There’s me,
my shadow, and my fatigue. As the day wears on and the sun drops, I look around
to find myself followed by a stretching shadow that eerily resembles my feeling
of exhaustion .I’m tired.
But let me
start from the beginning. I wake up five hours after midnight, because that’s
when my kids do. Yes, they have this conspiracy- thing where they each arise
before dawn, regardless of whether they are
in the same room or not. They’re rooster-types.
“Mommy, it’s
dark outside!” My two year old points outside excitedly.
“Yes, dear.
So why don’t you consider sleeping for another while?” I wonder.
And then for
the next hour I hear the refrain “it’s dark outside. Dark outside. “ just about
a hundred times. He’s standing on his stool, still in his pj’s, with his nose
pressed against the glass. Got it. It’s dark outside.
I never know
what time to expect it. At some point, he tugs my skirt and jumps up and down.
“Mommy, its light outside!! “ As if by magic, one second it’s night and the
next it is morning. “No more dark outside. Light outside. “
He probably
wonders who turns on the switch. I lift him up so he can see better. “Naftoli,
do you see the yellow ball? It is called the sun. When the sun comes, there is
light. (it wouldn’t hurt if you waited for the sun to come before you woke up!)
“Sun. Light.
Outside. Light outside. “
He enters a
new word into his toddler lexicon and a new expectation into his daily
schedule. Now he knows that when he wakes up it is dark, but then it will get
light. The sun will come out.
Thus begins
my 18 -hour workday.
I have to
admit that I am grateful. Of course, I wouldn’t mind a few more hours of
shut-eye. But I have come to attach meaning to the interplay between dark and
light, night and day.
For
starters, it happens daily. But it is not on autopilot. And that is the amazing
part.
In one of
the blessings recited daily before the Shema, we say” hamechadesh betuvo bichol
yom tamid maseh bireishis”, “who in His goodness renews each day, continuously,
the work of creation”.
Granted, God
is the one who turns on the switch each morning. But in reality, he is actually
recreating the switch from scratch each day as well.
That is the
meaning that God renews the “work of creation” every single day. The story of
creation did not only occur 5773 years ago! It occurs daily, and actually every
moment that the world is in existence it is being recreated Ex-Nehilo. We
humans can’t fathom such a concept.
In the Torah portion of Bereishis, we read a story of God creating dark and
light by uttering the words “Let there be Light.” In this prayer, we learn that
this is a perpetual story with an everlasting script. Just as a ball only
remains in the air as long as there is mechanical energy propelling it, we and
the world around us only exist as long as there is Godly energy boosting us! This
applies to every aspect of our daily lives but is symbolized by the natural
cycle of the day being renewed each morning.
So as the
sun sets, I am tired, because I’ve watched it rise. I’ve watched the day being
recreated from anew, just as it was created thousands of years ago.
Didn’t I say
I would start from the beginning?!
