Let’s be honest: Before this all started, how often did we spend quality time with our spouses and our children? Yes, an hour here and there, a vacation for a week here and there. But two months (and counting)? Unheard of!
If you are alone the next question will still apply, but perhaps not as resolutely. I am sure we are all spending more time thinking about the big questions in life. Who is really the provider of life, of our livelihood, of our health? One day we might have a job, and the next day it can be gone. One day the stock market is up, and the next it can fall. We start to think after all, is there a “creator to this world?” Who is pulling the strings? Is it President Trump, Dr. Fauci, or Governor Wolf?
This week’s Torah portion talks about the Mitzvah of the Sabbatical year, a Mitzvah that is still practiced today in Israel. Every seventh year, farmers must let their fields lay fallow. One way to understand the reason for this commandment is that when we work the land, even if we try to remember at all times that all our blessings come from G-d, it is easy to forget – at times - where our livelihood truly comes from. Therefore, once every seven years we take a year off, which forces us to rely on the blessings from heaven. This reminds us that even during the years that we do work the land, it is not our hard toil that brings us our blessings; it’s G-d that provides for us.
So, although we must do our part, we also keep in mind that the blessings come from G-d. This can be done in two ways: Thinking that we are the main providers and G-d is just our “support system,” or, we can look at it the other way around—that G-d is our provider and we are just the ones who create the conduit for G-d's blessings to take hold.
We are now living a “sabbatical” of sorts. Working at home is still work, don’t get me wrong. But since we are spending more time at home, it does give us this opportunity to think about G-d, our provider.
This gift of time allows us to slow down, even though this is sometimes very difficult to do.
However, now that we have been forced to put the brakes on life and even come to a screeching halt, let’s take the time to think about G-d's role in our lives, how He is the ultimate provider. Even if life is hard now, things will turn around—they always have. G-d does not remain a “debtor;” if we do our part, he will do His.