Shalom Aleichem!
You know, it’s been over two weeks since the City has collected the garbage on my block, so you can understand my elation when, late last night, I heard the loud hum of a garbage truck in front of my house. However, my elation turned to disappointment when I emerged from my house this morning to find that they had not even collected all the garbage! About half of it still remains.
Oh, and did I tell you that I’m still waiting for a package to be delivered that was scheduled to arrive on the 11th?
This weather is crazy! It snowed. Then it snowed again. Then it turned to ice. More snow. You get the picture.
This reminds me of a brief anecdote.
Fed up with the torrential downpour outside, a guy stepped inside his home and declared, “What terrible weather!”
In slightly caustic fashion, someone challenged him in Yiddish: Un du kenst machn besser?! — “Could you do any better?!”
Sometimes we lament the way things are; it can be so easy to shift the blame. Yet there is a time to ask ourselves, Could I do better?
And of course, if I can do better, then what is stopping me?
Shabbat Shalom,
Shaul
