Leaning Into Life
Sometimes, in the day-to-day grind of life, little things can really throw us off. Like many of us, I like control and can “easily sweat the small stuff” when things don’t go as planned.
Yesterday, I had one of those moments when a ride that had been carefully timed so a colleague and I could make it to an important work presentation in Philadelphia didn’t show up. Feeling unsteady and off-kilter, I had to quickly pivot and figure out my best next step, even if it was not ideal. As my stress levels rose, I did my best to talk myself down and keep calm. “Things happen,” I tried to tell myself. “Not everything plays out the way we hope. It will be fine. Even if we miss the meeting, life will go on.”
I was surprised that, as frustrated as I felt inside, a stronger spirit prevailed. I realized I simply didn’t want to stay upset—not at the driver and not at the situation. Apparently, living against the background of war for the last two years has widened my perspective.
Last summer, when we were away for Shabbat up north, I walked into my hotel room immediately after Shabbat to check the news and heard my phone ringing. Nervous about who would be calling before we had even made havdalah, I saw it was a neighbor. She told us that water had been gushing out of our house onto the street for hours and that a pipe must have burst. She had managed to turn off the main line but wanted to know what she should do next, knowing we were a three-hour drive away.
Realizing that our carpet and furniture were likely already ruined, I headed to the lobby to tell my husband. “I can’t believe you’re so calm. It’s not like you,” he said—and he was right. But all I could think about were the families who, during the war, received phone calls after Shabbat informing them that loved ones had been killed. War has a way of putting life’s challenges in proportion.
As we settled into our last-minute Uber yesterday, we heard about the terrorist attack at the junction right outside our community—the one where our kids wait for buses. After checking that our families were safe, we began to hear the names of victims. A student from the local school had been injured. A beloved grandfather had been killed—the father of a math teacher at the same school. A woman connected to many friends had been badly hurt.
A friend texted me: “I want to bubble wrap my kids.” Another wrote: “A kid in high school isn’t supposed to think about terror attacks when he catches a bus home, or whether he should pay a shiva call to a teacher’s or classmate’s family. It feels like concentric circles of confusion and pain. No words.”
Moments later, my colleague opened a video from Rachel Goldberg. Her husband, Avi, was killed in Lebanon just over a year ago, leaving her with eight children. The video was of Rabbi Shlomo Katz describing what he saw at Rachel’s recent wedding to Aminadav Rotenberg, who had lost his wife, Noa, to cancer a few years earlier.
At the wedding, someone handed R’ Shlomo a list of requested songs. One of them surprised him—a song he hadn’t heard in 40 years—so he started with others. Later, someone returned to say the couple really wanted that song.
R’ Shlomo described what he saw next: Rachel, Aminadav, and their children dancing and singing the words we recite three times a day in Shemoneh Esrei:
“מי כמוך בעל גבורות ומי דומה לך. מלך ממית ומחיה ומצמיח ישועה.”
“Who is like You, Master of might, and who can be compared to You? The King who causes death and restores life and brings forth salvation.”
Across Israel, families who have experienced death and immense pain have somehow found the strength to choose life. In doing so, they guide the way toward salvation for us all.
They remind us that while life is fragile and we are vulnerable, God is ultimately in control. All we can do is choose how we want to live each day.
Later that night, I watched a video of Avinatan Or speaking in New York about surviving over 700 days as a hostage in Gaza. Early on, he set rules for himself: “Focus only on the here and now. Don’t think further. Find common ground. Have patience. This too shall pass. Let it be. Anger destroys you. You cannot survive on anger. Let it go.”
Talking to my son before bed, he mentioned that death is scary—and that we are all going to die. “It’s true,” I told him. “We are all going to die.”
Death is an uncontrollable part of life. The question is: How do we live while we are here? Sometimes, when you live among people who have faced death, you learn to live deeper, more fully, and with more awareness of what truly matters.
As I wrap up a work trip abroad, I’m reminded that there are fears, anxieties, and uncertainties we face as Jews (and as humans), no matter where we live. But together with that, I continue to draw strength from the people around me who lean into life and empower us to continue pushing a little closer to redemption, one day at a time.
