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!