So, I’ve shared so much else with you, I guess I can share
this: today, in my mailbox was a card filled with $200 in gift certificates
from an anonymous donor. I don’t know
what I think. It was obvious before I
even opened it, although I can’t quite say why.
I cried - from gratitude, embarrassment, relief, sadness, happiness,
anger. And then I ran out to finish my
succah, but instead, helped my neighbors with their succah first. And maybe that is where to let my feelings go
with this gift.
It has been a good holiday season, as I said last post. This week, I built a succah, something I haven’t been able to d for two
years, something I kind of thought I was incapable of accomplishing. I needed, as much as possible, to build one
cheap, so it is all lumber and fabric, and corn stalk schach; nothing prefab. And I needed lots of help, and I got lots of
help, and I love my succah. I think it
is beautiful, like a fairy-tale succah.
Okay, if I had more time, I’d get more fabric for a 4th wall,
I’d make some “windows”, I’d paint designs on the interior, put up
decorations. But it is beautiful, and it
makes me so happy. One reason I didn’t have so much time is that I took my
oldest son out for dinner. It was the
best, most comfortable time I have had with him in two years. Are we close, are we warm, do we have
anything like a “normal” mother / child relationship? No, but it was good and relaxed and it made
me so happy.
Over Rosh Hashanna / Yom Kippur, I had a new thought: Hashem can overturn a harsh decree. Yes, I know this is not a new thought to the world. It is printed right there in my machsor. But for however long now, whenever people
told me they were praying that things should get better for me, I felt like
saying (and sometimes did say) “But we all know things won’t get better; I’m a
loser, it has been decreed. I was told
that this would be a hard life, and I agreed.”
Somehow it only just struck me this year what it means that Hashem can
overturn the decree, without backlash, without losing reward later on. If Hashem can do everything, then Hashem can
do anything. So I guess it is worth
praying for an easier life. But it still
seems overwhelming, too much to wrap my head around permanently, at least yet.
When I was first married, living in far-away
“you-have-frum-jews-here?”-ville, I was helping give a class on navigating the
siddur. Someone made a comment that she
was so grateful to the people who volunteered to give time to teach. I told her about a family that we ate by
often: when my husband was single he was this family’s guest almost every
shabbos. He wanted to pay them something
to cover the costs of all the food, etc. they had shared with him. Although this was a large family, with a
tight budget, they of course refused his offer.
The husband of the family told him: “When I was young, I was also always
a guest, and I also wanted to give something substantial to repay my regular
host. But he told me someday you will do
a kindness to someone else, and that will be payment. And so now, I am a host
to you. And in the future you will do
the same.” And so it goes – we are all
just passing the kindness forward.
So I have an extra $200, which will go a long way to defray
the costs incurred from building the succah and taking my son to dinner, and
getting babysitters over chol hamoed, etc.
And hopefully it is something that I can pass forward, please soon. I helped put up a succah. I will hopefully have a woman from
out-of-town sleep by my place, which now, thank Goodness, has, relative to the
previous apartment, lots and lots of space.
And we will see what will be.
