Driving on unfamiliar roads can be a daunting experience.
I well remember an incident many years ago when I was driving at night on an unfamiliar highway in pre-GPS days. After traveling a considerable distance I came to the realization that I had passed the exit I should have taken. No problem I thought. I’ll simply take the next exit and turn around.
I did indeed get off at the next exit but to my consternation I found myself on another highway with the closest exit many miles away. When that exit led me to yet another highway with no easy way to turn around I began to panic. Will I ever find my way out of this maze of highways?
I never did reach my destination; however with siyata d’Shmaya I eventually found my way back home. And in the process I learned a very valuable lesson.
As we know everything in the physical world has a parallel in the spiritual world.
Traveling on the highways of life we make choices all the time. Which road should we take at any given moment? Do we remain on that road or turn off onto another path?
Some decisions are clearly major ones — whom to marry where to live. Others appear smaller — how to react to children’s bickering how to respond to a stressful situation. When I was hopelessly lost and couldn’t figure out how to turn around and change direction one thing became clear to me. I recognized that just as one highway led to another and then to yet another so too the paths we choose to take in our lives lead to other paths which lead to still others. Eventually we may find ourselves on a path we have not actually chosen but which is the consequence of previous choices.

Taking a Right Turn
Chazal tell us: “A person can acquire his World b’sha’ah achas (in one short period of time).” This is generally understood to mean that even if a person led less than an exemplary life he can acquire his Olam Haba if he does teshuvah before he dies.
A different explanation however is offered by the Chofetz Chaim. The word sha’ah can also mean “turn ” as in the pasuk “V’el Kayin v’el minchaso lo sha’ah — [Hashem] did not turn to Kayin and to his offering” (Bereishis 4:5). The Chofetz Chaim explains b’sha’ah achas to mean that with one turn with one decision a person can determine the entire direction of his life — not only his life in the Next World but in This World as well.
The Chofetz Chaim commented that this lesson was particularly applicable to his personal life. In his early years in yeshivah young Yisrael Meir stood out as an exceptionally gifted bochur. The maskilim became aware of his great genius and attempted to lure him away from the yeshivah to join their ranks. They visited him regularly and engaged him in conversation trying to convince him to leave the “archaic” study of the Talmud and be part of the modern enlightened Haskalah movement.
When Yisrael Meir felt himself in danger of being enticed by the arguments of the maskilim he left the city fearing he might eventually succumb.
With that one decision to leave his city the young Yisrael Meir made a choice to travel on a road that led to other roads that eventually led to his authoring the Chofetz Chaim the Mishnah Berurah and numerous other seforim as well as becoming rabban shel kol b’nei hagolah the leader of all the Jews in the Diaspora. In later years the Chofetz Chaim was known to say “What would have happened if I had not made the decision to flee the maskilim? My whole life would have taken a totally different direction! That one decision was the sha’ah the turning point in my life.”
Each of us too is faced with pivotal choices that may determine the direction of our entire lives. Some choices are easily recognizable as belonging to the category of “acquiring one’s world b’sha’ah achas.” Other choices such as how much Torah learning goes on in our homes how we relate to our husbands and children whom we choose as our friends what types of technology we allow in our homes and which activities we engage in for entertainment are less obvious as decisions that will determine the direction of our lives and the lives of our families. Yet these decisions cannot be taken lightly; they are likely to have far-reaching effects. They may set us on roads that can lead us to where we want to go in life — or they can distance us from our ultimate goals.

A Chain Reaction
The complex web of highways and roads all interconnected can also serve as an illustration of the mishnah “Mitzvah goreres mitzvah v’aveirah goreres aveirah — One mitzvah brings along another; one sin brings along another” (Avos 4:2). Just as the highways and roads across the country are all connected to each other and lead to each other so too each mitzvah leads to another mitzvah and each sin leads to another sin.
The Vilna Gaon provides us with an insight as to why this is true. He explains that every mitzvah we do surrounds us with an aura of kedushah; conversely every aveirah brings in its wake an aura of tumah. The kedushah generated by the mitzvah awakens within us a desire to do more mitzvos; the tumah generated by the aveirah strengthens our inclination to do more aveiros. For this reason a mitzvah will lead to other mitzvos and an aveirah will lead to other aveiros.
Shlomo Hamelech tells us “Deracheha darchei noam — The Torah’s roads are roads of pleasantness v’chol nesivoseha shalom — and all its paths bring peace” (Mishlei 3:17).
What are these roads and paths? The Malbim explains that the word deracheha its roads refers to the large highways traveled on by the multitudes while nesivoseha its paths refers to the small lanes off the highway that only a few individuals travel on. The “highways” refer to the wisdom of the Torah that is applicable to everyone and the “paths” refer to the wisdom of the Torah that is custom-made for each individual.
All individual paths explains the Malbim branch out from the larger highways of the Torah’s wisdom. When we make choices to travel on the highways of the Torah these highways will lead us to our own individual Torah paths ultimately providing us not only with noam a feeling of pleasantness but also with shalom — a feeling of being complete and at peace — with ourselves our families and all of Klal Yisrael.

Rebbetzin Suri Gibber has been involved in chinuch banos for decades first as general studies principal in Bais Yaakov High School of Miami and for the past 15 years as principal of Bais Yaakov High School of the Twin Cities. She gives adult education classes as well.