"Don't you know it's a perfect world?"

It is after, after a day of teaching five periods and doing Torah guidance during the other five. A student told me today that it gave him hope that when I was his age I was plagued by the theological questions that trouble him today and that they no longer bother me in the same way.

A second period student asked where I was at davening. I davened in a Shul on the way to work. Sigh. A light went on in my friend/ride's car. He pulled into a gas station. He realized it was a flat. He called AAA. There seemed to be no-one in the station to help. Upon my ride's suggestion I called 6 people to see how I could get to work. One stayed home today due to babysitter issues, another wasn't coming in today, a third was already at work, a fourth's message box was full, a fifth could take me but not till later. The sixth person I called was on his way, passing through, running late, going to a local minyan. So I got to the shul, borrowed a tallis and tefillin, negotiated with the gabai, led up till Yishtabach. I left when my colleague gave the signal. As we walked to the car he found something strange in his pocket, keys that weren't his. "Someone took my coat," he said. We went back in. His coat was draped over a chair where he'd left it, he took it and put back the coat he'd mistakenly taken.

I got to my classroom about ten minutes before the first class started. Classes and talks today were intense and good. Someone spoke in speech class about saving a life with CPR. He's a cool boy who was really scared. It's amazing how scary speaking in public is for people. Another boy spoke about finding confidence through wrestling. He was nervous too, covering it with bravado. Another student keeps putting off her speech. A friend suggested she speak about being scared of speaking. "What? And give away my secret?"

In Torah guidance with two students today we read through pieces of Sarah Shapiro's Don't you know it's a perfect world? What an amazing book. In the title story, the author is at lunch with a friend who is dying from cancer (rachmanah litzlan), when she excuses herself to say hello to a friend, who struggles with mental illness, sitting at another table. Both of these women affirm to her that they feel that life, even suffering, is perfect.

G-d is in the details. Teaching is rich. I am blessed - poo poo poo.