Going Through Doors
Rabbi Yehoshua Hoffman
March 2013
Not too long ago I started riding the city bus. This adventure began when my wife and I had a little girl in the NICU (Neonatal Intensive Care Unit), first at Children’s Hospital. It was the most liberating experience to not be dependent on someone else for a ride to visit my wife and daughter. Prior to riding the city bus, if I ever wanted to go somewhere that I had to drive to, I either had to ask someone, and they had to put it into their schedule, and I felt like I was their burden. Or I had Access-a-Ride come and pick me up. The Access-a-Ride reservation has to be made at least 24 hours in advance and more often than not the bus didn’t come on time. Very often they would be at least a half an hour late. So it was great to be able to look at a bus schedule and say, “I could go anywhere and leave close to when I want to go, and if I miss a bus, I will wait ten or fifteen minutes and there will be another bus”. I am not anyone else’s burden in doing this.
This is an adventure. I can go anywhere without a chaperone! This is such a liberating experience. Who would have thought that riding a city bus, with all the various characters that ride the city buses, would be a fantastic adventure.
This is something that can be looked at as a mashal, a parable. In so many parts of our lives we don’t even realize that there are doors are right in front of us. When we are able to recognize that we have a door in front of us we should be bold and try walking through. We may be scared to walk through because we don’t know what’s on the other side of the door. I’ve been afraid of taking advantage of opportunities before and I still am. Look at your next challenge as being offered an opportunity and try to make the best of it.
May the Master of the World open up our eyes to recognize those doors that we are to leave closed…those choices which we should say no to, yet may He give us the ability to discern those opportunities that we are to take advantage of, those doors that we are to walk through. And may He give us the strength to walk through them.
Rabbi Yehoshua Hoffman
March 2013
Not too long ago I started riding the city bus. This adventure began when my wife and I had a little girl in the NICU (Neonatal Intensive Care Unit), first at Children’s Hospital. It was the most liberating experience to not be dependent on someone else for a ride to visit my wife and daughter. Prior to riding the city bus, if I ever wanted to go somewhere that I had to drive to, I either had to ask someone, and they had to put it into their schedule, and I felt like I was their burden. Or I had Access-a-Ride come and pick me up. The Access-a-Ride reservation has to be made at least 24 hours in advance and more often than not the bus didn’t come on time. Very often they would be at least a half an hour late. So it was great to be able to look at a bus schedule and say, “I could go anywhere and leave close to when I want to go, and if I miss a bus, I will wait ten or fifteen minutes and there will be another bus”. I am not anyone else’s burden in doing this.
This is an adventure. I can go anywhere without a chaperone! This is such a liberating experience. Who would have thought that riding a city bus, with all the various characters that ride the city buses, would be a fantastic adventure.
This is something that can be looked at as a mashal, a parable. In so many parts of our lives we don’t even realize that there are doors are right in front of us. When we are able to recognize that we have a door in front of us we should be bold and try walking through. We may be scared to walk through because we don’t know what’s on the other side of the door. I’ve been afraid of taking advantage of opportunities before and I still am. Look at your next challenge as being offered an opportunity and try to make the best of it.
May the Master of the World open up our eyes to recognize those doors that we are to leave closed…those choices which we should say no to, yet may He give us the ability to discern those opportunities that we are to take advantage of, those doors that we are to walk through. And may He give us the strength to walk through them.