My Indignant Three-Year-Old

I wanted to begin by wishing everyone a gmar chasima tova and a gut yur. The time period between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur carries a serious intensity with it. The hours upon hours spent in prayer in shuls davening for a good year for ourselves, others, and all of the Jewish people, laying our souls bare, is as taxing as it is liberating. People often make new resolutions as a merit for themselves entering the new year. I wanted to share an idea that Reb Yussie Zakutinsky shared before Avinu Malkenu on the first day of Rosh Hashanah.

The Gemara in Taanis describes a time when there was a serious drought and Reb Eliezer Hagadol ascended the amud and recited all 24 berachos of Shemoneh Esrei for a drought but rain did not fall.

Rebbe Akiva then got up and recited Avinu Malkenu and rain began falling. The Gemara goes on to explain that Rebbe Akiva’s success was not due to his ascendancy over Rebbe Eliezer; after all, Rebbe Eliezer was his Rebbe. Rather, Rebbe Akiva had a merit in that he was ma’avir al midosav—he let things go; he didn’t hold grudges against anyone.

The Rebbe said we are all students of Rebbe Akiva’s, as Chazal state, V’kulhu aliba d’Rebbe Akiva. And like Rebbe Akiva we are all ma’avir al midosav. How so? Last Rosh Hashanah we all had certain expectations for the new year, which very possibly were not upheld. Still, however, as we enter the new year, we will “forgive” G‑d for all that he brought upon us in lockstep with the middah of Rebbe Akiva. In that merit we should be zocheh to a shanah tovah u’mitukah.

It’s a courageous idea because it suggests an approach that we are perhaps not accustomed to when we perceive a letdown between G‑d and us, His creation. We do have hopes and aspirations that are oftentimes not realized. So, as “believers, the sons and daughters of believers,” we often are taught that G‑d knows what is best for us and we have to dutifully defer to what He knows over what our hopes for ourselves were.

However, while that is true, it doesn’t mean that our feelings have to be ignored. Chazal say, “Hashemgozer v’tzaddik mevatel.” That means that righteous individuals have the ability to nullify a decree from Above.

We begin the recitation of Pirkei Avos with the words, “All Jews have a portion in the world to come, as it states, ‘And Your people are all righteous.’” Or as we are wont to say in Khal Mevakshei Hashem, “Every Yid is a big tzaddik from his keppeleh till his feeselah.” As such, anytime a Jew has a virtuous desire that isn’t realized, it’s possible for him or her to feel betrayal on the part of G‑d all the while being believers in Him.

There is a famous story told by the late author and world-famous Holocaust survivor and activist Elie Wiesel about the time a rabbinic tribunal was set up after the Holocaust in which G‑d was tried for the unspeakable horrors that the Jewish people had to endure during those years. The result of the case was that G‑d was unanimously found guilty and then the rabbis stood up and declared, “Now it’s time to go daven Minchah.” 

We have opinions on what is just and what is a travesty of justice, and despite our only having a partial view of reality, our feelings are not illegitimate, not subjectively and not in G‑d’s eyes.

After Havdalah motzaei Rosh Hashanah, and after we got the house back in order, our youngest child, Rosie, who is three years old, asked if we could take her out for a walk. She has developed a need to be taken for a walk around bedtime before she can go to sleep. Unfortunately, it began raining and so the walk was out of the question.

Then our daughter Ariella, who was fasting for the first time, right before her bas mitzvah, which will be marked a day after Simchas Torah in Eretz Yisrael, had asked me to go to 7-Eleven to get her and the other fasting-age young adults Gatorade in order to hydrate before the fast.

In the few minutes that we were gone, a fuse must have blown, and the light in our bathroom went out while my wife was attempting to put Rosie to bed. As she is in the fear-of-monsters stage of life, despite having been told that there is no such thing, she was sure that a monster had to do with the light mysteriously going off, disturbing her ability to go to sleep soundly.

I got back and lay down next to her in bed and she was visibly upset about something. My wife had told me about the light going off and I asked her what had happened. She replied that the light had gone out and then asked me if we could go on a walk tomorrow before bedtime, to which I replied that she’d better ask Hashem to make it not rain tomorrow so we can go out. She asked, “Will the light go out again tomorrow?” I said, “You should ask Him as well not to allow the light to go out.” She said: “Okay, I’ll ask Him tomorrow, right now I’m angry at Him.”

I tried to explain to her how everything that happens is from Hashem and is good whether or not we understand it. But then I realized that despite the fact that the conversation was about rain and lights going out, despite the great distance in age between me and her, we are not all that different.

We were in the Ten Days of Repentance. And although G‑d is infinite and omniscient, it’s not beneath Him to be vulnerable. So although we’re used to bettering ourselves in an attempt to draw close to Him, the rabbis—who understood that after thousands of years of it proverbially raining when we wanted to go outside for a walk, or when the figurative lights go out, we are jarred from being able to rest peacefully— havesaid, “Return to us and we will return to You.” 

Yochanan Gordon can be reached at [email protected]. Read more of Yochanan’s articles at 5TJT.com.