I smile, remembering a smoothie I made a few weeks ago, on Chol Hamoed Succos. My two-year-old stood at the edge of the kitchen, watching as I pulled bags of frozen fruit from the freezer.

“The blender is not scary,” she informed me seriously.

I put in blueberries. “I’m not going to cry,” she said, eyes wide.

Next, a banana. “The blender makes a loud noise.”

Then, as I spooned in some yogurt, “I like the blender.”

“It is not scary,” she declared as I screwed on the lid.

“Ready?” I asked, and I turned it on. My precious toddler grabbed my skirt and burst into tears. I held her until she calmed down, and I smiled because she was acting like a two-year-old.

Long after we made her a smoothie of her own, I was left thinking about the chasm between knowledge and actions, between our heads and our hands and our hearts, and at what age we learn to bridge it.

Now, I turn the Ninja attachment over in my hand. I think it’s a juicer; I have never made juice. Despite the tension pressing on me like a too-tight sheitel band, there’s something soothing about packing, as though clearing clutter into boxes also clears my mind. I finger the rim of the juicer attachment, and my mind drifts to Succos.

A week ago, we sat beneath the sky in a flimsy dwelling made of wood. We talked about how we leave our homes to say that security is not from our locks. No latch or deadbolt is our protector. No house of sticks, stones, or brick can withstand a huff or a puff if Hashem does not will it. I know this. I believe it. I thought I had internalized it.

But here I am, brooding, cross-legged on the kitchen floor. There is no security like Hashem’s embrace, so why am I feeling so insecure? There’s no safety like letting Him carry us, so why am I feeling abandoned? I put the piece of the blender in the garbage bag, and in my mind, I see my toddler again, blue eyes large and solemn as she says, “The blender is not scary.” And then I frown, because I am also acting like a two-year-old.

Where is the bridge I have spent years building and testing and refining? This is the time to walk it. I swallow, steel myself, find the neural pathway that’s already been formed, find the path that’s been paved by generations of ancestors. “Hashem is going to take care of us,” I say out loud. By the time I finish the kitchen, Kübler-Ross would say I’m approaching the acceptance phase, but I know that it is more than that.

Hashem is taking care of us. We will find a beautiful, sweet new apartment. We will see how He was setting us up for something even better all along. When we get there, my toddler and I will make smoothies.

And this time, we won’t cry.

(Originally featured in Family First, Issue 964)