there is a yiddish saying that i would quote in the original yiddish if i spoke yiddish so i will share this proverb with you in english. man plans and g-d laughs.
so often i visit friends with children who talk about how in x amount of years their kids will be married and when specifically they will become grandparents. i always laugh . we plan for a lot of things to be achieved by a certain timetable and things don't always go according to as planned. sometimes this is for the better and sometimes not. i suppose i laugh to myself instead of aloud because i feel that others will think that i just find this funny because my life hasn't gone according to my original plans. others would doubt my opinion because heck only my life hasn't gone according to plan but theirs has. they married by age x and had kids by age x. their lives have moved smoothly forward and they think that their kid's lives will too. what arrogance. or perhaps it is really naivety. no one ever thinks that they will be the perpetually single one , the divorced one, or the childless one, but these things happen . things do not always go according to plan. this is because we are not in control. h-shem is. internalizing this truth is easier said than done.
1 comment:
It can't be helped, really. Many things in life are taken for granted, and it's not easy to see things from another perspective.
I heard a shiur once about what is the purpose of the pidyon haben? The rabbi said that for the one who married and had a child swiftly, he needs the reminder that the child is not his, that it is actually His.
The only reason I understand what it is like to be unmarried while everyone is married is because I am unmarried while practically everyone is married. Probably if I did get married smoothly I would be the same obnoxious person.
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