Yaakov’s Pink Blessing

Yaakov’s Pink Blessing

Yesterday morning, 3 young soldiers, hesder yeshiva students, were injured in a terror attack.

And that was why, yesterday afternoon, I was walking along my street thinking about how I just CAN’T stand it anymore! I can’t stand the terror attacks and the heart-rending funerals and the fear.

And then I thought back on the past few millennia of Jewish history. Has there ever been, I wondered, a truly peaceful period of Jewish history? Without conflict– between the Jewish people and our enemies, or even among ourselves?

Is there possibly some reason why, until Moshiach arrives, Hashem wants us to be living like this?
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Last week, my 3-year-old, Yaakov, broke the raisin jar. Which is why, earlier this week, I was walking around the neighborhood with a new jar in my purse in search of a mikveh kelim– a ritual bath for purifying vessels.

The woman I asked on the street told me to take a right and go down a flight of stairs, and that was what I did. And there it was, sitting wide open.

Imagine a natural spring. Pure, invigorating, clean, refreshing.

Now think of the murkiest mikveh kelim you can imagine. More marsh than mikveh. More swamp than spring.

I’ve seen quite a few Mikveh kelims in my life, and they’ve always been basically clean and clear. So that when I immersed my dish or spoon or pan inside them, I could imagine their cold waters uplifting and purifying.

But it was hard to imagine that this yucky mikveh kelim could purify much of anything.

I dipped my new raisin jar in it anyway (and put it right in the dishwasher when I got home), since, I reminded myself, sometimes things that don’t look pure can purify.

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Yaakov is learning to say blessings over food in gan. So yesterday, after I poured some milk into his cup, he pronounced the blessing, “Baruch ata Hashem, Elokaynu Melech Haolam, shehakol Nehiyeh b’verod.”

“What? What do you mean, Yaakov, ‘Shehakol nehiyeh b’verod?’

“I mean,” he said, now very slowly and clearly, so I would understand, “that everything will be ‘verod.’ So that Hashem will make everything in the world pink.”

I smiled. And could barely wait to share news of Yaakov’s newest blessing with all his older siblings and abba.

But then I thought–well, I agree. Wouldn’t it be nice if, not only, we could see the world through rose-colored glasses, but that the world itself and everything in it could be perfectly pink.

And then I thought of the actual blessing. “Blessed are You, Master of the Universe, ‘shehakol nihyeh b’dvaro,’ that everything is created with Your word.”

Everything, Hashem, is created with your word.

The happy and the tragedy.
The clear and the murky.
The pink and the black.

And all of them can purify. Even the tears. (Especially the tears?) Bringing us closer to You.

5 comments

  1. This is beautiful- thank you!

  2. sheva lazaros

    Thank you so much, especially for yakov’s version of the bracha. We need to see the world through the eyes of pure neshamot.
    Thanks for letting us do so.

  3. THank you for sharing this. It’s wonderful!

  4. Precious and priceless. Lots of nachas and continued inspiration. Three disparate events get linked creatively!

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