I’m always a deep sleeper. I think it has something to do with raising 8 kids. How else would I ever get any rest?
But on motzei Shabbat, I was in an even deeper sleep than usual.
I also always turn off my cell phone overnight, so when I heard a phone ringing at midnight, I knew something was wrong.
Then I heard the house phone, and the caller ID announced: “Call from: Mammy.”
My worry escalated. My wife would never call me at midnight; she knows I am always asleep at that hour.
It was the weekend of the Kinus Hashluchos—the International Conference of Chabad Women Emissaries, and my wife is one of the organizers. She and a team of incredible women from across the globe somehow pull off the most spectacular, soulful, joyful, tearful convention for thousands of women from around the world, culminating in a gala banquet on Sunday evening, attended by 5000 women.
What does that mean for me? For weeks before the Kinus, I do not have a wife.
I know this. I accept it. I resign my fate
She’s up at ungodly hours on Zoom calls. One morning, I saw her wake up at 5:00 AM after going to sleep at an hour usually reserved for bakers and insomniacs.
“What now?” I asked.
“I have a Zoom planning meeting with Shluchot in Australia. This is the best time for them.”
Of course it is.
Sometimes I wake up at 2:00 AM, see no wife in the room, but I’m not alarmed. I know she’s probably on a Zoom, saving the Jewish world, one meeting at a time.
And then the Kinus ends … and I become a lucky man once again, happy and relieved to have my wife back.
So back to my jarring midnight awakening … it was motzei Shabbat, the night before the banquet. My wife left the house around 7:00 PM for the evening’s program, along with our 8-year-old daughter, who was participating that night. The plan was that she would bring her home afterward.
I put the rest of the kids to bed and went to sleep.
Fast forward to midnight:
I hear the phone ringing in my sleep, and my body goes into flight-or-fight mode, assuming the worst: Accident. Arrest. Jail. Fight with a drunk person. International incident. Hostage situation.
Those instincts don’t come from nowhere. I was brought up in South Africa with barbed wire and panic buttons, alarms and guard dogs. Our house was broken into multiple times and my siblings were held up at gunpoint, so my mind races …
I bolt downstairs, my heart racing. I miss the call.
I call her back immediately.
She answers in the happiest, chirpiest voice imaginable! “Oh, hi! Are you up?”
“ARE YOU OK?!” I ask frantically.
“Of course,” she says.
“Then WHY are you calling me at midnight?!”
“I wanted our 8-year-old daughter to come home now, and I’m going to stay and do last-minute prep with my team in Brooklyn,” she explains.
And while we’re talking, she casually figures out a ride home for our daughter, a way for her to get into the house, and apparently … how to almost give her husband a heart attack!
Then she says goodnight and hangs up.
It is now past midnight. My adrenaline is through the roof. My brain is wide awake. I do not fall back asleep until 3:00 AM.
My wife? She comes home at 6:00 AM. Smiling.
A couple of days later, when my heart rate has returned to normal, I realize there’s a lesson here.
My wife gives hours and hours of her time for the Kinus. All unpaid and virtually unnoticed. I lost one night of sleep, but she loses sleep for weeks and weeks! Not because she has to, not because she’s getting paid, but because she believes in the mission.
My “price” for that? Being woken up in the middle of the night—panicking, sweating, convinced something terrible had happened—only to discover that nothing was wrong at all … I just love someone who is changing the world!
And maybe that’s what love looks like.
Not comfort or convenience, but being willing to lose sleep for someone who is losing sleep for Hashem.
And more than that, it would probably be good for all of us to go out of our comfort zone—losing sleep if necessary—to do mitzvot, help others, and serve Hashem.
Want to stay home because it’s just too cold outside? It’s certainly tempting! But pushing ourselves through the discomfort to get to shul is worth it!
Is it easier to stick to your routine than move your day around to help someone who needs a ride or a visit? Sure. But think about what one day of discomfort will mean to the recipient.
We all face these situations frequently. But by stretching ourselves, giving up our own comfort to do the right thing, we become better, more G-dly people, refining the world one step at a time in preparation for Moshiach.