As a freelance writer, I look to expand my horizons beyond the few publications for which I write. When a friend told me about a new English publication, I made inquiries into this new frontier. I was told I should send in a C.V. and some samples of my writing for a meeting scheduled on Sunday. (C.V. stands for curriculum vitae which is Latin for a resume, which is French for a summary of experience submitted with a job application which is English for korot chaim, which is Hebrew for . . . ) This was the first time that I had been asked to send in a proper C.V. regarding my writing background.
It was a Thursday morning: Immediately I felt the pressure of a deadline with half of the afternoon were already booked. At 4:30 P.M. I planned to bring our four youngest children to Saba and Savta's home for a birthday dinner, which I still needed to finish preparing. Friday would be busier than usual with Shabbos preparations because we would be at my parents Thursday evening and I wouldn't be able to do Shabbos preparations. On Motzaei Shabbos I had a commitment and wouldn't be home. How was I going to create a C.V. by Sunday?
For those of you who have had to write a C.V., you know it is not something that you hurriedly jot down. Even a seasoned writer invests time, mental energy and physical energy (pumping those fingers on the keyboard) producing a C.V. with the three C's: concision, coherence and comeliness.
Way back when, job hunting had been in the field of social work. I would now have to write an almost completely new C.V. Even my address and phone numbers have changed. (Over two decades ago a cell phone might have been misconstrued as a phone used by someone in jail.) I would have to remember all the publications that have published my work, write, edit and proofread a new C.V. in one morning. I decided that I would forego the mitzvah of challah baking Friday morning because I had too many other preparations to do before Shabbos. How could I possibly accomplish them all? Moreover, we would be starting Shabbos early and I had invited a family of eight for the Shabbos night meal.
Guilt gnawed (and kneaded) at me. If Sara our matriarch, who had to cook massive amounts of food for her many guests, managed to bake challos for Shabbos, then one C.V. shouldn't prevent me from fulfilling this mitzvah.
Moreover, this past year a divorced friend asked me if I could bake challos in the merit that she find a suitable marriage partner. M. had given me a page with special supplications for every step of the baking process. There are places where I add names of the sick and the childless. What was more important — sending in a C.V. on time or praying for people as I go through all those spiritual steps of challah baking? I retracted my thoughts about not baking challos. Thank G-d, I did manage to both bake challos and to create a C.V.
Have you noticed that when you must write an important document or letter, you weigh every word, you correct misspelled words, you read it over and over, and only when it seems to be without flaws do you (e)mail it or fax it? Well, it struck me that the process of writing a C.V. on a word processor is a metaphor for our daily verbal communication. If we were all as careful in our verbal communication as we are in writing a C.V., then our world would be happier, more peaceful and cleaner spiritually than it is at present.
Let us all attempt to process our words before we utter them. I often paraphrase to my children from the children's book SAY IT WITH ZEST, "Have nothing nice to say? Give your tongue a rest. Have something nice to say? Say it with zest!"
