Are You Ready to Begin?

All life is an opportunity.  Every moment that we are filled with the juices of life we are confronted with new possibilities.  No two situations are identical.  In fact, we davened on Rosh Hashana that God should create us anew.  If granted that wish, we are now living out a new existence.   We are reborn in 5775.  Welcome to the world!

            How we then react to each moment determines whether we have accepted the gift or rejected it.  The only dynamic that counts for anything is how we interact with the universe.  Whether we glower with anger at an insult or laugh it off may be the difference between merely existing and really living.  There is a gross difference between speaking with the Holy One when we pray or mouth the words.  There is however, only one dynamic that changes.  You.  The siddur is as it was.  The chairs have the same texture.  The Torah remains unaltered.  Likewise, the face-mask we cover ourselves with directly influences the response we receive from others.  A person who has a snide tone ought not expect a joyful response from others.  We are the ever-changing dynamic.        

            Winter comes.  Some say that life is cyclical.  Winter was here many times before.  While that may be a comforting thought, I prefer to think life is linear.  That is, we have a boundless future where all things become possible.  Life need never repeat itself.  The real variable here is you.                     

            A bored child called out, “Daddy, come play with me.”

“I can’t little one.  I do not have the time.”

Well, why do you not have the time?” the little one insisted.

“Because I need to earn money.”

“But why do you need to earn money?” she shot back.

The father answered, “So that I can buy things to eat.”

After a few moments, the child called out, “Daddy, come play with me.  I am not hungry.”

            Daddy has two choices now: he can see life as he has always seen it.  Time cannot be squandered when there is work to be done.  Or, daddy can view this moment through the lens of the child.  It is a once-in-a-lifetime. 

            The Sages call the next month MarHeshvan, the bitter Heshvan.  Reasoning that there are no holy days in the entire month, the Sages bemoaned the lack of joy. The ancient ones views life as an opportunity to explore the ancient as new.  They eagerly anticipated familiar events to come to them from a wholly different perspective.  For example, when Hanukka comes it will come only once in the lifetime in this place at your age.  Never to be repeated again.

            Thomas Edison saw his factory go up in smoke on December 9, 1914.  Estimated cost of his loss?  Two million dollars.  As he watched the building become cinders, he remarked, “All our mistakes are burned up.  Thank G-d we can start anew.”  Three weeks later his firm finished crafting the first phonograph.   

            Each dawn can be a new life.