The Kitchen Miracle 

“David, what are we going to do without a kitchen?” 

We spent the last nine months moving apartments. We sold the apartment we were living in. We purchased a new apartment. Now, we are in the middle of a hectic move with two scary unknowns: 

1. The apartment we were moving into has no kitchen. 
2. Some of the electrical wiring in our current kitchen was cutting out.  

Yoav, our electrician who was fixing up our new apartment, agreed to come in and inspect. An honest man, he said that if it were a simple fuse, he could fix everything for a minimal fee. If it were something worse, it would cost a lot more.  

In our new apartment, the people building our kitchen kept pushing back the date they would start building it.  

As the time we had to vacate our current apartment grew near, we began to worry.  Will they have enough time to finish the work, or will we be living without a kitchen? With less than two weeks to go until the move, they told us they would start working.  

The day came and went. Nobody started working.  

We are now days away from moving and we are living in a kitchen with flickering electricity and moving into a place where we might have to wash plastic dishes from a pot filled with water from the bathroom tub.  

That’s when we started to panic.  

No Tribulations Without Transgressions 

“David, it’s not by coincidence that the two rooms we are having problems with are both kitchens. God is telling us something. We need to figure out what Hashem is telling us to do.” 

We did a lot of soul-searching, and found out it wasn’t the wiring or the workers that were giving us so much trouble. Hashem was giving us a blessing: 

• Some of the food we purchased was kosher nochri, or “sort of” kosher. 
• The bakery goods we bought were also “sort of” kosher. 
• The meat we purchased met basic kashrut standards. 
• We would eat breakfast together but recite Birkat HaMazon (Blessing after a bread meal) on our own. 

Hashem was giving us a brand-new kitchen. Now is the best time to raise our standards of keeping kashrut, and of guarding our thoughts, souls, and very life.  

We discovered that it wasn’t only what was entering our mouths that needed upgrading. What came out of our mouths needed improvement: 

• We are too comfortable with profanity. We both grew up secular and are pretty desensitized to such vulgarity. We even slip up ourselves and use them. The problem is that we don’t see it as a problem.  
   
  Profanity is a problem. The Book of Psalms has more chapters than any Book in the Tanach and part of the first line of the first chapter states: Praiseworthy is the man that doesn’t sit in the session of scorners.  (Psalms 1:1)  
   

• We consume mainstream media and fall into the trap of reading, listening, and ultimately speaking Loshon Hara (forbidden speech).  

The kitchen is associated with the mouth. The mouth is associated with the digestive system, which uses more energy than any other system in the human body. The kitchen is also where many of us have our meals and do our talking. The digestive system has a symbiotic relationship with the immune system.  

God was giving us mussar that what goes into our mouths and what goes out of our mouths impact everything from our health, our welfare, and our very lives.  

It felt like He refused to give us a new kitchen unless we gave Him a new promise to take these mitzvot much more seriously.   

Immediately, we got out two benchers (booklet with the Blessing after Meals prayer) and together recited Grace After Meals.  

Twenty-Four Hours Later 

Less than a week before we are about to move in, the ground is still wide open beneath our feet.  

I return home from morning prayers and open the door. My wife has a huge smile on her face. 

“David, you won’t believe this!” 

She plugs the coffee urn into one of the broken outlets.  The water begins to heat.  

She removes the plug and puts it into the other broken outlet.  The water gets hotter.  

“David, there are workers in our apartment taking measurements for the kitchen. They told me the kitchen will be ready by the time we move in.” 

From the Pit to the Peak 

In one moment, everything seemed hopeless. It was because we were looking in the wrong direction: 

• A poorly built building with questionable wiring.  
• A team of workers that didn’t want to complete the job. 

It all comes from Hashem. When we are buried beneath our troubles, it’s hard to see Him. Just like parshat Beshalach that we just read, when Am Yisrael was hemmed in by the Sea of Reeds on one end, and the Egyptian Army on the other, we forgot the 10 miracles Hashem sent to set us free. We panicked because we saw only the dangers, but not also the source of the dangers – our lack of faith.  

The moment Nachson ben Aminidav started walking into the Sea of Reeds, understanding that all we needed to do was to do and listen, he kept walking until the water reached his nose, demonstrating complete faith in Hashem. 

In that moment, we went from fish in a barrel to a liberated nation standing on the remains of a crushed enemy.  

The moment we saw God behind our “troubles,” we listened to what He was commanding us to do and did it.  The moment we saw Him as the answer, He saved us.  

Right now, I am thinking of the biggest problems in my life. Instead of pointing my finger on who I think is the reason for it, I am asking Hashem to tell me what I am doing wrong, or not doing right, and how I can fix it.  

What are the top three reasons you are upset today? What are the three biggest problems in your life? Ask God why? What does He want you to do to receive even greater blessing in your life? 

He wants to send all of us miracles.  

*** 

David Ben Horin lives in Afula with his family, millions of sunflowers, and Matilda, our local camel. David‘s Israeli startup, 300 Marketing Solutions, is a lean marketing agency for startups and small businesses that creates and promotes SEO-optimized ROI-driven to the right audience on LinkedIn to make your business the star of the show.