Slowly, Slowly, Slowly, Says The Sloth

Thank G-d. Thank you Mirty. (I thought about that - that's the right order.)

Here I am in the teacher's room. People that aren't old are complaining about being old. A 28 year old says she needs only four hours of sleep a night. And that's more than she needed when she was "young." And a fifty-ish man scorns the comment. And I'm sitting in the middle of this, writing it all down.

A thought came in my head recently; so often in stories - traditional texts, as well as books and films things - change in one moment. There is a saying -Yaish Koneh Olamo Be'Sha'ah Echad - some people can acquire their wold to come in one instant. On the other hand there is a concept of things happening as a process.

On Pesach we drink four cups of wine. Each wine glass represents a different stage in the process of redemption. This is often misunderstood to mean that there are four synonyms for redemption that inspired the four cups. But in fact it's much deeper. The redemption from Egypt was not one entity described four ways, rather it was one thing that could be divided into several stages. This is important.

Inspirational stories have led me to believe that one day one solid prayer will turn everything around. There is a concept of prayer changing things 180 degrees. And there is a concept of Yeshuat Hashem Keheref Ayin-the salvation of G-d comes like the blink of an eye. And there is also a concept of things changing over time as a process. One of the ideas behind the story of Megilat Esther (and the reason why The Rabbis considered not treating it with all the holiness of other Torah books) is that when you look at any human story over a period of time you can see the hand of G-d orchestrating a transformation. I believe in the process. (Can you tell I have a masters in social work?) I thank G-d for how far I've come in the process. Maybe one day there will be a sudden turn. But till then I am happy for every little step, every miracle.

The 28 year old just said something again about being old and this time I turned around and said, "you HAVE to stop saying that." She laughed.