The world is round and life is full of cycles. When a person passes away it’s customary to eat an egg or lentils or something round. This signifies the circle of life of a person that although they are leaving this world they are entering another and life isn’t ending but continues in another place on a different realm altogether. When a child is born and generations keep coming and going, all these cycles are necessary and part of our duties as human beings and especially as Jews.
Everything has a beginning and an end and then whatever ended begins all over again, so basically there is no end to life. Many times throughout our challenges in life, we cannot see the end of our suffering or the light to guide us in the darkness. However, our minds and bodies are finite, and G-d is infinite. Therefore Hashem is constantly renewing the world. Sometimes a person is feeling up and doing great in life, and then he falls. When we are doing great it feels natural and comfortable. But then if and when we fall, life seems to shatter and everything seems gray and gloomy. We forget quickly that we were up and cheerful and now we can barely stand up.
This cycle is exactly like a ball. The ball bounces and goes up and down, up and down. Sometimes the frequency of the challenges is low. Sometimes this wave threatens to wipe us out, G-d forbid, with a horrible disease or loosing a loved one. When we are down we cannot imagine ever getting up. We cannot see that it will be good again. As Jewish people and people of the world, we constantly train ourselves to say everything will be OK. It will work out in the end. It will be good. And we constantly try to think of positive thoughts, although we cannot see the light at the end of the tunnel. But in effect there is light at the end of the tunnel because everything is a circle. If you’re down, you cannot see the light, but it will come, just like the sun that rises daily. The world and the cycle of life will keep turning, and we will keep starting over every time. Just like the world itself and the moon and the days of the year keep on going, so to our lives and cycles.
I married off my son a week ago with a lot of excitement and emotions. As I stood under the chuppah and listened to the ceremony taking place my eyes were closed as I drifted away to a time far back when my son was born. I felt the happiness and the joy of holding this small child and I could hear his small cry for some milk and a cuddle with his mom. My thoughts kept traveling down this beautiful child’s life when suddenly at the young age of three he experienced great darkness in his life and was challenged beyond the grasp of the human mind. My son’s challenges as a child of three years old could have left scars that last for a life time.
At that time I went through a horrible divorce which caused him a lot of trauma, especially because he was forcibly removed from my care.
I did not expect that he would pick himself up so fast from his tragedies as a young child. And yet he picked himself up from utter darkness and made an honest and good man out of himself.
I now opened my eyes that were wet with tears of the past, the present, and the future and saw how beautiful Hashem’s world is and how perfect the cycles of life are. How little of the circle we see at a time.
May my son and his beautiful bride see many wonderful cycles in their lives and may they take strength from life’s experiences to help them stay strong even when things don’t seem to be going so well.
May their life be full of light, happiness and true faith in the One Above.
