Most of us are familiar with the moshal that compares the way we react to the events in our lives, be they big or small, to a dog barking at a stick being wielded against it.
A dog is not blessed with a wide angle view of life, so it goes after the stick because it is incapable of seeing past it in terms of a cause and effect cheshbon. We are, Boruch Hashem, cut from different cloth in that we clearly apprehend that everything in this world comes from Hashem.
So why is it that we are constantly angry at the stick?
Unlike the dog, we never see Anyone holding it. If we did, we would no doubt do a lot better than a dog in zeroing in on the cause of our discomfort. The “sticks” in our lives are physically detached from the One that wields them, and as a consequence thereof, we all too often fail to fill in the spiritual blanks in our field of visual understanding. And so we lash out at the stick, be it a spouse, a neighbor, a flat tire, a boss or a migraine, missing the essential point of the encounter in the process.
And as Rav Brevda tells us, we also make the mistake of thinking that this is a world of smooth sailing and menucha, so when we hit a speed bump, the proper Torah hashkafa relevant to the situation at hand may well find itself on the endangered species list leaving all eyes locked on the “stick” bereft of the means of dancing around it.
But there is yet another reason.
The bomb craters of life notwithstanding, most of our “stick” encounters come in small doses, and Rabbi Lazer Brody tells us that we terminally fail to see the brocha inherent in these tiny tribulations, which he says are worth their weight in gold.
Where we see a stick we should be seeing a life preserver.
Instead of being upset at the petty irritations that have come our way we should be makker tov to Hashem for sending them. Tosfos in Nedarim lists the four greatest requests that we should be asking Hashem, and one of them is that we shouldn’t be blind.
So what do you think about when your ophthalmologist tells you that you need stronger glasses? The inconvenience of the visit and how much it cost you to park the car or that you can see, and when that prescription is filled you will see even better?
You sprained your ankle, and it’s in a cast? A real bummer, isn’t it? Are you fixated on your sprained ankle to the exclusion of being makker tov to Hashem for the fact that you don’t have diabetes and have not lost any toes on that foot?
It is an emotional imperative that we see Hashem in the “stick” of the tiny tribulations that invariably get to know us on a first name basis. As Rabbi Brody relates, these tiny tribulations can run interference for us only if we accept them with a smile and emunah, and if we do so we are spared tribulations that are 5,000 times worse.
Truth be told, the moshal of the dog barking at the stick is somewhat anemic because a dog, for its part, is not endowed with the ability to connect the dots.
What exactly is our excuse?
Truth be told, the moshal of the dog barking at the stick is somewhat anemic because a dog, for its part, is not endowed with the ability to connect the dots.
What exactly is our excuse?
