When one of my children was about 4 years old I made a drastic decision. I agreed to participate in a round robin playgroup for her and four of her adorable friends.
Once a week it was my turn to educate, entertain and watch this little group.
I gained a new found appreciation for preschool teachers!
One of the hardest parts of the job was creating an age appropriate arts and crafts project for my day of the week.
I started out strong.
There were paper Shofars and honey dishes. Then we made Sukkah decorations and Simchat Torah flags.
But when the holidays were over I was stuck.
The month after the holidays is called the month of Cheshvan and it has not one holiday in it!!
What would be the inspiration for my project?
I called my dear friend, the inimitable Morah Dena, educator extraordinaire, in a panic.
She had a solution for me.
Since Cheshvan is holiday less, we can focus on the fact that it’s the month that begins the rainy season. It’s got the portion of Noah that talks about the flood and the rains coming down. So she suggested we make a Cheshvan Sunshine umbrella.
(Instructions available for those who are interested)
The Kotzker Rebbe teaches us that every month has its specific energy, fueled by the holiday it contains and the mitzvot which accompany it.
But if this month has no holiday, what energy can we tap into?
Rabbanit Yemima Mizrachi, acclaimed Torah teacher in Israel, teaches that the month of Cheshvan has the energy of “knowing what to do, when we don’t know what to do”
We are all facing challenges and conundrums in our daily lives.
And often we may not know what to do.
How do we move forward when we don’t know what to do?
One of the solutions is to tune into our souls. Our body is very needy and very loud. It makes many demands and we need to placate it. But the body is here to house the Neshama. And when we can quiet the body and listen to the voice of our Neshama it will guide us to the proper response.
Viktor Frankl, author of Man’s Search for Meaning, taught this concept in a powerful teaching.
“Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to CHOOSE our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.”
The challenges that come our way create the opportunity for our personal growth.
This week’s Torah portion is called Noah, and it chronicles the story of the destruction of a decaying world and the ark that Noah built to save his family and the creatures of the planet.

Noah’s father was a man named Lemech.
When Noah was born, Lemech noticed that Noah was special. The Midrash says that until Noah, people were born with webbed hands. Noah had independent fingers and that would allow him more dexterity in working the earth. Lemech was right about Noah, for he also invented the plow, which exponentially eased the burden of tilling the land.
“And he called his name Noah saying, this one will comfort us from our work, and from the sadness of our hands, which comes from the ground which the Lrd has cursed”.
When Adam and Eve were banished from the Garden of Eden due to their sins, each was cursed. Eve was cursed in childbirth, and Adam was cursed in livelihood.
The curse was a result of a sin that distanced humanity from Gd.
That is why the earth was so difficult to till. It was full of stones and thistles. And with the passage of time as the level of evil rose, the difficulty of working the land became more difficult as well.
After Lemech named his child Noah and made the above statement, Gd too made a statement, using a similar word.
Gd regretted, so to speak, the decision to create and sustain the world as it was.
Venachem, Gd regretted.
Noah and Vhenachem have a similar root word.
That indicates that something about using that name brought about regret.
Why did Gd regret?
Because Lemech named his child comfort, in the hope that his birth would make life easier.
But Lemech missed the boat.
The whole point of the cursed land was to have people see their challenges and use them as stepping stones for growth.
Instead Lemech said that the solution to their ills was not reconnecting to Gd. Rather it was…a plow.
It was a technological solution to a spiritual problem.
When Gd saw that mankind was not capable of using the challenges to grow. That became the moment when this creation was no longer viable.
Our work while we are on this planet earth is to connect to Gdliness and become more Gdlike.
Our focus is to imitate Gd and become a giver.
That is called holiness.
To be Kodosh.
Rabbi Freifeld in his book In Search of Greatness shares a Talmudic teaching about how to arrive at holiness.
One of the roads to reach that goal is by “being the captain of your ship”.
How do we reach holiness through captaincy?
Rabbi Freifeld answers by saying we have a responsibility to be a person, and take that role with responsibility, even though we may not always want to face that reality. But if we do, if we step
Up to the plate and do what our soul is instructing, we will attain holiness.
The trick is to be the captain of your life.
The responsibility lies with each one of us.
These moments of facing up to responsibility crop up in every facet of our life, often at junctures when we don’t know what to do.
A woman was recently widowed and she downsized from her magnificent home to a modest condo.
She called her friend to come see her new home.
The friend walked around and turned to the proud home owner and said
“It’s just so small”.
She devastated her friend.
In that moment she bore a huge responsibility to encourage her friend at the threshold of the next stage of her life. Instead, she abrogated that responsibility and she made everything feel small.
So in this month where a lot of rain, proverbial or actual, may fall, build yourself an ark and take people on board with you.
Be the captain of the ship which is your day to day life, devoid of the highs of the holidays, but replete with the opportunities to bring sunshine.
See yourself as the captain of your life, and don’t forget the umbrella.
Day 391.
May our hostages see the light of day soon.
Shabbat Shalom and so much love!