A story for 4/10/09

As was walking up the MIC stairs, I saw an old hussid man pushing his own wheelchair down the summit street sidewalk. It being Passover, I went outside. By the time I got there he was sitting in the chair, off to the side. “Good Yontif”, I said, “may I be of assistance”, thinking it was a perfect mitzvah opportunity. “No”, he replied, “I like the walk down to the Synagogue. Besides, it’s all downhill from here.” We smiled at the play on words and, in Jewish tradition, traded quips and observations in the gorgeous sunshine, warming our bones and our hearts. He asked what I was doing, I pointed to the College and, with a slightly abashed smile said, “working” . He looked up, his sharp eyes behind wire rim glasses set in a wrinkled face nestled in a great grey beard, “working on this Good Friday?” “Rebbe”, it was like purposefully calling a soldier or police a rank they do not have, “ for me, Friday is a good day to work, Saturday is a good day to work, these days, every day is a good day to work.” He asked, “What do you do here?” I told him, “I teach about computers and work with them as well.” We commiserated about cashiers who use their registers to make and can’t count back change, email instead of letters and a whole range of “tsk tsks”. Our complaints fed my sense that I’m sipping from a fire hose, that no good deed goes unpunished and that every time I stick my head out of the fox hole, I risk getting shot. And then this man, in his black wide brimmed hat, black suit and white shirt, sitting in his wheelchair in the sun about to walk for blocks to celebrate a high holy day said, “ things are getting worse”. I so wanted to hear that but then he stopped me with those eyes, twinkling. “And things are getting better”. It turns out I wanted to hear that too; my mood soared, I felt a lightness. How simple is it? I left him sitting in the sunshine and went back to my brutal to do list, my self-doubt, my aching shoulder, my badly behaving youngest dog and, if I’m lucky, a total of 12 hours off this entire week-end. I went back to it with a Mona Lisa smile, a wry smile. Things are getting worse and things are getting better.

Good Friday – Good Yontif
And He shall reign forever and ever - And the angel of death will pass over our house, sparing our first born