Dei'ah veDibur - Information & Insight
  

A Window into the Chareidi World

12 Shevat 5764 - February 4, 2004 | Mordecai Plaut, director Published Weekly
NEWS

OPINION
& COMMENT

OBSERVATIONS

HOME
& FAMILY

IN-DEPTH
FEATURES

VAAD HORABBONIM HAOLAMI LEINYONEI GIYUR

TOPICS IN THE NEWS

HOMEPAGE

 

Produced and housed by
Shema Yisrael Torah Network
Shema Yisrael Torah Network

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Home and Family


Almost Home
by Bayla Gimmel

Recently, I spent some time in another city. Several times during the course of the visit, I did some marketing at a shopping center about two miles from the place where I was staying.

The walk back began with carrying the groceries along relatively level ground for about a mile. However, the last few blocks along that particular street involved climbing a hill.

You know how it is when you are carrying two sacks of groceries in each hand. At first, you balance the load and decide that it is manageable. After a few minutes of walking, the bags seem to get heavier, and -- a few minutes later -- heavier still.

Just as I felt my endurance beginning to run out, I reached the beginning of the incline. "Oh, no!" I thought, "now I have to deal with the hill!"

After a few trips to the market, I realized that something in the whole procedure had to be changed.

I couldn't do anything about the hill. I had to climb it in order to get where I was going. But I could do something about my attitude. On the next shopping expedition, when I got to the block where the incline began, instead of, "Oh, no, I'm at the hill," I said to myself, "Oh, good! I've already reached the hill! Boruch Hashem, I am almost back to the street where I am headed."

It was like the pep talk that marathon runners give themselves. "You can do it! Come on. You're almost at the finish line."

In the past year, the news has been very depressing. There have been horrible terror attacks. The economy is not good. Jobs are hard to find. In addition, we hear of so many terrible illnesses.

The Israeli government has cut budget allocations to Torah institutions. The large family allotments are being reduced. It is harder and harder for the average family to cover its basic needs of food, clothing and shelter.

We know that the geula sheleima is on its way. After all, the Chofetz Chaim, who passed away 70 years ago, said he could hear the footsteps of Moshiach.

It is in this difficult period of the actual birth pangs of Moshiach that we are being called upon to set our priorities straight and make the difficult life choices that will set us in the Torah world apart from our peers.

Do we aspire to another year of solid learning from ourselves and our children in spite of the belt-tightening situation? Or is our `wish list' made up of a new van, a Pesach vacation at a resort and maybe a designer suit to take along?

No one says it will be easy to live a no-frills life after the excesses of the late 20th century. During the go-go economic expansion of the 1990's, we learned to live `well' and each time that we added some new luxury, our lives readjusted accordingly.

Before long, we became accustomed to ready-to-warm-up kugels from the Shabbos take-out menu of the local deli and seuda shlishis salads in little plastic containers, not to mention chicken dinners during the week.

And what about the milestone occasions in our lives? How could you make a bris, bar mitzva or sheva brochos without at least one `designer' food? After a while, the whole thing became such a fuss that people moved these previously home-based celebrations to catering halls.

When we go out to our mailboxes, the first thing we see is a slick colorful magazine full of ads enticing us to buy this, that and everything else.

Some of the labor-saving devices and products of the last century have been wonderful. Washing machines, refrigerator/freezers and disposable diapers, to name a few. But do we really need instant mashed potatoes, canned tomato sauce and just-add-water lunches in little cardboard boxes?

Each family should sit down and see what luxuries can come out of the budget. Sometimes, it will mean saying `No' when the little ones ask to go on a trip. It may also mean that teens and older children will be called upon to shoulder the work -- intensive cleaning and cooking tasks that had previously been done by others outside the family, or pay for the extras they want, by babysitting.

That is why the younger generation should be involved in the prioritizing process. It is easier to do without something you really want if you understand why you no longer have it.

The one luxury we all possess is time. We have beautiful, luxurious 24-hour- long days at our disposal. How do we prioritize that most precious of commodities?

Will we spend our non-working hours learning and teaching Torah, davening and saying Tehillim, rushing off to visit the sick, brightening the lives of shut-ins, volunteering at the local gemach and performing other mitzvos? Or will we sit around and kvetch, complaining that we don't have the latest `must-have' item that `everyone' is buying?

Let us practice that pep talk. "Come on, you can do it!"

We are all nearing that all-important finish line. When Moshiach comes, we will regret all of the energy we wasted chasing material things. But we will be oh-so- proud of our real possessions:

The two halochos of Shemiras Haloshon we studied each day. The Tehillim we said by ourselves and as part of a group. The shiurim we attended and internalized. The Torah tapes we listened to and lent to others. And maybe our latest `acquisition': the Perek Shira that we added just this year.

If we push ourselves to maximize our resources -- time, energy and money -- we can easily climb over the mountain of troubles out there.

Moshiach is coming. Let's forget about the "Oh, no, we've reached the hill" mentality and replace it with, "Boruch Hashem, we are almost home."

 

All material on this site is copyrighted and its use is restricted.
Click here for conditions of use.