The year 5674 may stay in mind as a year of lost and found,
that is, losing and finding the possessions of our family
members.
It actually started the previous Elul when on the way back
from kindergarten, a 10-15 minute walk with a two-year-old
and new baby in tow, I suddenly realized that I no longer had
my keys. Retracing our steps brought no fruit to our labors.
I went to my neighbors, but of course there were no spare
keys there (our fault — not theirs). They did have a
phone so I could call my husband to come home and unlock the
door for us. Luckily, he isn't too far away. Sometime later,
after this incident, my two-year-old indicated that the keys
were somewhere down in a mass of bushes on the side of a
retaining wall. I declined to look for them.
That sort of set the pace for the new year. Boruch Hashem,
while there have been many aggravating incidents of lost
property, in most cases the lost item was eventually found.
It just amazes me how much time gets wasted in the search for
lost goods. The R' Binyomin segula for finding things
was certainly in high use in our house, but one time I even
lost my copy of the segula! Whenever I was really at a
loss of where to look, I would even get my husband to say it
for me. Somehow, he seems to have better luck with these
things.
There have been so many things in our house that have
disappeared and reappeared. The list is endless: keys on many
occasions, books, shoes all the time, school items, my
equilibrium. Jewelry is always a big one and I still haven't
learned not to leave valuables lying around in a house with
people under the age of ten. Years ago, my eldest, at age one
and a half, decided to see what would happen if he planted
one of Mommy's earrings in the garden.
No, a new species of shrubbery did not sprout in my garden,
and sadly, I never found my earring again.
This year there were all sorts of mishaps. My watch
disappears regularly. I recently found it in a shoe, in a
box, under my bed. The most dramatic disappearance was that
of a beloved pair of earrings that had belonged to my late
mother. They disappeared somewhere after Purim. At first, I
didn't pay so much atttention; being that time of year, my
head was elsewhere. Then the searching began in earnest. I
contained it mostly to my bedroom, convinced that they must
be there somewhere.
One evening close to Pesach, my husband took me to air out
and semi-celebrate my birthday. We passed a jewelry store and
knowing how sorry I was feeling about my loss, he suggested I
take a look. I looked around the shop but my heart wasn't in
it. I wanted my earrings, not new ones. The saleslady
was very understanding and encouraged me not to give up
hope.
A few days later, amidst those last few hectic Erev Pesach
preparations, cries of joy resonated throughout my house.
There, in the kitchen towel drawer were my earrings! It seems
that while I was once folding laundry which I had dumped on
my bed, they must have fallen off the shelf of my night table
and landed in the pile of folded towels.
I have devised over the years various searching methods. One
method, out of desperation, is to offer a shekel to the
finder. That gets the kids looking. Recently, it led to a big
controversy. My seven-year-old daughter's brand new glasses
got lost. The glasses on the half-price sale that ended up
costing more than last year's pair.
We searched high; we searched low. I used it as an
opportunity to put things in order, before my mother-in-law's
impending visit from abroad. Several days went by and still
no glasses. This was really not good because she doesn't see
well without them. Still, I wasn't ready to go out and
purchase another pair. Throughout the week, I kept upping the
ante on how much the finder would receive; it got to three,
then, finally, I went up to a five shekel reward. When Friday
came and the glasses still hadn't shown up in the Erev
Shabbos clean-up, I knew I was beaten.
And then it happened. Shabbos morning. "Mommy! Mommy! I found
them! They were on my shelf, stuck between the books! I
looked there so many times and now I found them. After
Shabbos I get five shekel!" Her siblings didn't quite see eye-
-to-eye with her about the turn of events. "Not fair!" they
cried. Some even suggested that she had hid them on
purpose.
Not all losses have to be a bad thing. This year, I managed
to lose about ten kilos after my last baby. Unfortunately,
some of those kilos found their way back to me.
I must admit that it is a gratifying feeling when, after a
few good hours of searching, the lost item is found, but as I
said before, I always wonder why Hashem would want me to
waste so much time with this.
Wouldn't it be so much more productive if I could try to find
myself? Or find the good in every person I meet. I wish I had
something more proFOUND to add; instead, I think I had better
go look for my keys.
I'm sure they were here in the living room...
[For the benefit of our readers, before promising a reward
— putting a coin in a tzedoka box definitely
helps! So here is the English version of R' Binyomin's
segula, which usually works — if the lost item
is somewhere around:
R' Binyomin said: All are considered as blind, until Hakodosh
Boruch Hu comes and opens their eyes, as it is written, "And
He opened their eyes and they saw..."
Here you name the lost item. Believing that all is in the
hands, or eyes, of Hashem, and putting your faith in Him, is
what makes it work!
Good luck!]
