Skip to main content

Thought for the Day: This World Is Nothing But An Entryway To Olam HaBa

I worked at Fermi Lab about 23 years ago.  At that time, the lab was completely open to the public.  Still, we were a national lab, so there were times we had to practice security in case of who knows what.  On those rare occasions, all outside communication was disabled and no traffic was allowed to enter nor leave the site.  Theses drills could last a couple of hours or more; no big deal.  One time, thought, my boss came to my office and told me, "Don't worry, we've gotten you special clearance so you can go home to take your son to the hospital."  I didn't worry, I panicked; I had no clue what he was talking about.  This was pre-cell phone days, so I just jumped in my car and headed home.  It turns out that my son, who was just a couple of weeks old, had developed a staph infection in his belly button.  My wife had called the lab, gotten the security office, explained the situation, they called my boss, and... you know the rest.

I got home, the doctor (who was also a close friend) was there with an uncharacteristically worried look on his face.  Apparently, infections in the belly button of an infant is very bad news; very bad.  Dr. Dan told us that he needed IV antibiotics right away; so off we rushed to the hospital.  Dr. Dan told everyone that my son was his god son and we got the VIP treatment.  Once we got the room, however, Dr. Dan told my wife and I to go to the leave and to to the other end of the hall while he got the IV started.  An infant has very tiny and fragile veins; starting and IV is tedious and very painful for the infant.  My wife and I spent the next half hour listening to him scream in excruciating pain and knowing we could do nothing.  It was horrible and I have trouble talking about it even to this day.

We allowed that, of course, because he was two weeks old and had a whole life ahead of him.  It changed him, it changed my wife, it changed me; but there was no choice, not even a fleeting thought to do anything different.  We would do exactly the same today.

The shulchan aruch paskens that a person should accustom himself to say, "kol mah d'avad rachmana, l'tav avad" -- all that HaShem does is done for the good.  It doesn't mean that it's fun or pleasant.  Chazal were precise: it's for good; ie, it will result in good, not that it is good right now.  And it doesn't matter if that decision needs to be made when the person has only entered this world a few days before or is likely to leave this world in only a few days time.  What's the point of inflicting painful, sometimes excruciatingly painful, on a patient who may have only days, hours, or even minutes left in this world?  The same reason to inflict painful, even excruciatingly painful, treatments on a two week old infant; he has a whole life ahead of him.

Chazal, characteristically blunt and precise, often use the word "rechem" (womb) and "kever" (grave) interchangeably.  If you know that this world is nothing but a preparation for the next world, then the kever is a rechem.  If you think that this world is all there is, then the rechem is a kever.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Thought for the Day: Pizza, Uncrustables, and Stuff -- What Bracha?

Many years ago (in fact, more than two decades ago), I called R' Fuerst from my desk at work as I sat down to lunch.  I had a piece of (quite delicious) homemade pizza for lunch.  I nearly always eat at my desk as I am working (or writing TftD...), so my lunch at work cannot in any way be considered as sitting down to a formal meal; aka קביעת סעודה.  That being the case, I wasn't sure whether to wash, say ha'motzi, and bentch; or was the pizza downgraded to a m'zonos.  He told if it was a snack, then it's m'zonos; if a meal the ha'motzi.  Which what I have always done since then.  I recently found out how/why that works. The Shulchan Aruch, 168:17 discusses פשטיד''א, which is describes as a baked dough with meat or fish or cheese.  In other words: pizza.  Note: while the dough doesn't not need to be baked together with the meat/fish/cheese, it is  required that they dough was baked with the intention of making this concoction.  That is, even th
Post a Comment
Read more

Thought for the Day: What Category of Muktzeh are Our Candles?

As discussed in a recent TftD , a p'sak halacha quite surprising to many, that one may -- even לכתחילה -- decorate a birthday cake with (unlit, obviously) birthday candles on Shabbos. That p'sak is predicated on another p'sak halacha; namely, that our candles are muktzeh because they are a כלי שמלאכתו לאיסור and not  מוקצה מחמת גופו/intrinsically set aside from any use on Shabbos. They point there was that using the candle as a decoration qualifies as a need that allows one to utilize a כלי שמלאכתו לאיסור. Today we will discuss the issue of concluding that our candles are , in fact, a כלי שמלאכתו לאיסור and not מוקצה מחמת גופו. Along the way we'll also (again) how important it is to have personal relationship with your rav/posek, the importance of precision in vocabulary, and how to interpret the Mishna Brura.  Buckle up. After reviewing siman 308 and the Mishna Brura there, I concluded that it should be permissible to use birthday candles to decorate a cake on Shabbo
Post a Comment
Read more

Thought for the Day: אוושא מילתא Debases Yours Shabbos

My granddaughter came home with a list the girls and phone numbers in her first grade class.  It was cute because they had made it an arts and crafts project by pasting the list to piece of construction paper cut out to look like an old desk phone and a receiver attached by a pipe cleaner.  I realized, though, that the cuteness was entirely lost on her.  She, of course, has never seen a desk phone with a receiver.  When they pretend to talk on the phone, it is on any relatively flat, rectangular object they find.  (In fact, her 18 month old brother turns every  relatively flat, rectangular object into a phone and walks around babbling into it.  Not much different than the rest of us, except his train of thought is not interrupted by someone else babbling into his ear.) I was reminded of that when my chavrusa (who has children my grandchildrens age) and I were learning about אוושא מילתא.  It came up because of a quote from the Shulchan Aruch HaRav that referred to the noise of תקתוק
Post a Comment
Read more