The Blessing of Inconvenience

My oldest son, 8½, has an after-school program every Monday. Sometimes he likes to take the city bus home, and sometimes he likes me to pick him up. Other times he likes to drive me crazy by calling me 20 minutes before the time he wants me to pick him up, after having decided he doesn’t want to take the bus home, then changing his mind halfway through our conversation and letting me know that he wants to take the bus home. Nudnik!

Yesterday was a reverse crazy- he originally wanted me to pick him up, then called me to tell me he’s taking the bus, then told me halfway through our conversation he wants me to pick him up. FIIINE.

So I get two of the kids ready, make the baby a bottle, and send my second son to pick up my third son from the neighbor’s on the way out. I get to the car, and my second son comes out, and Blondie’s not with him. Oh, boy. “Where is he?” I impatiently asked him. All I got was a nonchalant shrug as he headed towards the car. I suddenly remembered that they were going to play at the park on the corner, so I went to look. I called out his name several times and got some strange looks from the kids, but no Yaacov.

I walked up and down the sidewalk, calling (yelling, really) his name, but no answer. At this point I was starting to get worried as well as extremely annoyed. I finally decided to go upstairs to the neighbor’s apartment, which was easier said than done. My second son, Yosef, doesn’t like to be left alone- unless it’s on his terms, of course. He wanted to come upstairs with me, but the car was already on and the baby was in his car seat, so I did the irresponsible thing and bolted towards the elevator as fast as I could.

I caught a glimpse of him running towards me, but thankfully the doors were closing before he could reach me. As my annoyance and impatience were growing by the second, I saw that I only had five minutes left before my son would be stuck outside of school. My neighbor answered the door, and lo and behold, there was Yaacov, playing with his friend.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” I mumbled to myself.

As I got back downstairs and walked towards the car, I heard two boys talking. I turned the corner and found my oldest son standing right next to the car. GEVALT! Seriously?!

I was ready to give it to him for all of the inconvenience and frustration he caused me. As I was getting revved up, a tiny little thought came to me and basically told me to can it. “Everything happens for our ultimate benefit, remember?” it whispered. “Go away,” I snapped.

As it quickly scrammed, it managed to leave an imprint on my incredibly stubborn brain. All of a sudden, I began to understand what it was trying to tell me.

Here’s the scenario: if I hadn’t been delayed by The Missing Blonde One, I would have left on time. I would have then gotten to the school and not found Yehuda. He, on the other hand, would have arrived home, and not have found me! With my annoyance having grown like a balloon ready to pop, I would have totally blown up on him when I got back home. He would have been doubly upset: once for having been stranded outside his front door, and secondly for having to suffer from an Iraqi outburst.

Looking at all this, it’s easy to see that the minor inconvenience saved me from a major one. This perfectly illustrates the point that Rav Arush and Rav Brody are teaching over and over again: everything happens for a reason and for our ultimate best, even though we can’t understand why.

That’s the secret of emuna- you can’t have emuna if you saw the entire picture. Admittedly, most times, it’s not obvious how something painful or challenging is actually beneficial, like it was in this case. But that’s the point.

The point is: it’s not supposed to be obvious.

Times of difficulty are not just cleansing from prior transgressions; they’re tremendous opportunities for us to earn major blessings for the future. When you’re at a point where you have no choice but to have emuna, this is G-d trying to give you the salvation you need.  And who says the future means the immediate future? Many times people can go through years of pain and suffering, and see no end or salvation in sight. Many times people die as a result of their suffering, or they die without having been relieved of that particular suffering. So where’s the benefit?

Chances are, if the salvation didn’t happen during this phase of the person’s life, then it’s in the next phase of life- that which happens after death. But we can’t understand this with our logic. And you know what? We’re not supposed to. That’s why emuna is really everything. If we can really internalize this wisdom, really implement emuna into every area of our lives, we can take the edge off much of our pain. Maybe we can even rid ourselves of the suffering altogether, if we work hard enough at developing our emuna. In such a situation, even though the cause of our pain may not always disappear, our response to it will be much more positive.

Let us learn from a great sage, Nachum Ish Gamzu. No matter what hardships he went through, he always said, “Gam zu l’tovah!” This is also for the good! And may we all merit to see it as such, Amen.