Two weeks ago my family received a new Town & Country ’06 as a gift (thanks Yossi and Nechoma Dina). It comes with a DVD player –for the kids, and a GPS system – for the adults. Being a guy, I was excited to start using my new gadget and I now no longer cared to run errands for my wife – and the further (and more obscure the location) the better. As I ran the errands (such as getting a bottle of water from the 7-11 in Melville – or was that Merrick) I learned all about the beauties of this new system. Such as; enter a phone number and it will tell how to get to that address, It will tell you all the points of interest in that neighborhood, and even where the gas stations are. The coolest of them all was that if G-d forbid you made a wrong turn, it recalculated the route and it was as if you never missed a beat.
As you drive you hear this voice from heaven telling you “turn left if half mile”, “200 feet is destination”, “in 1 mile you can get a slurpee – but they are out of coke”. It was great until I was listening to the radio and it was the bottom of the ninth and the Mets were down by 1 with 2 outs…”and here is the pitch to Beltran” – “In half a mile please make a right followed by a quick left and then your destination will be on the left side right past the overgrown oak tree”. By that time, the commercial was on I didn’t know if he got out or they won the game!(don’t worry – it worked out fine).
So now that I don’t have to sit there with a printout from Mapquest and look at it every 20 seconds, I had some free time on my hands to think. I quickly realized that it was one month before the High Holidays and I didn’t even start working on the Sermons. Right then and there it hit me like a flash (see below). I wasn’t sure if I should write it here but I realized that with all the driving that I am going to be doing – especially that my son is starting school soon, I will probably have enough time to come up with some new ideas.
So here we are-the first day of Elul, the twelfth and last month of the Jewish year-30 days before Rosh Hashaana. It is the month of preparation and introspect as we get ready for the High Holidays. A time to come to an honest realization of who we are, where we are and where we are going. The good thing is that we have the tools implanted inside of us to really know what kind of person we are. The Torah gives us the moral and Judaic yardstick to come to an honest conclusion of which neighborhood we are in. The Torah tells us throughout our life “in one week you should do this (Matzah on Passver)”, “in 1 hour you should do that (light Shabbat candles)”, prepare to make left (fill in the blank with your own experience). [For a different discussion... but did you ever complain that “who does this car think he is – why is he telling me what to do"!]
But it gets even better…If we make a wrong turn – and being humans, we do that often – the Torah automatically recalculates our position and tells us how to get back on the right path. There is never a situation where we are totally lost. As long as our system is on and we are ready to listen to the instructions – there is a voice that will come down from on high and tell us what to do.
As we prepare for the Jewish New Year and we ask G-d to bless us with a h appy and sweet new year, we shouldn’t get down on our selves an dthink that all is lost and it is impossible to become a better Jew. If you don’t even know how to turn on the Navigation system – just open the glove compartment and take out the user manual. The Torah (and G-d) is accessible to everyone at all times.
OK, sometimes it is a little inconvenient and we might miss some big thing while we are trying to focus on getting back on track – but hey, what are our priorities. And besides you can always watch the highlight reels.