“RABBI’S MUSINGS (&
AMUSINGS)”
Erev Shabbos Kodesh
Parshas Vaeschanan – Shabbos Nachamu
15 Menachem Av 5776/ August
19, 2016
During the summer of
1991, I was a camper in the intermediate division of Camp Dora Golding. One
day, I got off my bed and began walking across my bunkhouse when I stepped on
something that I felt immediately become stuck in my foot. I gave it a few firm
tugs, but it wouldn't budge. When I looked at the thing in my foot I assumed it
was an awkward shaped nail. But when I called over my counselor, he took one
look at it and told me that I had a fish hook wedged in my foot. The boy who
slept in the bed next to mine wasn't too careful with his fishing equipment,
and that time he made the worst catch of his fishing career - me!
My counselor helped me
hop across camp, all the way to the infirmary. After I got the "didn't I
tell you not to walk around your bunk without shoes" speech from the
nurse, she sent me off to the Emergency Room at local Pocono Medical Hospital.
It took some time before they were able to extricate the hook from my foot.
Thankfully after they did, they didn't toss me into the lake, like campers do
in camp after they extricate their fishhook from fish they catch.
On Tisha B'Av, as on
Yom Kippur, halacha dictates that we not wear leather shoes. On Tisha B'Av
afternoon we go about our business including food shopping (because we all feel
the need to go food shopping during a fast day) wearing crocs and flip flops.
Truthfully these days it is not even unusual to go shopping in such attire. But
it is more striking when we wear such footwear with our suits, kittels, and
tallesim throughout Yom Kippur.
This year I had a novel
thought regarding our change of footwear during these two unique days:
Every morning we bless
and thank Hashem “who prepares the footsteps of man”. The beracha is based on a
pasuk in Tehillim, in which Dovid Hamelech states (37:23), “By Hashem,
the footsteps of man are made firm”. Throughout our lives, we make plans and
try to chart the direction of our lives. This is in fact how it should be,
because without anticipation and direction it's very difficult to accomplish
anything. However, we must remember that ultimately we are not in charge of our
fate. "Many are the thoughts in the hearts of man, but the counsel of
Hashem, that is what lasts."
In thanking Hashem for
preparing the steps of man, we are essentially admitting and thanking G-d for
running our lives according to His Master Plan. We set out each day to fulfill
our needs as we see them, but we need to remember, that our fate is not wholly
in our hands.
That idea has been
painfully engrained in us throughout the millennia in exile. How often has our
national destiny been altered and have we been forced upon journeys and to
destinations we had never planned on going to. This is no less true in our
daily lives when we do not always end up where we thought we would on so many
levels.
On Tisha B'Av we remove
our normal footwear to symbolize that the direction of our steps in exile are
not totally in our hands. We are part of a divine plan and our mission is that
we try to live as Heaven dictates, even, and especially, when it counters our
own plans.
There are times
however, when we fail to live up to that mission, often because our ego and
fears get the better of us. For that there is a second day when we remove our
shoes - Yom Kippur. It is day of repentance and rectification, when we have the
unnatural ability to alter our culpability for our past deeds.
In a sense, on Yom
Kippur we can retrace our steps. It is a second chance to commit ourselves to
ensuring that our footsteps follow the divinely chartered course of our lives.
We don't always catch
what we were looking for in life. The question is what we do when we reel in
the unexpected.
Shabbat Shalom & Good Shabbos,
R’ Dani and Chani Staum