All You Can Ask

Was that really too much to ask?

All you wanted was to be able to make plans in a clearheaded and organized way. For all that you admire flexibility and spontaneity, you’re really not so great with last-minute changes. You prefer to make your plans in advance. Plans for the summer, for example. Or plans for a quick trip abroad to join a family simchah. It’s such a reasonable, normal thing to do: look at a calendar, circle a date, and then book airline tickets or pencil in three days of bein hazmanim for a big family outing.

Is that really too much to ask?

All you wanted were some headlines discussing a different conflict in a different country. Honestly, there are so many countries in the world, and so many nations that don’t get along. Couldn’t those commentators and analysts and politicians find some other state to dissect? Couldn’t the perpetual naysayers find some other government to criticize, some other nation to demonize? You wish that for one entire week your little country, a country that tries so hard to be ethical and moral while not being suicidal — an increasingly dizzying balancing act — would merit, if not some grace and understanding, then at least some ignoring.

That really isn’t too much to ask, is it?

All you wanted was a peaceful Shabbos, the type of Shabbos where no one anxiously scans the sky for trails of smoke before washing for challah. Where squadrons of fighter jets don’t emit a strange buzzing harmony to the zemiros. Where the davening proceeds calmly, without the baal tefillah having to compete with a siren, where v’yasem lecha shalom evokes poetic images of Jews with different types of yarmulkes dancing in a circle, not pleas for murderous mullahs to be thwarted before they can slaughter more innocent Jews.