Rabbi's Corner

Relaxation is a thing of the past.  Our everyday world is crammed full of so many things to do or so many places to get to that we are always on the move.  We just never stop.  Even our vacations, the time during which we should be relaxing and enjoying, are filled to the brim with things to do.  No one takes time to "stop and smell the roses" anymore.  In fact, everyone is moving at such a frantic pace that they do not even see the roses let alone smell them.  The most important  human quality that has been sacrificed for the sake of expediency is that of having patience.  And the place you see this most often is while being on the road in your car.

If you want to know the smallest unit of time people spend at doing something, just watch cars at a stoplight.  Question: how long does it take for the car behind you to start beeping its horn when you do not take off as soon as the light turns green?  Perhaps a nanosecond?   And what happens if you get caught by a red light, that is if you do not run it anyway as so many Philadelphia drivers do?  And school busses?  How many times have you watched drivers simply drive around a school bus that is discharging its passengers even when the red lights are flashing and the stop sign is displayed?  Even E-Z Pass has succumbed to our impatience.  Now we even have E-Z Pass Express lanes in which drivers violate the suggested speed limit in their haste to get to where they "need" to be.  Is there a solution to all this?  Yes, there is, and we can find it in our tradition.

In this week's parashah, Parashat Bechukotai, we read the following: "If you will follow My laws and faithfully observe my commandments,...I will grant peace in the land, and you shall lie down untroubled by anyone...But if you do not obey Me and do not observe all these commandments, if you reject My laws and spurn My rules, so that you do not observe all My commandments and you break My covenant, I will in turn do this to you: vehifkad'ti aleichem behalah/I will decree upon you panic...."  Rabbi Zalman Sorotzkin translates "behalah" as "confusion or nervous tension."  He says that this curse is upon all of us now, at this time.  We live hectic, pressure-laden lives rushing from one activity to the next never finding shalom, never finding peace.  How can we change this?  By returning to our roots, by returning to our Torah, by returning to our people, and by returning to HaShem.  And that returning can be started by simply observing the one day each week that can relieve us of our "behalah," and that day is called Shabbat.

Join your friends, join your CSS family just this one day each week, and you will be both pleased and surprised as to how different your life will be.  Try it; you might like it!