Traffic Jams
oxI had the occasion to travel through a city which I had not visited for years. Once long ago, I used to live there. Over the last half century, I only passed through the town a few times. This time, my trip took me down a busy road where, long ago, there had been construction. Each time I drove through the intersection, I noticed the wreck of a car at the side of the road, an ancient abandoned relic from some forgotten traffic accident. I would make my way through the detours and past the cranes and skip loaders where the road was being replaced and broadened. Making it through that area was inconvenient and I wondered how long the construction crews would be laboring in that spot. And no matter how many times I passed, that car wreck remained on the side of the road.
Oddly, on each of my trips through that area over the course of decades, it was always the same thing. Roads blocked off, signs diverting traffic, work crews sitting at the wheel of construction vehicles, smoking cigarettes, and drinking coffee. The traffic limped along. How many years would this go on? Who was paying the taxes to fund this? Was no one overseeing the work site? And what was that car wreck still doing there?
Not long ago, on another drive-through (or “stop-and-start-through”), the site was still the same. Vehicles, machinery, same potholed roadway, same roadblocks, probably different workers by this time, and same wrecked car to the side of the road. I shrugged to myself and moved past the tie-up, having places to get to and things to do.
I remind myself that nothing is by chance. Nothing we encounter is purposeless, and all scenes we witness have a lesson for us. I reflected on this and contemplated what lesson I could derive from this. What could that construction site teach me? And finally, what could I learn from this seemingly stagnant situation?
Ultimately, for me, the insight came from the car wreck itself. How many times do I feel like that car? In my day-to-day experiences—whether with people, in my mind, or in my efforts to serve Hashem—how often did I struggle with the same things every year? I know my conflicts; I know my habits; I know what things I have changed within myself and what things I continue to struggle with. The Talmud debates whether something a person has struggled with, confessed, corrected, and repented should remain a focus of his ongoing process of teshuvah, or if he should move on and let bygones be bygones.
The reality is that many of us remain stagnant and fail to overcome the conflicts and temptations that plague us. We feel regret, guilt, and make our resolutions year after year, yet find ourselves firmly in the grip of the same habits and patterns that divert the flow of our mental “traffic,” and here we are again, stuck in the same old problems. When I revisit myself, is that car wreck still off to the side of my spiritual road, or have I finally succeeded in having it towed away so I can reconstruct the path I wish to take?
When I look at my own internal roadways, have I ever really repaired them? Or do I merely continue to work on them? Or, perhaps, am I merely finding ways to divert my emotional and spiritual traffic so the cracks in the pavement remain unchanged? Regardless, I hope to get those roads fixed before they tow my car away. n
Rabbi Dr. Dovid Fox is a forensic and clinical psychologist, and director of Chai Lifeline Crisis Services. To contact Chai Lifeline’s 24-hour crisis helpline, call 855-3-CRISIS or email [email protected]. Learn more at ChaiLifeline.org/crisis.
