I know..I Know... The woman lying on my treatment table, the one with the swollen legs, the complaints of muscle cramps – I massage her legs, trying to get the lymph and blood circulation going. We begin to talk and I explain to her small diet changes that could help clear the lymph system, a few supplements that could help with the muscle cramps. I say only a few, because I have learned from experience that you don’t get anywhere by making drastic changes or by overwhelming someone with hundreds of things to try and do.

She shakes her head affirmatively to all of my suggestions. “I know. I know. I’ve been told that before,” she says about the diet. “I know. I know. I even have those vitamins at home.”

She then continues, “I’m just so busy and so overwhelmed with taking care of….that I don’t have the time to take care of myself…”

Where’s the motivation to do all the things that we know we need to do? How do we convince ourselves of the importance of doing all the things that we know we need to do?

We begin by telling ourselves that it doesn’t matter if you started and stopped. You can start again!

We then move on to asking for understanding: that this is actually what G-d wants from us. He wants us to stop and make time to take care of ourselves so that we can do His Will, so that we can do kindness (chesed), so that we can emulate Him and give and give and give. Since He is the Source of everything, He has what to give. We need to allow ourselves to have, in order to give.

​Our third step is to take one thing and make it a habit. Make it a habit to exercise. Make it a habit to drink a cup of water each hour of the day. Make it a habit to take those supplements or vitamins. Just like how you don’t brush your teeth anymore to prevent cavities. Really, you brush them because it’s your habit to do so! Believe in yourself and with G-d’s help you will be able to turn the knowing into doing.
​ 

On Monday I saw a client who brought her baby along to her appointment with me for a massage. The baby is colicky and cries all the time. The mother can’t sleep, she feels nervous, fears, on edge. She’s not herself. And she brings the baby to the one hour where she is supposed to just rest and relax. She gets undressed and lies under the sheets. She closes her eyes. The baby starts to cry. She reaches out to the baby and rocks the carriage with one hand. She coos to the baby, “Mommy is here. You are such a sweetheart. Mommy is here. Shhhhh. Go to sleep.”


I’m not sure even what to do. Do I start massaging her feet? The baby now screams and she gets up. I look at this woman and I feel sorry for her. I don’t know whether to laugh at this situation of her trying to rock the baby to sleep between being massaged or whether to cry. I feel so sorry for her.


I think of my own situation. I so relate to her.


Moshe said, ‘Six hundred thousand people on foot are the people in whose midst I am, and You say, ‘I will give them meat, and they will eat I for a full month’(Bamidbar 11:21)?


I see this beautiful woman. This mother of this colicky baby. I see her kiss the baby and hug the baby and I see her lips moving in prayer, “Please Hashem, just let the baby sleep.”


She rocks and suddenly the colicky baby falls asleep.


Then the Lord said to Moses, "Is My power limited? Now you will see if My word comes true for you or not (11:23)!"


I’m so happy for her as the mother comes back to the massage table and sinks into it. I massage. She closes her eyes and relaxes under the touch.


I look at her. I admire her. Why should I feel sorry for a woman who is doing such holy important work? And yet I’m so glad that the baby continues to sleep as I massage her knotted shoulders.


I go throughout my day, the day that doesn’t seem to end until I literally drop into bed with the knowledge that in a few short hours I will be up again.


Up again. This child needs this and this child needs that. “Ribbon Shel Olam, where will we get the money for this? Where will we get the money for that? Where will I find the time to do this and take care of that? I need time and energy and resources.”


A parent, a sibling, a friend, a client-the phone calls, the emails. The needs and the wants. 


“Alone I cannot carry this entire people for it is too hard for me (11:14).”
לֹא אוּכַל אָנֹכִי לְבַדִּי לָשֵׂאת אֶת כָּל הָעָם הַזֶּה כִּי כָבֵד מִמֶּנִּי


I heard the beautiful Rebbetzen Yemima Mizrahi said to take the alone and cannot from the first sentence and turn it into ... אין עוד מלבדו.. There is none beside Him.


Alone I cannot, but You, You can.


Stay focused on the goal. The goal.


The goal of carrying this beautiful role. The role that I find myself in. The role to answer the phone and the emails. To do chesed when I can and even at times when I can’t really I can’t do anything, but with Hashem’s help my can’t and my alone gets expanded.


At times the role is to say no to one person so that I can say yes to another. At times the role is to stop cleaning so that I can go to the park with my children. Stop cooking so that I myself can take a break and have a glass of water, a cup of tea. Say no to that friend who wants to talk when my husband walks in the door.


At times we do have to say, “Hashem I can’t. I’m taking a break. I’m going to sleep. I’m getting a cleaning help. I’m getting a babysitter. Hashem You take care of them!” But also I know that role, it’s only a role that I can do. There was only one Moshe Rabbeinu. When Hashem gave him 70 elders to help him Hashem told Moshe, “I’m taking the power from you and giving it to them.” Meaning, you actually have this power, but you think that you can’t and so therefore you don’t (see the Baal HaTurim on this…)...


אין עוד מלבדו


Alone I cannot, but You, You can.


Stay focused on the goal. The goal.


The goal, is just to do my role. To be happy in my role, to love and embrace it.
 
 


Good shabbes!!


Much love from my home in Yerushalayim,

Elana