Esther Falk
At the very last second, I caught the 8 o’clock bus. I sat down and finally allowed myself to take a deep breath. And even to breathe out.
Leah, a good acquaintance of mine, turned toward me from the next seat:
– Hi, Esther! Why do you look so frazzled?
– Why do I look frazzled... don’t you? Don’t your mornings go by in a frantic rush? It’s simply unbearable!
– Oh! Thank G-d! That’s all it is! Look at you... you had me worried. What happened this morning that was so bad?
– I barely survive every morning. But the last straw today... was a camel!
Leah gave me a puzzled look.
– Around half past seven, I heard my six-year-old son whispering with his sister. Well, you know him. He’s always coming up with original ideas. So I listened, and you won’t believe what I heard: “Poor, poor Mommy! She’s like a camel that people ride and keep driving along, and it has no time to eat or drink! Not a drop!” What do you think?
The building where my friend works was already visible from the bus window. She stood up, slung her bag over her shoulder, and smiled at me:
– Yes, your little bunch really is something! Never mind, the greater the suffering, the greater the reward!
And she got off.
Suddenly, I heard a whisper behind me:
– If only our teacher Sheiner were here! She’d turn this conversation into a whole lecture!
– Why Sheiner? – her companion replied, forgetting to lower her voice. – My mother could do it, too! She always says that every morning she’s like Rabbi Chiya, while this woman says she’s like a camel!
– Shh, don’t say it out loud! – the first girl protested. – But why like Rabbi Chiya? Oh, this is our stop!
And the friends, too, ran off the bus.
And I, thoroughly upset, remained in my seat, racking my brain to understand: what did Rabbi Chiya have to do with any of this, really? Perhaps I really was like Rabbi Chiya, only I didn’t know it?
By around lunchtime, I remembered the story from the Talmud about Rabbi Chiya’s great deeds. The Gemara says that Rabbi Chiya would catch deer, skin them, prepare the hides, write the text of the Five Books of Moses on them, and use them to teach Torah to Jewish children. Rabbi Chiya was a tanna, one of the greatest Torah sages. We cannot even imagine his spiritual level!
We can gain some idea from the fact that all tannaim knew how to revive the dead. Despite this, he did the work of a hunter and a furrier, work that might seem lowly at first glance. But why did he do it? To prepare Jewish children to study Torah! And if this preparation is done with the proper intention, tender shoots blossom into magnificent flowers—great Torah sages.
The moment I remembered this story, I realized that I was losing out. After all, every morning I am preparing my children to study Torah. Day after day, I help them arrive at their schools physically and emotionally ready. How can I allow myself to miss the whole point of it all? Why do I do it in such a hurry, without giving it the attention it deserves, tense and sometimes completely distraught?
What could be better than getting up bright and early, preparing tasty, wholesome food for the children to take to school, slipping a note with a kind word from Mom into a schoolbag, and knowing that I have given my precious gifts from Above the encouragement and energy to learn?
Yes, of course it will not be all that easy, but, as the saying goes, the greater the effort, the greater the reward...
A good morning to us all!
Translation - L. Shukhman