I've noticed a big difference in many of the comments and letters I've gotten on some of my recent musings. For that reason I'm going to post one from a year and a half ago. I couldn't find it on blogger.
Musings #30
January 18, 2004
It All Depends on Where You’re Sitting
I overheard my husband ask our local rabbi something. Should he “bensch gomel,” the prayer thanking G-d for surviving a dangerous situation, in the name of someone, who was almost in a car accident. The rabbi replied that it if she really felt endangered, then she should say it herself. After my husband finished, I approached the rabbi, “But Rabbi, a few years ago, when I was sitting in the back seat, and an Arab taxi rammed into it, certainly, definitely dangerous, you told me that I should not ‘bensch gomel.’ You said: ‘I was driving, and I didn’t feel that we were in any danger.’”
Behind the steering wheel, the rabbi felt safe, in control. My neighbors and I in the back seat, though unharmed, were shaken in more ways than one. I was sitting next to the young man who had killed the terrorist who had run me over only a couple of years earlier.
When we look at the same thing, we all see something else. Living here in Shiloh, I feel peaceful and calm. I enjoy the views of the hills, the sunrise over Shvut Rachel to the east of us, my neighbors’ gardens and the wonderful people who share all of that and more with me. I’m on the roads everyday, in almost any vehicle offering me a ride. I felt safest when we marched to Jerusalem, the intimacy with the Land gave a strength from a different dimension.
As I travel the road of Jewish history, I am calm and confident, like my rabbi was during that accident, because it all depends on where you’re sitting.
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