Early summer 5765
To Our Merciful Father in Heaven:
I am sorry that this thank You note is so late. You have
given us so much that I don't know where to begin, so I will
start with something universal that benefits us all: The
weather.
Thank You for the abundant rains and for the mild winter
temperatures. Thank You especially for not giving us any snow
and ice this year. My heavy wool coat didn't even have to
come out of the closet once! I know the children were
disappointed, but for us grandparents, it was wonderful not
to have to worry about slipping and falling.
Thank You for the beautiful spring. I particularly enjoyed
the moderate temperatures and the beautiful flowering trees.
It was hard to decide which tree was the most fitting for the
special blessing in Nissan.
I can never thank You enough for ending the bus bombings. It
has been such a pleasure to be able to travel safely around
the city and to be able to visit other parts of our Holy
Land. This year, when the local cheder boys set off
explosives in the weeks leading up to Purim, we were able to
smile and say, "Boys will be boys." What a relief!
Thank You for the doctors and hospitals and for the abundant
selection of modern medicines, and thank You for allowing
them to cure our ills. If it isn't too much to ask, though,
would it please be possible for us to stay healthy and not
need them any more?
Thank You very much for my husband and family and friends. I
also appreciate the very special people who make my
neighborhood a wonderful place to live. People who come from
other parts of the world always comment on the amazing
chesed to be found here. In the local phone directory
there are pages and pages of listings of things that are
available to borrow for every occasion.
Thank You for keeping all of the "natural" disasters that we
have read about recently far from us. Thank You for sparing
us the suffering of tidal waves, fires and floods, tornados,
earthquakes, hurricanes and tropical storms. I don't know
whether there have been more of all of these terribly
destructive forces of late or whether we are hearing more
about them because our communication systems are so
sophisticated.
Speaking of communication, thank You for allowing me to be in
frequent contact with family members here in Eretz Yisrael,
in the States and elsewhere. When my grandfather left Russia
just a little more than a hundred years ago, he knew he might
never see his aged parents or speak with them again. It was
only through letters that took weeks to reach New York that
he was able to keep in touch with the family he left
behind.
My mother often told us of the way her father found out that
his mother had passed away back in Russia. He went to a
meeting of the landsleit (the people who came from his
hometown) and a former neighbor who had just arrived in
America noticed my grandfather and said, "Ah, the
kaddisher is here." The letter bearing the sad news
arrived a full week later!
Thank You for all of the shiurim for women. How my
grandmothers would have loved to have had opportunities for
spiritual and intellectual growth. However, there was so much
work to do in their days that they rarely had time to open a
book, let alone attend classes. If I can't get to a
shiur, I can ask a friend to tape it and I can listen
to the lecture days later while I am cooking or doing other
work at home.
That reminds me. I have to thank You for all of the labor
saving services and devices that are available now. My
grandmothers used to spend the equivalent of a full day every
month just to kasher chickens.
I still remember the tubs for soaking and the slant boards
and all of the boxes of coarse salt. And of course, before
kashering the chickens my grandmothers had to clean them. I
am embarrassed to say that I find it a bother when my already
cleaned and kashered chicken has a handful of tiny feathers
on the wings for lazy-me to have to pluck.
I also want to thank You for ready-to-wear clothing. Yes, I
like to sew and knit and crochet, but it is nice for these
needlecrafts to be hobbies and not necessities. And thank You
for my washing machine and for the modern detergents that get
out almost every type of stain. Half a century ago, when I
was growing up, making and maintaining clothing took up a
good portion of a woman's life.
Thank You for electric sewing machines. When clothing repairs
are necessary, I can step on a pedal and the machine whirs
away. I learned to sew on a treadle machine that worked by
foot power. We had to rock our feet back and forth to create
the energy for every stitch. And while I am at it, thank You
for blenders and mixers and all of the other electric
appliances.
Thank You for my refrigerator and freezer. I can cook in
batches and store ready-to-warm-up meals for months. I also
appreciate having out of season fruits and vegetables handy
in the freezer as well.
Thank You for modern climate control. I started this letter
by thanking You for the beautiful weather we had outside this
winter and spring. Now I want to thank You for heaters, fans
and other air conditioning devices that keep the temperature
inside just right all year long.
Thank You for allowing my husband and sons to learn Torah in
excellent yeshivas, kollels and shuls so close to home. My
great-grandfather had to travel from his home in Kiev in the
Ukraine by horse and wagon for several days to reach Brody in
Austrian Galicia in order to learn in the yeshiva there.
Even just two and a half decades ago, when my oldest sons
were growing up, they had to leave our home in California to
go to yeshiva high school on the East Coast. Today's
worldwide network of outstanding yeshivas is a dream-come-
true.
Thank You for cars, buses, trains and planes and all of the
other means of modern transportation. We can now travel
through several time zones in a matter of hours. It takes
less time for us to get from here to Europe than it took our
ancestors to get to the next city.
Thank You for my word processing computer. I am not a
particularly talented typist and I make more than my fair
share of mistakes. When I learned to type on a manual
typewriter, every mistake had to be corrected with an
eraser.
Not only that, the only way that one could make a copy of a
typed document in those days was by using carbon paper to
type a duplicate. Correcting mistakes then was double
trouble. First we had to insert a paper between the carbon
paper and the copy, erase the original, and finally erase the
carbon copy.
Thank You for copying machines that let us duplicate any
information we want to use, share or save, and for the Fax
machines that send copies electronically to recipients all
over the world.
As we say in "Nishmas," even if our mouths and our
other organs worked at maximum efficiency, we could never
thank You enough for even a fraction of the wonderful gifts
You have given us — but that certainly doesn't mean we
shouldn't try. Thank You again and again!
[And we thank you, Bayla Gimmel, for opening up our eyes!]
