The other morning I followed a Russian lady for forty-five minutes. She’d been behind me at an intersection. We crossed at the same time. But within minutes as we climbed the steep hill she took the lead.

She had all white-gray hair Saucony sneakers and her strides were fast strong and steady. No huffing no puffing.

I thought I’m going to copy her steps. I noticed that they were short and quick unlike mine which were more wide and deep.

I lost touch with myself and just tuned in to the pattern of her step. She was doing more of a one-two-three-four while I was doing a one-two-three.

As my steps were taken over by following a leader my mind wandered freely. It was such a relief as if my feet carried me instead of me carrying them.

And then I started to think: This is what occupational therapy is all about.

I’d never really understood how teaching people how to move could affect their brain life actions or thought processes. But now after about twenty-five minutes of changing my steps I realized — or felt — how this could actually affect my whole approach to things. Short quick movement is sometimes what’s needed in solving a problem or completing a task as opposed to a deep wide approach.

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There was a time when a particular tzaddik would receive the public in the middle of the night. Since the men were waiting in his small hallway I sat in the kitchen. That particular tzaddik’s wife washed dishes and cleaned the stove top at three in the morning.

We were alone in the kitchen for almost an hour and I watched this rebbetzin’s every move. She methodically rhythmically washed a plate three times one way and three times the other — then rinsed and stacked. She cleaned the oven with a rag about the size of a quarter. She then took one kohlrabi and two carrots from the vegetable bin and grated them by hand. I imagined they were for the Rebbe. But then she took out mayonnaise to make coleslaw and I thought Maybe not. Can tzaddikim eat mayonnaise?

She took a half-eaten apple she’d had in a plate and went with it to the back room where her husband sat explaining “No bal tashchis.” No wasting food.

What I learned in those maybe forty-five minutes I couldn’t have learned in a lifetime of book studies.

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So while I was robotically following the Russian lady I got to thinking: This is what being a teacher is all about. Learning what a teacher mother father grandparent does — how they move how they speak how they walk in the world their pace and their grace.

The next morning after coming to this new realization I woke my daughter with a tune that was a little more upbeat. Replacing re-stepping messages in upbeat ways. Instead of “Come on! Get up get up get up!” there was a new rhythm a new walk.

Have you seen how it is with mothers? They run the kids run. They doodle along slowly — their kids doodle behind. Then every other day everyone’s late doodling along.

Such a mother is missing that extra bounce to her step. The bounce of faith that comes to someone when she’s walking with Hashem.

We’re taught that aveiros are committed because of depression. Because when we’re depressed we’re thrown off stride. We lose our balance our step the beat and we don’t move. And depression comes from lack of true faith.

All this is good to know and to practice. But how does one keep it up? Maybe it works one day two days. But like everything — time drags it down. And then …

I read that it’s actually a halachah that a rebbi a teacher must not stay up late. This is so that he or she will have koach the next day to teach the talmidim properly. If we realize and know that our job as parents or even as people in the world is to be an example for others to follow in our footsteps then we have to be prepared. Ready and awake. Because we never know who’s watching and walking behind us.

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As I continued following the Russian lady I flashed to thoughts about my mother-in-law aleha hashalom. She was one of three sisters who survived Auschwitz. They used to always say that their mother led them through.

How did she manage to keep up her steps to have three girls follow her out of those gates?

I heard that she was like a queen. What my husband remembers of his grandmother is that she sat day and night in her rocking chair next to the window never stopping saying Tehillim.

It’s written that a person who watches a tzaddik or even sees him from behind will never be the same. It’s also written not to look into the face of a rasha because we will come to follow his ways his steps.

I always wondered why the times of Mashiach are called Ikvisa d’Mashicha “the Footsteps of Mashiach.” Maybe it’s because finally then we’ll know it will be clear; he will teach us how to walk and we will be able to follow. In his footsteps.