On my Way to buy Potatoes…
Photo courtesy of Flickr.com user Dr. Hemmert
This morning, excited to be on my way to buy potatoes for latkes, I thought of an older couple I know that has “EVERYTHING.”
They’ve got the intensely successful careers that have brought them wealth and even local newspaper celebrity.
They’ve got the 2 BMWs with the matching Harvard stickers.
They’ve got the mansion in one of America’s wealthiest neighborhoods.
By contrast, I realized, on a material level I have sooooo little.
But you know what I remembered this morning on my way to buy those potatoes? I remembered that if somebody offered me a million dollars, a billion dollars, a trillion dollars, I would never agree to give up what I do have.
I wouldn’t give up this Jewish home, this Jewish family, this Jewish life. I wouldn’t give up the smell of frying latkes in my kitchen, and the eager faces of my children singing “Maoz Tsur” by the Chanukah candles, and this light-filled week illuminated by the exalted spirit of miracles past and present.
Thank you God for granting me this priceless gift.
Thank you, God, for making me a Jew.
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Chanukah Same’ach Jenny and my holy sisters reading this site!
Jenny, you lost me with the very first sentence after this couple “has everything,” which mentions their mansion in America. That’s an element of “everything!?”
Look, I am grateful that America was open to immigrants like my grandparents, who left Russia and Eastern Europe for a better life during the Industrial Revolution. And I didn’t lack for anything material during my very American childhood. But I thank G-d that He brought me home to Israel (and my husband who made Aliyah five years before we met). Everything this “successful” couple has holds no interest for me.
Like you, I praise G-d for my husband, children, and our beautiful home in Yerushalayim Ir HaKodesh.
Lastly, I just want to mention a vort I have heard on recorded lectures by Rabbi Berel Wein, shlita: If we really could trade our life with someone else who we think has an easier or better life, we would eventually realize we would prefer our own pekelach to theirs.
thanks ayala, I actually meant the “EVERYTHING” ironically. I just added quotation marks to make that clearer. Thanks for the beautiful comment, I LOVED what you wrote. I feel the same way about my life here, 110%