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Marjorie Gottlieb Wolfe
Syosset, New York
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My husband, Howard, and I just returned from a 1-week trip to Israel. Yes, it was a short "vakatsye" (vacation).
Louis Dembitz Brandeis was once criticized for taking a short vacation just before the start of an important trial. "I need a rest," explained Brandeis. "I find that I can do a year's work in eleven months, but I can't do it in twelve."
We traveled with Isram and visited Haifa, Tiberias, and Jerusalem. Although this was my third trip to Israel, some things are "vunderlekh" even the second {and third] time around.
Oh, to revisit the Old City of Jerusalem, the Western Wall with its many joyous Bar Mitzvah ceremonies, the Ramparts Walk, Zedekiah's Cave, beneath the Old City, and Yad Vashem, the museum dedicated to holocaust remembrance, documentation, research, and "khinukh" (education).
My how Yad Vashem has changed over the years. The Hall of Names is composed of two opposing cones. Its ceiling ("sufit") is a ten-meter high inverted cone, which displays 600 photographs and fragments of Testimony. Yes, that's just a fraction of the men, women, and "kinder" destroyed by the Nazis and their accomplices. There's even a "kompyuter" center where one may receive "hilf" (assistance) in searching the central database of Shoah victims' names online.
And, yes, we planted trees in honor of our four grandchildren, Amanda, Scott, Shane and Connor.
On several things my husband and I are in agreement:
And, lastly, there's no need to rush
("ayin zikh") to unpack. Am I "foyl" (lazy)?
No. It's just that some things can wait.
I've followed the advice of Jeffrey Korbman ("Restful Reflections - Nighttime Inspiration to Calm the Soul, Based on Jewish Wisdom"). He writes that "there are two kinds of people. There are those who finish the job as soon as possible no matter what...They unpack all their luggage as soon as they return from a trip...Then there are the rest of us."
Korbman continues, "It is not that we are all lazy. It's just that we feel that we do not need to finish everything. Sometimes 'it' can wait."
Korbman explains that in the Torah we read that the priests are told (actually commanded) to emulate the behavior of the latter group. The priests were told to clean up and dispose of ("poter vern fun") the ashes that were not used for ritual. "However, they were not supposed to clean everything up immediately. Instead, they were told to wait until the following morning," says Korbman.
The "frage" (question): Why wait until the next "frimorgn" (morning)?
MY
parents
always said, "finish the job; do it NOW!"
I
heard, "Vos gikher, alts beser." (The faster,
the better.)
Korbman then discusses the message of the late German Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch (1808-1888). Hirsch said that by waiting until the next morning, we teach continuity. "Each morning, when a person rose to worship and went to the Temple to deliver a sacrifice, the priest had to first get rid of the ashes that remained from the previous night's burning. The priest taught that although a person rises each new day for worship, that person's prayers are connected to the previous day.
Waiting until the next morning to take out the ashes suggests that our religious expression is intricately tied to those of our ancestors."
And so, the "tshemodan" (suitcase) still sits
on my bedroom floor, unpacked.
Oh, the Old City
"Vos
makht dos oys?" (What difference does it
make?) What's the rush?
-----------------------------------------
Marjorie G. Wolfe recommends that you
read "Restful Reflections - Nighttime
Inspiration to Calm the Soul, Based on
Jewish Wisdom" by Rabbi Kerry M. Olitzky
and Rabbi Lori Forman (Jewish Lights
Publishing)
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