Sometimes a person can hear the same thing over
and over again without really grasping its true meaning. I can attest to this
as I’ve often struggled with the idea of free choice vs. Divine intervention –
that is, until last week. Someone at the Shabbos table explained it so
succinctly that I could practically hear his idea clicking into place in my
mind. He announced to everyone at the table that Hashem is the One who decides
what events will happen to us. We have free choice only in deciding how we will
react to what He sends our way.
Wow! To say I was blown away by
our host’s pronouncement would be an understatement. Suddenly, it felt like the
dawning of a new day. Everything made sense to me, and I realized that this was
something I wanted to begin working on as soon as possible. I knew it would not
always be easy to achieve, especially when difficult tests came my way, but I
was eager to try.
I don’t know anyone who has an
easy time of it all the time, and the older I get, the more challenges I see in
my own life and in the lives of my friends and acquaintances. When I experience
these rough patches, I often feel like a leaf in the wind, not knowing how to
navigate what Hashem sends me. Where do I go, and what can I do to stop all of
this, I think over and over again. My emotions go haywire too, akin to a
rudderless boat in a storm. It’s that uncomfortable lack-of-control kind of
feeling that is not welcome when it comes. It can turn us into people we don’t
like with our fears or our anger exposed and perhaps with the feeling of utter
helplessness. We become the exact opposite of who we want to be or what we are
meant to become.
I saw a book recently that I
remember reading to my children when they were younger, entitled The Little Princess by Frances Hodges
Burnett. It became a much-loved, dog-eared favorite in our house. It describes
a riches-to-rags story of a little rich girl in an elite boarding school who
carried herself with the dignity of a princess. She becomes a servant girl when
her father suddenly dies, and she thereafter must work as a drudge for pitiful
wages. Overnight, she changed from a little girl who had everything imaginable
to a poor girl who suffered from constant cold and hunger with no one to care
for her. However, throughout her horrific ordeal, she always remained a
princess. She held her head high and kept her emotions in check, never letting
the deprivation she faced on a daily basis control her.
We dupe ourselves into thinking we
are in charge of our circumstances. What does that look like when we try to
prevent these situations from coming into our lives? What happens to our
emotions when we try to do that? How does one stop the whirling wind in a
tornado?
I think back to last Shabbos, when
it felt to me as if hearing for the first time that it was never my job to
decide what trials come my way. I was never in control in the first place, and
I couldn’t prevent those situations even if I had wanted to. How did I ever
think I would be able to shoulder these massive burdens that weren’t mine to
carry? Now, I’m trying to focus more on the free choice that is mine – to decide
how I handle each situation that is given to me by Hashem.
It’s easy to fall back on old
habits and say, “Why did this have to happen to me? It’s not what I wanted.
It’s not how I expected things would turn out.” That’s saying that it’s up to
me to choose how things ought to be. I have to stop these thoughts the moment
they enter my mind and remember that I don’t have that kind of power. My free
choice comes into play in deciding how I will act with what Hashem sends me. I
can choose to get angry. I can rant and rave. I can feel gypped that I wasn’t
dealt the cards I felt I deserved. Or I can serve my King, Who gave me the
ability to choose, at this very moment, to control my emotions with dignity and
kindness and a quiet acceptance…like a princess.
Zahava Hochberg created the weekly column “Musings
Through a Bifocal Lens” for the Monsey
Mevaser newspaper. She also created a section for the paper called “The
Silver Slant.” Zahava can be reached at zahava.hochberg17@gmail.com.
