. (If there are laces, he’ll tie his left laces first and then the right.) You see even putting on a shoe isn’t random. You might ask, “What’s the big deal?” The big deal is that even to the most minute details of our lives we have an opportunity for connection.

So you see on Tisha b’Av we cry, we mourn because we lost that special connection. But the next day, even though my reality seems to be the same. I still feel my personal sorrow, our national sorrow, the sorrow of this world- yes nothing has changed, the connection is gone! What was, was and now it’s lost???

Well, that’s not necessarily true.

Because the next morning as I begin my day, I say modah ani and I wash my hands I am already making a connection. I put on my shoes, first the right and then the left I realize that not everything is lost. I, you, we all have something.

We have 60 seconds of 60 minutes of 24 hours a day of opportunities for connections. That is 8, 640 seconds of opportunities to connect to the Bore haOlam (Creator of the Universe) Who is one second can change our reality.

This is the building of the Beis HaMikdash.

It’s the detail, the little things that make all the difference, that can make all the difference in our lives and in our relationships.

Today, when you put on your shoes, or tomorrow. Stop for a moment and think about this. Bring this detail into the small acts that you do and open the door to connection.

Shavua tov,

Elana