Hinda was quite surprised. “Where did you ever find the money to do so?” “Well,” Moshe said, “I sold my tefillin and went to the neighboring town and purchased the most exquisite esrog I could find!” Hinda was now even more surprised. “You sold your tefillin? Why did you do that? You need your tefillin for the rest of your life, and you only need an esrog for seven days! What are you going to do about your tefillin in a week’s time?” “I’ll tell you the truth,” Moshe said. “After I finished putting on my tefillin today, I said to myself, ‘For the next week, I won’t be wearing tefillin. The mitzvah of the day will be the esrog, and I want to perform the mitzvah of the day.’ I therefore sold my tefillin and bought the esrog. After Sukkos, I will worry about tefillin.’ At this point, Hinda was somewhat placated. “Okay,” she said, “let me see this beautiful esrog.” “I left it on the counter,” Moshe replied. “Where?” Hinda said. “Right here,” Moshe said, “on the kitchen counter. Didn’t you see an esrog here?” Hinda gasped. “I don’t know how to say this,” she said, “but I was just making a salad and needed lemon. I turned around and saw a nice big lemon resting on the counter. I took it and squeezed it into the salad bowl, but not enough juice was oozing out. I therefore decided to cut it into pieces and squeeze out as much juice as I could. The remaining pieces went into the garbage. I’m so sorry, I didn’t know it was your esrog. I didn’t think we could afford one, and I was almost certain it was a lemon.” Moshe grew quiet as tears streamed down his wife’s face in regret. Slowly, he gathered himself together and gained his composure and approached Hinda.
“Please look at me,” he said gently. “I appreciate you and all that you do for me.” Hinda was confused. “You’re not angry at me?” she asked. Moshe shook his head. “Yesterday the mitzvah of the day was putting on tefillin. Today the mitzvah was buying an esrog. And now, the mitzvah of the moment is to be here for you, my wife, and to be kind to you.” Each moment in life we are given new opportunities. At one point, the mitzvah is to pray, at another moment it is to help a fellow Jew, and at a third moment it is to be there for our spouse and be understanding and supportive. But what all these moments have in common is that they are all ways of serving Hashem. No less dear in the eyes of Hashem is accepting a spouse’s honest mistake of turning an esrog into lemon juice for a salad and remaining calm than is holding a beautiful, precious esrog in order to do the mitzvah properly. Both are ways of serving our Creator. All we must do is ask ourselves, “What is my opportunity right now?” Sometimes it is to go to great lengths to purchase a stunning esrog, and other times, it is to be there for our wife or our husband or our friend. If we live our lives with this constant attitude, every moment we have is no less than a beautiful moment of serving Hashem. One of America’s premier Jewish scholars in Torah and Jewish mysticism, Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak (YY) Jacobson is one of the most soughtafter speakers in the Jewish world today, culling his ideas from the entire spectrum of Jewish thought and making them relevant to contemporary audiences. Rabbi Jacobson founded and serves as dean of TheYeshiva.net, teaching, via the web, one of the largest Torah classes in the world today, with thousands of students globally. Formerly, he served as editor-in-chief of the largest Yiddish-English newspaper existing today, The Algemeiner Journal, and as spiritual leader of Congregation Bais Shmuel in New York.
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February 14, 2018 / THE MONSEY VIEW / 121 www.themonseyview.com / 845.600.8484