We’ve painted the house before and I always choose white because it’s completely neutral — no statement no attachment no decision. The house comes in white and it stays in white.

The other day my son comes home and says “Mom I feel like I’m in a hospital everything’s so white. I think we need a little color.”

The truth is I’ve always thought so too but I was too scared to take the chance and face the challenge of making a totally wrong choice.

“I’ll paint” my son offers.

“Beige” one puts in.

“Blue” says another.

“Pink sandy coral like the color of the sun setting on Jerusalem stone” my heart says. And I say.

“Now that’s really stretching it.” My husband gets nervous.

“Let’s go.” I jump at the chance knowing a window of opportunity has just opened one that might not exist tomorrow or even in an hour.

We drive to buy paint. I had no idea how many books full of colors textures and sparkles there could be in one store.

Suddenly every shade of pink sandy coral starts to look the same. I want to go back to white and call it a day. My son encourages me. “Mom if you’re not happy I’ll paint the whole thing again.”

We unpack the car of all the rollers brushes paint and turpentine.

At first the wet streaks come out flamingo pink.

My husband calls from his office “How’s it looking?”

“I feel like we’re in Florida” my son answers “I love it.”

“We’ll buy some palm trees” I say to my husband. “I love it too.” Not because of the color but because I stretched.

And it’s only paint and a color but when it dries it’s exactly what I wanted and this opens up entirely new borders and worlds.

And by putting myself in a place outside my natural comfort level I was able to win a small war within myself.

Yesterday I called Camp Machanayim to register my son. Rabbi David Goldstein one of the owners happened to answer. As he’s someone I’ve known for years and whose experience competence and success I highly value I took the opportunity to ask a few questions.

We got onto the subject of the “breakout” — the sudden break in camp reality that signals to the campers that “Color War” has begun. Life also has those sudden breaks in our usual routine and just like with Color War these are also signals from above that we’re about to have to pull out all our skills and talents to win.

He shares a breakout story from the year they were in the country and there were tons of bears on the grounds. So they dressed up one of the campers as a bear and he just walked into camp. Everyone panicked and they “called” the police the ambulances all kinds of sirens and when one of the “ambulances” pulled up it pulled out a stretcher that had “Color War” written on it.

“Why do breakouts have to be so dramatic?” I ask. “What do you think this accomplishes?”

“A person can only learn about light from darkness” he quotes from the Maharal. “When a child’s emotions are stretched and then they realize it’s only a game it brings them to a higher level of joy.”

“I guess the same goes for winning and losing” I say.

“Well actually there was once this famous basketball player who said he learned more from the hundreds of thousands of shots he missed than all the baskets he made. That’s teshuvah!” Rabbi Goldstein says. “Challenges stretch a person to become greater than they would have been.”

This is what I was trying to say about the paint. I won Color War!