TURNING TRAFFIC JAMS INTO SERENITY
The theme of Rosh Hashanah and its avoda is accepting upon ourselves the Sovereignty of HaShem as the absolute Sovereign of the universe. The expectation is to accept HaShem as our personal Master, our personal King. To accept His Sovereignty on a personal level means to live with the notion the same way we live with the notion of gravity. We understand gravity and live with it and anticipate its strength on a very actual level.
Accepting HaShem, Who is the most abstract concept imaginable, as our personal Sovereign would seem to be a very unattainable feat to accomplish in any meaningful way. How do we take such an abstract Being and integrate Him into our daily life, into our every action?
On an intellectual level we believe and we know that He controls all the details of our life but to make that a reality, as something that we live with in the same way we live with gravity is something very different.
Perhaps the following approach may help make this goal achievable.
Throughout our daily lives we often encounter frustration. It can come in the form of backed up traffic, it can come in the form of unexpected expectations that our boss may have of us and so on. These moments are often accompanied with some level of stress and tension. This is natural and understandable. Imagine you are heading to a meeting with a new prospect which can open many doors for you. On the way to the meeting you hit traffic that causes you to miss the meeting. You lost any chance of meeting with this prospect again. The level of frustration can reach pretty high.
Now consider, if you received a direct message from HaShem, (perhaps you recognize His caller ID) in which He tells you not to meet with this fellow. He tells you that it is not going to turn out good if you meet him. If this were to happen to me, I would without any question follow HaShem’s advice. I may want to know why HaShem thinks that it won’t work out, but I will certainly take His advice and thank Him for it.
If this is true, why am I frustrated when the traffic jam destroys my opportunity to meet my prospect? It is because I do not associate the traffic as being a direct intervention of HaShem to stop me from meeting him. It is interesting to note that even though I truly believe that HaShem runs all events in my daily life, nevertheless I still get frustrated. Why? The reason is that there is a disconnect between our intellect and our emotions.
When we allow our intellect to direct our emotions then we are effectively bringing HaShem into our daily life in a most profound way. Some much of our stress would be relieved once we could integrate this thinking into our lives. The very exercise of training our minds to think on these lines brings HaShem into our lives in real-time. The more we master this technique the greater HaShem’s Presence exists in our world. As that increases we experience more and more blessings.
Behold! The very cause of our stress becomes our source of welcoming HaShem and accepting His Sovereignty on a most personal level.
Have a very wonderful Shabbos and a very successful Rosh Hashanah.
Paysach Diskind