CHOCHMAS NASHIM: R’EH: Are You a Good Witch or a Bad Witch?
This week’s torah portion starts with the following:
רְאֵ֗ה אָנֹכִ֛י נֹתֵ֥ן לִפְנֵיכֶ֖ם הַיּ֑וֹם בְּרָכָ֖ה וּקְלָלָֽה׃
See, this day I set before you blessing and curse.
The beginning of the month of Av was dismal, as it usually is, I’ll pour you a Joe and we can discuss it, but, let’s talk about how something can be good and evil either at the same time or at first be evil and then good and vice versa.
My bumper fell of my car….sorry wrong story, but that very weekend both of my refrigerators died. So I went to AHC, shout out, and they were having a tent sale, and I bought a new refrigerator and it came the next day, whew, but…it couldn’t fit past the washer and dryer.
“Maam, would you like to pay me extra to remove your washer and dryer and reinstall it for you,” asked the delivery man, and I responded that “I would love to pay you extra money to do that.” So he did, and a few minutes later, he showed me an eight inch pile of lint that he removed from my dryer hose, with the comment, “if I didn’t remove this (lint), it woulda caught on fire.” And that is how my broken refrigerator saved me from greater tzoros/trouble.
It happens to us all the time, if we can sit back and see it and be grateful for it. This is the core of the Rabbis saying that we should bless evil as we bless good, for in truth, we don’t really know what is evil and what is good, and that has led those around me to say “it is all good.” It is difficult to have that Emunah/faith, but that is core faith.
Shabbat shalom.
-Suri