Putting Out The Fire
By Chana-Chaya
Klein
How do we know how
to handle difficult life situations? Where do these quandaries come from? Are
we under some kind of eternal guidance and protection?
Almost ready for
bed in my coyote fur coat, I remembered that I did not yet take my supplements,
which I keep in the bathroom. The house was freezing from the after-effects of
the hurricane that ravaged Teaneck two days before. We had no power, no lights
and no heat. The only heat I had was from the fur coat that I was wearing, and
the only light, other than a flashlight, were the Yartzeit candles lit up in
each room.
Realizing I had
forgotten to take my night supplements, I returned to the bathroom. As I
entered the doorway, I watched an extra-absorbent paper towel being sucked into
the Yartzeit candle by the wind that was blowing through the tiny window cracks.
The towel burst into flames right before my eyes. I felt paralyzed, not able to
call out, or even move. I felt my right arm reaching out to grab the flames,
directing them into the bathroom sink, oblivious to the burns I was getting on that
hand. My left hand grabbed the cold-water faucet and turned on the water. The
hot flames turned into black thick ashes under the water and spread out all
over the counter and the floor.
How uncanny that I
walked into that room at exactly that moment. Had I not, my house might have
burned down or at least suffered considerable fire damage. I just happened to remember
that I had forgotten my supplements and went to retrieve them less than a
second before the fire blazed up. It was exactly at the right moment.
The darkness and
freezing cold of the night blurred the serendipity of the timing of what had
just occurred.
But after five
days, when we got back our electric power and life was getting back to normal,
I told a friend what happened.
“Hashem is really
watching over you.” She told me.
But who made the
paper towel go in flames in the first place?
Is it God only
when we are being saved?
Is it God only
when we feel protected?
Isn’t it all from
the Almighty? - The solution and the problem, too?
We all have really
tough situations in our lives. Or maybe it is the work that I do that makes me
think that. People bring their troubles to me and I work with them to fix it.
In another life
situation that I am experiencing now, a person who knows how difficult it has
been, asked me what I am going to do. There are times when I do not see how to
“put out the fire” as I did that night in the bathroom
There are some
life situations that present themselves to which there is no solution as simple
as directing something on fire into a sink and turning on the water. We can’t
always know what is the next best step.
So what do we do?
What do I do?
Is it possible
that not only the solutions are from The Master of the Universe, but that the
problems are from Him as well?
We see that from the beginning of time. In our prayer book, we refer to God as the God who took us out of Egypt. We say that several times each day.
But who sent us
down to Egypt in the first place? We read in the Torah that God told Abraham
that his children will be slaves in Egypt for 400 years. Clearly, God sent us
to Egypt. It was supposed to be part of our development.
God often saves
us. But He also is the one who puts us in places where we need His salvation,
where we experience our growth, as an individual, and as a nation.
So what are we to
do when we can’t see the answer before us? I know that just as the answers are
from God, so too are the problems. I believe that I get exactly the problems
that will make my soul stretch and grow. Each thing that happens to me is part
of my life journey. Each is an occasion in which I have to prevail, to
overcome, to resolve, to figure out, and sometimes to just trust.
I am aware that not
rushing to a solution at this time, not rushing to put out the fires that life
brings me, will allow the solutions to unfold and that what I have to do will
be revealed. There will be, to me, no doubt about what to do when it is the
right time to do something.
It is all part of
my life journey, it is exactly the way it is supposed to be. Ribbomo Shel Olam
is with me every second, crying with me, laughing with me, waiting with me, and
letting me lean on Him.
Just as I had
entered that bathroom at the exact moment needed to put out that fire, I
believe that My Creator will be there for me and steer me in some way, at exactly
the right moment, to help me deal with the fires that rise up at the tough
times in my life.
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