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Thursday, August 11, 2022 - 6:04 PM

Last week, Hashem blessed my sister Estee Stern with twin boys.

I don’t usually fly for a bris, and my sister lives thousands of miles away in South Africa, but since it was twins and a double mitzvah, I really wanted to be there to join the celebration, so I made double the effort to do so.

There is only one direct flight per day to South Africa, and taking it on Thursday or Friday would conflict with Shabbat. The Wednesday night flight didn’t work for me for other reasons. Plus they weren’t yet certain that the bris would be on Monday. So I booked a non-direct flight, leaving New York Saturday night, after Shabbat, which happened to be Tisha B’Av.

Under normal circumstances, one is not supposed to fly on Tisha B’Av, but since it was for a mitzvah, and there was no other time I could go, it was allowed. A side benefit of flying west on a fast day is that the fast is much, much shorter! The further west you fly, the darker it becomes, and I was able to break my fast after 15 hours of flying, rather than the requisite 25 hours.

So I left on Saturday night and landed in Johannesburg on Monday morning. I had to head back later the same day due to multiple events scheduled in New York, but I was determined to be there. I surprised my parents and my family—literally just showed up and knocked on the door.

Turns out I spent 55 hours traveling, and only 8 hours on the ground in South Africa, which is clearly a crazy thing to do! I’m still recovering! So when my wife asked a simple question, “Was it worth it?” it got me thinking.

I got to spend time with my siblings and parents, caught up with old friends, and celebrated a beautiful double simcha. Of course it was worth it!

But the question goes much deeper than that.

You see, our souls make a monumental trip to this world—much more than 55 hours. They descend through seven layers of heaven to get here, and only spend 70-80 years on this earth. They go from basking in the Divine radiance to this mundane world for what is, essentially, a flash in time.

Is it worth it?

That’s something we ask ourselves every night, when we do a cheshbon hanefesh, a spiritual accounting.

What did I accomplish today? Did I make my soul’s journey worthwhile?

We need to ensure we do enough mitzvot every day to justify the soul’s descent into this world and into our bodies.

Today, I put on tefillin. Yes, that makes it worth it. I gave charity, so the long trip was not in vain. Yes, today I was kind to a fellow Jew and I kept Shabbat.

Every moment of every day we need to keep this in mind: What can I do right now to make my soul’s journey worthwhile?

Make it count!

I Demand Private Time!

Thursday, August 4, 2022 - 12:49 PM

In the summer, I make a conscious effort to spend more time with my kids. The days are longer, there’s no homework, and everything’s just a bit more relaxed, which makes it easier. So I take them out one-on-one, for private time. With 8 kids, thank G-d, it can be quite a task, so I try to make a roster of turns. Sometimes it’s only five minutes, but that time together makes each kid feel so special.

This week, however, I found myself a little overextended, so I asked my daughter “Can we take your sisters, too, and all have private time together?” I knew I wouldn’t have time the following day, so I figured I’d lump a few kids in together just this once.

But she adamantly refused. “Absolutely not!” she said. “Private time is private time for me only.”

I said, “Ok, how about just one sister? The one closest in age to you …” But she refused again. “Private time is when I have my father all to myself; no one else is allowed to join us!”

So I found myself going to the ice cream store with one daughter. We sat down, chatted, ate our ice cream, and literally as soon as we got home, I went back out with my other daughter for her turn.

“What a waste of time,” was my initial thought. Literally doing the same thing twice in a row, instead of once with both daughters together. But they unequivocally refused, which got me thinking.

Just as they demand private time with me only, we must demand private time with our Father in Heaven and settle for nothing less than His undivided attention.

Of course, we know that He watches over each of us individually, and loves and cares about us at all times. Nonetheless, we long for private time with Him. To see and feel the one-on-one connection with our own eyes—something we will only experience when Moshiach comes.

But this weekend, we will have a small preview of that. This weekend we mark Tisha B’Av, the day both Holy Temples were destroyed and our 2,000 year exile began. But this Shabbat is called Shabbat Chazon - the Shabbat of vision, when G-d takes us each, privately and individually, and gives us a glimpse of the future Third Temple that we will experience with the Final Redemption and the coming of Moshiach. Surely this taste of the future will only strengthen our resolve to do everything in our power to hasten his coming!

My 8-Hour Trip to South Africa

I Demand Private Time!