Oh G-d: Forget the Unseen, Convene the Routine!
While sitting in the Miklat (shelter) just last week, an idea from my beloved teacher Rav Yitz Greenberg kept reverberating in me. He included it in his magnum opus The Triumph of Life where he wrote: “There is this gut feeling (in Jews) that the hopes and efforts of past generations will not end on their watch.”
During the middle days of Passover, when the usual greeting we share is “Moadim LiSimchah” (translation: The holidays must lead us to joy!), there were those here in Jerusalem who wittingly shared, “Moadim LiShigrah” (translation: The holidays lead us to Routine!). Now usually “routine” denotes the mundane and even the boring. Here in Israel to have a shigrah (routine) comes with tremendous weight – family, gainful employment, the right schools and extracurriculars, our military, the neighbors, the responsibility to care for all those around us… and the beat goes on. Finding that balance is a particularly tricky proposition – but, once found, it is enormously affirming. If one has a shigrah, it means they are living a proper life morally, familially, nationally – and, only then, personally.
During the war, we had great Seders, we checked in on friends and we kept constant contact with sons, daughters, siblings and other loved ones serving the IDF on the front. So, now with the cease-fire with Iran (but not with Hezbollah), have we returned to shigrah? We are trying. When my grandchildren and their very cute friends returned to school on the first full day back, their teachers had them all wear their Purim costumes, for the war had denied them a party six weeks earlier. Those working from home and shelters are now back at offices, but still carefully keep an eye out for the nearest shelter as our future remains unseen. We do this knowing that cease-fire does not mean peace and even “peace” might not really mean Shalom which at its core means wholeness and completeness.
And the war is far from over in our North, where Hezbollah (read: Iran) continues to shell and attempt to shellac our people. Last night while having dinner with Sheryl, we noticed a blue medallion on the bag of super natural pressed veggie chips. Thinking it was a Kashrut seal, I casually deciphered it. It read (in Hebrew) “created in wartime – this factory will never close.” I looked closer and saw that it was made in the factory area of North Kiryat Shemonah – our most fired upon city. It brought me to tears.
Ah, Blessed is Shigrah/Routine! And blessed is the fact that I live in our home with a blessed people who will not give up on life‘s routine – to love, to marry, to send children in happy costumes to play together; and, as our soldiers exemplify, to sustain and to protect each other. So as I envision that man pressing his veggie chips under fire in the North, I find myself blessed to be here in Jerusalem teaching Talmud to our next generation of leaders and Rabbis – as my Shigrah dictates.
