Easy for Me to Say
| September 10, 2024It was at this moment that, I’m ashamed to say, I busted out the big guns
Yesterday, after a rejuvenating vacation in Eretz Yisrael with an extraordinarily long (and delayed) flight home, my husband and I landed in JFK and, exhausted, took a yellow cab to our house. We pulled up to the driveway right before bedtime, and the kids ran out to the car, appearing to have taken on the role of perfect angels the moment we left. We floated inside in a flurry of hugs as violins played and the sun set slowly and beautifully over the horizon.
A half hour later, my husband, the responsible one, looked up from the souvenir Lego set (not Israel-themed, but five-year-old boys prefer what they prefer) he was putting together with my son and scanned the living room, a frown gathering. “Do you see my backpack? I want to put away the passports,” he said. I couldn’t see it. He couldn’t see it. Long story short: He’d left it in the back of the random yellow cab we hailed off the JFK taxi line. Long story shorter: It also contained his tefillin and wallet.
It was at this moment that, I’m ashamed to say, I busted out the big guns. “Gather round, children,” I called out in a honeyed morah voice that I’d never heard myself use before. “This is a huge opportunity for—”
“Bitachon!” my five-year-old called out.
“A hug from Hashem!” said my girls, who definitely learned that in day camp, shkoyach Camp Revach. I glowed with nachas from my place on the couch, feet up.
My husband? Less impressed. “These are my tefillin you’re talking about. Can you please dial it down and help me figure this out?” he telepathically beamed into my head (we never argue in front of the kids, you see).
Anyway, I’ll spare you the details, but I googled, made a few calls, and we got the bag back, fully intact. My husband, a far nicer and more forgiving person than I am, didn’t hold my superciliousness against me.
But when I updated my family chat to let them humbly know how I saved the day, it occurred to me that if the tables were turned, I’d be pretty annoyed. Because, without a doubt, my placid calmness about the whole thing was very clearly tied to my primary feeling, which was relief that it wasn’t me who made the mistake.
And why?
It’s not like it matters who forgot the bag, and it’s not like we would have been derailed by blaming each other for the mistake (see above re: husband being a nice person). It’s not like I don’t believe that things will turn out exactly the way Hashem wants them to, either. It’s just that, if it had been my bag left in the nondescript cab identical to 13,000 other nondescript yellow cabs in New York, I would have been a bit more shrill. I would have taken my feet off the ottoman and sat up straight, at the very least.
We put the kids to sleep, and I kept finding myself turning it over in my head, mulling over my thoughts and motivations for my actions, wondering why it didn’t occur to me until it was all over that I was being, well, a total faker. And how this time of year especially, when we tend to be more introspective and contemplative than usual, I could stand to confront myself with my lo lishmah bitachon and hopefully take a lesson for the next time, when it is my bag left in the back of the proverbial cab.
(Originally featured in Family First, Issue 910)
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