Wrong place at the right time!

            At a few minutes before three o’clock on a blustery Wednesday afternoon, I faced a significant climb to the top of the Bayit Ve’Gan neighborhood on my bike. As I was about to cross the large intersection next to the Sha’arei Tzedek hospital and begin my ascent, two ambulances screeched past me, and they were in a hurry.  You see one ambulance and you hope it is going to bring life into the world at a labor, but you see two ambulances, especially here in Israel, and the mind starts to wander and wonder, did something happen?   Given the relative calm in recent years within the city limits, though, the wondering stopped and I began my ascent.  I was already late for my afternoon studies, as I was supposed to catch the three o’clock bus from across the bus station back to Telstone, but I still had one errand left.

            After an arduous climb, I reached for my phone to call my wife for directions, and I saw I had three missed calls.  Strange given that I had just spoken to both my wife and sister, so who could have called?  I checked, and my wife had called an uncharacteristic amount of times. My mind began to make the connection with the two ambulances I had just seen.  But it was only confirmed when I tried to call her back.  The phones were congested; there had been a terrorist attack.  When I finally got through to her and found out that the attack had occurred next to the Telstone bus stop, my heart sank, then rose, and then sank again- I had been spared, but what about others?

            From the top of Bayit Ve’gan, the panorama of Jerusalem is among the best in the city.  On a day of late winter rains, the clouds began to disperse and the sun began to pierce the dull gray.  The dichotomy of rain and terrorism, open love[1] and G
-d’s hiding.  These are two ways that G-d relates to us, and these change over time.
            It is a well known idea in Judaism that time does not pass before us, rather we pass before time.  What is the difference?  As indicated by the word time in Hebrew, zman,זמן- time is an invitation, an appointment.[2]  Anyone who has said the after-meal blessing, it is customary to have an introduction when there are three men present to invite everyone to bless together, and this is called a ‘zimun’.  Since time is an invitation, it indicates that there is a specific event that needs to happen at that time and at no other time, and presumably, the conditions are right for that event to take place. If it is not the right time, then failure is likely. 

            Most generally, time is influenced by a spiritual flow of mercy, rachamim, or a flow of din, strict justice.  Depending on the time, we need to shape our approach to spiritual work because at certain times, things will be easier to accomplish and at other times it will be nearly impossible to grow in certain areas.  Why did G-d set up the world this way with a relationship that is constantly changing?  It is to ensure that free-will is maintained.  If we always lived at a time of mercy, then we would grow spiritually to such a degree that there would no longer be any spiritual tests.  And if G-d always hid from us, then we would all eventually lose hope.  So, there is a sensitive system in place to maintain the delicate balance of free will.[3]             

            Hard as it is emotionally when G-d hides from us, the spiritual system in place could not exist without this relationship.  And ultimately, this spiritual system is about life. 

           

---

[1] Rain is the life giving force that we pray for in the winter, and symbolizes loving kindness from above. Water always represents chessed.

[2] See the chapter on Time in Patterns in Time by Rabbi Mattis Weinberg

[3]These insights are from Rav Dessler Volume two Parshas Shemini  He connects it to this week’s parsha because part of the reason that the Holy son’s of Aharon, Nadav and Avihu were killed is because they performed their service at the wrong spiritual time.