My husband and I made plans to visit our family’s kevarim, something we actually look forward to each Elul. Mount Moriah is where my paternal grandparents, great-grandparents, and great aunts and uncles are buried. It’s a beautiful place, as cemeteries go, and since it’s close to Newark Airport, we enjoy watching the planes take off and land alongside the freeway where we drive.
The best part is
that the cemetery is located an hour or so from Lakewood, which means that we get
to spend Shabbos with our precious children and grandchildren. Some of my
granddaughters and I have a wonderful tradition which started back when I was a
child. In those early childhood years, my father worked long hours and was
hardly ever home during the week. In fact, family legend has it that when I was
three years old, I didn’t even know who my father was. As the story goes, one
day, while my mother was giving me a bath, she named all the people in our
family who loved me. When she was up to the second cousins, I stopped and asked
her about “that man.” My mother looked at me and said, “What man?” to which I
answered innocently, “You know, the man with the glasses who lives here?” My
mother incredulously sputtered, “You mean Daddy?”
Well, not only did
my father immediately reduce his work hours after that startling and
unbelievable conversation but several years later – and without any recollection
of the onset – our “private chats” began. This was an invention of my dear father,
long before anything like this was ever in vogue in any parenting manual. It
was an opportunity for me to have my father’s undivided attention and love. I was
determined to reinstate this practice years later. And so, I have.
One 11-year-old grandchild
in particular seems to have a penchant for chatting and has the perfect
personality for private chats. So much so that she and I have been known to
shmooze for heaps and gobs of hours at a stretch. We talk about everything and
anything, but what excites us most is our planning. Oh, the plans we make,
which are often about the midwinter vacations, when we design the intricacies
of her Zaidy and I snatching both her and her sister and taking them back to
our home in Baltimore for an extended Shabbos. My granddaughter chooses the
trips, and together we plot and plan a glorious time together.
It is that love of
planning and organizing that is part of my regular days and nights – with or
without my delicious granddaughters in tow. And mixed into all of that is my passion
for creating something from nothing. It’s a thrill to help develop a new idea
and watch it come to fruition. Whether it’s helping someone plan a move and
organizing their new space or bringing new clients into the firm where I work,
it’s exciting to be a part of the action.
It was a heady
rush with my plotting and planning this year, and it felt great – that is, until
it didn’t. It was during one of my many projects that would help someone at the
outset but would eventually prove to be an overall change in my normal schedule.
It caused me to be busy almost every day, in ways I hadn’t been in years. I figured
I knew what I was getting myself into and thought I could handle it all. So, I
did what I always do and dove right in. What I didn’t count on was my being in way
over my head, and it knocked me flat. Each day I came home exhausted and
fearful.
“What should I
do?” was the song that kept playing in my head. And then the guilt trips came
in tsunami waves that kept asking me, “How can you quit now? This was your idea
after all.” Over and over and round and round it went until a dear friend
helped me see my way through. I was able to calm down enough to admit to myself
that this was something that I did not want to continue.
It was around that
time that a very dear and brilliant young friend of mine told me about a sefer
called Battle Plans by Tzipporah Heller and Sarah Yocheved Rigler. I
started reading it, and to say it was a game changer would be a gross understatement.
It has been more like a seismic shift.
One of the stories
told in this book was about the previous Bobover Rebbe, Reb Shloime. The story
describes a conversation that the Rebbe had with a non-Jew whom he hired to
paint his house. After giving the man some breakfast, the Rebbe said he had
something to tell the painter before he started his work. The painter assumed
he would be told that he’d better do a terrific job, but instead, the Rebbe
told him that the painting job does not have to be perfect. As you can imagine,
this was not what the painter expected to hear. He even got defensive and insisted
that he is a very good painter so why wouldn’t his work be perfect? The Rebbe
then said the words that shook me to the core: “In this world, nothing is
perfect. We Jews once had a Temple in Jerusalem that was perfect. But since
then, nothing is perfect.”
Nothing is
perfect. My organizing, my plotting, and my planning will not bring me to
perfection. While there is certainly a place for organization, I have come to
understand that the underlying reasons for many of my actions are my attempts
at perfection. And of course, this has led to things other than the neatly
spaced acrylic bins in my closets. It spills over into my expectations of
perfection for myself and for how I think others should be. It’s crystal clear
to me now: This is Hashem’s job, not mine. As I am learning from this
incredible sefer, only Hashem is perfect. He is in charge of everything
– absolutely everything – whether it’s the sunny day outside my window or the
driver who cuts me off on the beltway and then honks at me as if it were my
fault. My job is to accept whatever Hashem sends me. Not only does He want me
to show gratitude for the beautiful things He created in the world, He also wants
me to be my highest and best self in how I respond when things don’t go my way.
It’s His Perfect Plan and I hope in this new year that I will learn to make it
mine.
