For Better or Not Worse
My foot was burned in an electical outlet explosion last week and that's the good news.
This past Shabbos, I was eating one of the meals at a friend's house, and he commented on my "upbeat" attitude, even as I was limping home. That got me to thinking about the uniquely Jewish attitude of Gam zu l'tovah (This, too, is for the good).
Whenever something happens, there are two ways to get to the same result, and the path taken reveals a bit of a person's outlook on life. In a car accident, for example, a person could say "It's a good thing I was wearing my seat belt.", or one could say, "It could have been worse - I could have not been wearing a seatbelt.". Both statements acknowledge that wearing the seatbelt was of great use in this case, but one is looking at the "bright side" and one focuses upon the "dark side".
The Talmud (Brochos 60b) tells the story of Rabbi Akiva, who was accustomed to say "Everything HaShem (G-D) does is for the good". Rabbi Akiva was once travelling with a rooster, a donkey, and a candle. When night fell, he tried to find lodging in a nearby city, but was turned away and forced to sleep in the fields outside of town. Rabbi Akiva simply said "Everything HaShem does is for the good". Over the course of the night, a cat ate his rooster, a lion ate his donkey, and a wind blew out his candle. Each time, he merely said "Everything HaShem does is for the good". The next morning, he woke up to find that a band of brigands had raided the city during the night, robbing everyone and killing many. Because he was in the field, with no light and no animal to give him away, he went unnoticed.
I was lying in bed at 11:00pm, when the outlet at the foot of my bed exploded. My first reaction was to stomp my foot on the floor, in case it had caught fire. In doing so, my blanket was pulled off the bed. Boruch HaShem, the fire went out quickly and the only major damage was to my 1-to-3 adapter and my extension cord (and my foot), but when I later picked the blanket up off the floor, I found a hole and a rather large char mark from where it had started to burn. By pulling it off the bed when I jumped up, the fire couldn't catch, and went out. My foot was burned in an electical outlet explosion last week. Gam zu l'tovah.
On a certain Tuesday morning, slightly less than five years ago, a young man named Shlomo (person has been fictionalized) work up late, because his wife didn't set the alarm clock the night before. When he woke up, he was angry with his wife, irritated with his children, and frustrated with his car. He rushed out the door and joined the large number of people that missed their usual morning train and were going to be late to work. Today, he's alive to tell about it. Gam zu l'tovah.
Perhaps this is something worth keeping in mind the next time a cabbie cuts us off on the road, or the train comes late, or a computer crashes, or the chulent burns: of course things can be worse, but they're actually pretty good right now, even if we don't know how.
This past Shabbos, I was eating one of the meals at a friend's house, and he commented on my "upbeat" attitude, even as I was limping home. That got me to thinking about the uniquely Jewish attitude of Gam zu l'tovah (This, too, is for the good).
Whenever something happens, there are two ways to get to the same result, and the path taken reveals a bit of a person's outlook on life. In a car accident, for example, a person could say "It's a good thing I was wearing my seat belt.", or one could say, "It could have been worse - I could have not been wearing a seatbelt.". Both statements acknowledge that wearing the seatbelt was of great use in this case, but one is looking at the "bright side" and one focuses upon the "dark side".
The Talmud (Brochos 60b) tells the story of Rabbi Akiva, who was accustomed to say "Everything HaShem (G-D) does is for the good". Rabbi Akiva was once travelling with a rooster, a donkey, and a candle. When night fell, he tried to find lodging in a nearby city, but was turned away and forced to sleep in the fields outside of town. Rabbi Akiva simply said "Everything HaShem does is for the good". Over the course of the night, a cat ate his rooster, a lion ate his donkey, and a wind blew out his candle. Each time, he merely said "Everything HaShem does is for the good". The next morning, he woke up to find that a band of brigands had raided the city during the night, robbing everyone and killing many. Because he was in the field, with no light and no animal to give him away, he went unnoticed.
I was lying in bed at 11:00pm, when the outlet at the foot of my bed exploded. My first reaction was to stomp my foot on the floor, in case it had caught fire. In doing so, my blanket was pulled off the bed. Boruch HaShem, the fire went out quickly and the only major damage was to my 1-to-3 adapter and my extension cord (and my foot), but when I later picked the blanket up off the floor, I found a hole and a rather large char mark from where it had started to burn. By pulling it off the bed when I jumped up, the fire couldn't catch, and went out. My foot was burned in an electical outlet explosion last week. Gam zu l'tovah.
On a certain Tuesday morning, slightly less than five years ago, a young man named Shlomo (person has been fictionalized) work up late, because his wife didn't set the alarm clock the night before. When he woke up, he was angry with his wife, irritated with his children, and frustrated with his car. He rushed out the door and joined the large number of people that missed their usual morning train and were going to be late to work. Today, he's alive to tell about it. Gam zu l'tovah.
Perhaps this is something worth keeping in mind the next time a cabbie cuts us off on the road, or the train comes late, or a computer crashes, or the chulent burns: of course things can be worse, but they're actually pretty good right now, even if we don't know how.
posted by RubinCompServ | 8:50 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home