Recently, I spent some time in another city. Several times
during the course of the visit, I did some marketing at a
shopping center about two miles from the place where I was
staying.
The walk back began with carrying the groceries along
relatively level ground for about a mile. However, the last
few blocks along that particular street involved climbing a
hill.
You know how it is when you are carrying two sacks of
groceries in each hand. At first, you balance the load and
decide that it is manageable. After a few minutes of walking,
the bags seem to get heavier, and -- a few minutes later --
heavier still.
Just as I felt my endurance beginning to run out, I reached
the beginning of the incline. "Oh, no!" I thought, "now I
have to deal with the hill!"
After a few trips to the market, I realized that something in
the whole procedure had to be changed.
I couldn't do anything about the hill. I had to climb
it in order to get where I was going. But I could do
something about my attitude. On the next shopping expedition,
when I got to the block where the incline began, instead of,
"Oh, no, I'm at the hill," I said to myself, "Oh, good! I've
already reached the hill! Boruch Hashem, I am almost
back to the street where I am headed."
It was like the pep talk that marathon runners give
themselves. "You can do it! Come on. You're almost at the
finish line."
In the past year, the news has been very depressing. There
have been horrible terror attacks. The economy is not good.
Jobs are hard to find. In addition, we hear of so many
terrible illnesses.
The Israeli government has cut budget allocations to Torah
institutions. The large family allotments are being reduced.
It is harder and harder for the average family to cover its
basic needs of food, clothing and shelter.
We know that the geula sheleima is on its way. After
all, the Chofetz Chaim, who passed away 70 years ago, said he
could hear the footsteps of Moshiach.
It is in this difficult period of the actual birth pangs of
Moshiach that we are being called upon to set our priorities
straight and make the difficult life choices that will set us
in the Torah world apart from our peers.
Do we aspire to another year of solid learning from ourselves
and our children in spite of the belt-tightening situation?
Or is our `wish list' made up of a new van, a Pesach vacation
at a resort and maybe a designer suit to take along?
No one says it will be easy to live a no-frills life after
the excesses of the late 20th century. During the go-go
economic expansion of the 1990's, we learned to live `well'
and each time that we added some new luxury, our lives
readjusted accordingly.
Before long, we became accustomed to ready-to-warm-up kugels
from the Shabbos take-out menu of the local deli and seuda
shlishis salads in little plastic containers, not to
mention chicken dinners during the week.
And what about the milestone occasions in our lives? How
could you make a bris, bar mitzva or sheva
brochos without at least one `designer' food? After a
while, the whole thing became such a fuss that people moved
these previously home-based celebrations to catering
halls.
When we go out to our mailboxes, the first thing we see is a
slick colorful magazine full of ads enticing us to buy this,
that and everything else.
Some of the labor-saving devices and products of the last
century have been wonderful. Washing machines,
refrigerator/freezers and disposable diapers, to name a few.
But do we really need instant mashed potatoes, canned tomato
sauce and just-add-water lunches in little cardboard
boxes?
Each family should sit down and see what luxuries can come
out of the budget. Sometimes, it will mean saying `No' when
the little ones ask to go on a trip. It may also mean that
teens and older children will be called upon to shoulder the
work -- intensive cleaning and cooking tasks that had
previously been done by others outside the family, or pay for
the extras they want, by babysitting.
That is why the younger generation should be involved in the
prioritizing process. It is easier to do without something
you really want if you understand why you no longer have
it.
The one luxury we all possess is time. We have beautiful,
luxurious 24-hour- long days at our disposal. How do we
prioritize that most precious of commodities?
Will we spend our non-working hours learning and teaching
Torah, davening and saying Tehillim, rushing off to
visit the sick, brightening the lives of shut-ins,
volunteering at the local gemach and performing other
mitzvos? Or will we sit around and kvetch, complaining
that we don't have the latest `must-have' item that
`everyone' is buying?
Let us practice that pep talk. "Come on, you can do it!"
We are all nearing that all-important finish line. When
Moshiach comes, we will regret all of the energy we wasted
chasing material things. But we will be oh-so- proud of our
real possessions:
The two halochos of Shemiras Haloshon we
studied each day. The Tehillim we said by ourselves and as
part of a group. The shiurim we attended and
internalized. The Torah tapes we listened to and lent to
others. And maybe our latest `acquisition': the Perek
Shira that we added just this year.
If we push ourselves to maximize our resources -- time,
energy and money -- we can easily climb over the mountain of
troubles out there.
Moshiach is coming. Let's forget about the "Oh, no, we've
reached the hill" mentality and replace it with, "Boruch
Hashem, we are almost home."
