"We wish each other a ‘gut morgen’ — reminding ourselves to think of today as a new tomorrow"

Cincinnati Children’s Hospital serves as an international destination for multiple specialized medical issues. And that’s how a distinguished talmid chacham and noted maggid shiur from the East Coast was spending time in Cincinnati, tending to a child who had a serious medical condition. The maggid shiur came to the Mesivta of Cincinnati to daven Shacharis and was immediately offered a place by the mizrach vant. Following davening, a small crowd gathered around to wish him a good morning and offer whatever chizuk they could, given the difficult circumstances.

The maggid shiur, for his part, shared the following thought: The Yiddish term for “good morning’’ is “gut morgen.” But, if you think about it, that’s grammatically incorrect. The Yiddish word morgen means “tomorrow,” not “morning.” The correct way to say “morning” in Yiddish is “free,” so why do we say “gut morgen”?

“I asked this question to my talmidim,” the maggid shiur said, “and here’s what I suggested. When we wake up in the morning to start a new day, our initial thoughts bring us back to yesterday. The challenges, the failures, the disappointments. That attitude influences our entire day, and hinders our ability to move forward. And so we wish each other a ‘gut morgen’ — reminding ourselves to think of today as a new tomorrow, rather than a continuation of yesterday.”

And then he headed off, to spend the day in the hospital with a child in desperate need of yeshuos. And all present wished him a heartfelt “gut morgen.”

(Originally featured in Mishpacha, Issue 912)