Inner Connections: Parshat Nitzavim` Mommy, You CAN, Your Torah is Right Here

I’m going to be honest with you. I had my doubts this week.

I had doubts that I was capable of being a good mother, capable for this job. If I was able to handle whatever test that I was handling, able to deal with a certain personality. Capable of being able to stay calm, be patient, exhibit self-control. Am I capable of being without…capable of taking care of…capable of giving, capable of receiving? I had my doubts. I am a human after all.

I complain to myself, “I am not used to this! This is not my nature! This is not the way I was raised!” It could be I was raised in a nice cool climate and now I’m sweating hot. Maybe I was raised pretty much an only child in a castle and now I am b”H a mother of five living in, compared to my previous reality, in a tiny, tiny space. Maybe I could say that I’m quiet and the child Hashem gave me is noisy. Or I grew up with screaming so how can I learn that in a home one should only talk? Maybe I am outgoing and loud and my husband doesn’t relate. I could tell you that this child likes to study and this one likes sports, this likes to do things and this one likes to stay at home and you might say, “I can’t handle this situation. I can’t be the mother of them all. I can’t relate.”

What if by nature I am sensitive, how can I be capable to stop and think and not base my reaction on a feeling or emotion?

Or what if one is slow and they have to make a quick decision? What about the one who is quick and impulsive and they are being told to slow down?

So first of all, I tell myself as it says in this week’s Torah portion, “You are standing today, all of you (Devarim 29:9).”

All of you? But I wasn’t there. It continues, “and with whoever is not here.” Okay, so that’s me. If I am alive that in itself is a proof that Hashem still wants me to be around and I must therefore be capable of something.

But again, how can I be capable of changing, not who I am, but how I act or what I do? How can I be capable of doing this thing that seems so far and so hard and so unattainable?

I am therefore comforted by Hashem’s promise:

For this commandment which I command you this day, is not concealed from you, nor is it far away. It is not in heaven, that you should say, "Who will go up to heaven for us and fetch it for us, to tell [it] to us, so that we can fulfill it?" Rather,[this] thing is very close to you; it is in your mouth and in your heart, so that you can fulfill it (ibid 30:11-14).”

The promise is that if Hashem is giving you something to do then He believes in you, that you can do it. You don’t have to beat yourself up or runaround in circles trying to accomplish it. You don’t have to run after it. It’s here. You can do it. You have to believe that you can do it, that Hashem wouldn’t give you something that you couldn’t do or couldn’t handle or couldn’t find the resources or the help to be able to do it.

I know that it’s a lot. I am telling you I have my doubts. They come and they go, but then I think about these words and I tell myself, “Elana, go inside and turn to Hashem. Change the words you are saying of, “I can’t” to “with Hashem’s help” and change the direction from despair to hope in your heart.”

Shabbat Shalom,

Ketiva v'chatima Tova,

Elana