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As I was getting ready to take my triplets to preschool this week, the middle one—Dovid—had a massive tantrum. Before I could register what he was doing, he went to the cupboard where we store the snacks, emptied out the entire box, and proceeded to trample on each and every bag.

All this in literally seconds.

Fortunately, my wife was there and able to hold him, and once he’d calmed down, he chose a snack and went on happily to school as if nothing had happened. I took him to the car and watched him carefully, but there was absolutely no remnant of his bad mood. It was almost as if an entirely different child had been raging in anger, trampling on all the snacks. He went to school happily and was in a good mood for the rest of the day.

That night, I lay in bed with him and asked him about his day. He chattered happily about school and the friends he played with … no mention of the one thing I was still fixated on: the scene with the trampled snacks.

I wonder, as we end the year 5782 and begin 5783, what we remember when we look back. When someone asks us “How was your year?” what will we answer?

No one’s year was 100 percent wonderful or 100 percent terrible. It’s always a mixed bag. And so much is in the narrative we create for ourselves.

I can look back and tell myself how horrible the past year was. We had Omicron just when we thought we were done with Covid. Inflation and instability continue to plague the country. We had to leave our beautiful, spacious shul on short notice and daven in a tiny preschool classroom for most of the year. My kids fought. I didn’t get enough sleep. Etc.

But if I delve a little deeper, I can think of all the tremendous blessings Hashem bestowed upon this this past year. We celebrated multiple bar mitzvahs and weddings and brissim this year. We had a beautiful hachnasat sefer Torah in our community. Our programs and events are bursting through the seams, and our preschool is fuller than it’s ever been. We just rented a gorgeous, brand new shul and we have so much to look forward to!

So how was the past year? It’s all in what we tell ourselves. Whichever story we weave, that’s what counts. 

But one thing is clear: Our Heavenly Father wants only the best for us. And when we delve into the past year and sort through the murkiness, we’ll be able to find the blessings He has showered upon us. We prayed last Rosh Hashanah for a good, healthy, sweet year, and if we haven’t found those blessings, it simply means we haven’t dug deeply enough.

Dig deeper, brush away the dirt, and find the gold. It’s there. That’s what we need to focus on.

In just a few days we will sit together in shul and pray for a healthy, happy, successful year, filled with Hashem’s blessings. May He make those blessings plentiful, and easy for us to recognize!

Shana Tova

Rabbi Uriel Vigler

A couple of weeks ago, I dropped my 14-year-old son at his new high school, called a mesivta. This is a new stage for him—he’ll be living in a dormitory with his classmates, instead of at home with us, where he has spent the last 14 years.

The school is about an hour from our house—not too far—and he’ll be able to come home quite regularly and we’ll be able to visit him. I know he has friends there, he’s learning and growing, and seems ecstatic with his newfound independence.

And yet, my heart feels empty now that he is not living at home with us anymore. No, the house isn’t quiet and we aren’t empty nesters—our seven other children are all still home with us.

But I remember when I left to yeshiva as a teenager. I didn’t realize when I left that I wouldn’t ever really live at home with my parents again. Although I visited home for holidays or when the yeshiva was on break, I had, essentially, moved out for good. And now, with my son, I feel like a piece of my heart has left, more or less for good, much as I did.

I have mixed feelings. On the one hand, I’m thrilled that he’s on his way to adulthood, spending his days in a holy, safe environment, with his peers, good teachers, and a very full schedule. But at the same time, I miss him! When I walk past his empty room on my way to bed each night, there’s a pang in my heart.

Truthfully, however, this is my duty as a parent: to raise my child, nurture him, watch him grow and gain independence, and give him the skills to go out into the world and make his own life.

The same way we feel about our children, is how G-d feels about us. He loves us all as if we were each His only child.

At this time of year, with Rosh Hashanah on the horizon, it’s time for all of us to come home. Home to our Loving Father who is waiting to greet us with open arms. He misses us. We may have meandered away throughout the year, but now it’s time to come back.

That feeling we get when our children come home—which I will feel when my son comes home for Rosh Hashanah next week!—that’s how G-d feels when we reconnect with Him. So let’s get ourselves into the spirit of that homecoming, so we can enjoy Rosh Hashanah in His full embrace. 

This week my 11-year-old son began 6th grade in Crown Heights. Commuting to Brooklyn on a daily basis isn’t easy, and because it was his first week he asked me to pick him up, and I promised I would.

So at 3.00pm I left my office and headed into Brooklyn. But there was so much traffic that what should have been a 40-minute trip took a full hour longer.

When I finally arrived, he wasn’t outside waiting, which seemed strange. I parked near the school and asked the secretary if she knew where my son was. She called up to the classroom and said he’ll be down shortly. Five minutes passed, then 10, then 15, and I went back inside to find out what was going on. She called again and told me, “We can’t find your son, he’s nowhere to be found!”

Don’t panic, I told myself. I’m sure he didn’t disappear. Trying not to let the worst thoughts enter my mind, I called my wife, but she hadn’t heard anything either. Still, I tried to keep calm.

We have close friends and shluchim who also live on the Upper East Side and sometimes we carpool together. So I called them and asked if my son had gone with them. “I don’t think so,” she answered. “That definitely wasn’t the plan.” I asked her to double check because my son wasn’t at the school, and she said she would check and call me back. A minute later my phone rang and relief filled my body—he was with them! Seems there was a misunderstanding. They drove past the school and saw my son waiting outside, and they assumed he was going with them, so he hopped in and figured I couldn’t make it after all.

Whew. Crisis averted.

But here I was, trying to do a one-time favor to help my son settle into a new school year, and look what it turned into! As I headed back to the city—again in heavy traffic—I figured there must be a lesson to be learned from my wasted 3.5 hours!.

I realized my experience is closely connected to the time of year we’re in—the month of Elul. In this month, our sages teach, G-d goes out into the field to meet us, so to speak. Instead of being closed away in his palace, he is easily accessible—in the park, in the street, the places we regularly traverse in our daily lives. He does this as a one off—to help us settle into the year. “Come meet Me,” He says, “I love you dearly and want to make this easier for you.”

How do we go out and meet Him?

By thinking about Him, and studying His Torah. By getting ready for the High Holidays. As much as we prepare physically, we need to prepare spiritually—taking an accounting of the previous year, seeing which areas of service to G-d we need to improve upon, and taking active measures to do so. Whether that’s making more of an effort to eat kosher even outside the house, or keep Shabbat each week, or put on tefillin daily—we all know what we need to work on.

So let’s get going—we don’t want Him to go out and find nobody there!

Shabbat Shalom

Rabbi Uriel Vigler