I was sitting by my window. I do that a lot these days.
Firstly, because I love the view, and secondly, perhaps more
honestly, because that pink battered couch that lives in the
corner of my living room has an irrestible alluring quality
that my tired body can't seem to ignore.
Ouside my window is a boys' paradise. There are about four
dump trucks, two tractors, bulldozers and various other
machines. Day in, day out, I've watched with fascination as
the convoy moves up the hill and down the hill. I often
wondered aloud, how it is that men sitting behind the wheels
are still sane. Hundreds of times each day they go through
the same procedure, collect the rubble, go down the hill,
dump the rubble, go back up and fetch some more. But even as
I wonder, I am amazed at the miraculous change taking place
beyond my very eyes. There are now roads where there were
none before and hills where the land was flat. Land
previously inhospitable to mankind is being made ready for
our usage and I thank Hashem.
I turned back to the house. How many times must I wash those
dishes, make those beds and sweep this floor? How many times
will I think why my life is so mundane and boring (Hashem --
forgive me for using those words. I don't wish to
complain).
It's O.K. I need no answers. I know these repetitive almost
habitual chores that make up a woman's everyday life are
building an edifice as high as the heavens. They create a
miniature Mishkon where I serve as kohein and they
provide fertile ground for my sanity to blossom.
Just one step further, all you mothers who want to know why
you have to say the same thing one hundred times before
anybody hears what you have to say.
On a tape on education, R' Diamant says that he attended R'
Elya Lopian's shmuessen for six years and in every
one, R' Elya zt'l repeated the same guideline rules.
At the end of one month, everyone could repeat these rules
verbatim and at the end of a year, probably everybody could
say it in their sleep. But it takes years before it actually
becomes a part of a person. By constantly repeating the
regulations, R' Elya was molding his disciples. So as we say
each morning: right shoe, left shoe, tie up left shoe, tie
up right shoe, we are making this act part of our children's
blood so that they can do it no other way when they grow
up.
Repeating things only reinforces them.
Repeating things only reinforces them.
