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22 Adar II 5760 - March 29, 2000 | Mordecai Plaut, director Published Weekly
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Home and Family
Changing Gears
by L.M.W.

Times change and you have to be flexible enough to adapt to new situations. Yesterday, you ran errands for Mom and Dad and got a mitzva note for them in return that would grace the wall in the kindergarten. Today, if you have to run errands for them, you have your own immediate family to tend to and numerous obligations, and you feel you must juggle your time to get out and do them. Ten children cannot care for one mother, so the saying goes. They remain eternally indebted to her and cannot begin to return what they owe her. To the children, it may be an obligation. To the mother, child care was a raison d'etre.

It takes special determination and a lot of love to change gears. Role reversal is difficult for members of both generations. It can be traumatic. It can be beautiful. Picture the following scenarios:

Father, the patriarch of the family, maintains his grace and dignity, but is a shadow of his old self. Father, the first to rise, the person who woke up the boys day in, day out, rain or shine, is homebound. And now his daughter, a grandma herself, wakens her father with a cheery melody and smile. A devoted son travels to his sister's home before he goes to shul to lovingly prepare the Tatta for davening.

Round the clock, children and grandchildren visit, spending top quality time together. A grown granddaughter presents a short model lesson about the approaching Yom Tov, replete with motions, stories, illustrations and modern visual aids. A son sits on the porch with the Tatta, singing stirring shalosh seudos zemiros for a full half hour, taking the father back to the golden olden days when he sat at the head of the table.

Every day becomes an occasion. With new variety. New stories. New songs. New grandchildren growing up with new nachas. Mitzvos fresh and beautiful, day in, day out, which nurture a father, promote great love between parent and child and between siblings.

Our Father sees it all. He gathers every teardrop, all the sweat and the effort, every ounce of patience. Samples of the love they would demonstrate if He would dwell among them, precious acts of devotion forming the foundations for a permanent dwelling place for the Shechina on earth.

 

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