Opinion

Our family was away for Shabbos recently. When we arrived home, as soon as we walked through the front door, we were greeted by a putrid smell. I ran to the basement and then upstairs, fearing a lot of different things, but everything seemed to be in order.

I never had a schedule on two consecutive days that were so at odds with each other as I did last week. Last Thursday was the final day of Color War at Camp Dora Golding. One of my responsibilities in camp is to create and direct the Judges’ Skit during the Grand Sing. Anyone who has ever attended summer camp knows how memorable the Grand Sing of Color War is. It is one of the highlights of the summer and, in a sense, the crescendo. There’s a great deal of energy and emotion generated as campers and staff sing together intensely, arm in arm, in the hope of winning Color War.

This past Shabbos, our family was blessed to celebrate the bar mitzvah of our dear son Shimshon Dovid. In honor of the bar mitzvah, I am sharing part of the drashah he shared:

This week, parents in the Tri-State Area gleefully celebrated the return of their children to school. No doubt they are thrilled that their children will be learning Torah and broadening the horizons of their minds again. But on a more practical level, after a couple of weeks of “Ma, I’m soooooo bored,” mothers were more than willing to wake up early to help send their children off to school. Now, they have a few weeks’ reprieve before the Chol HaMoed morning pestering begins: “Ma, where are we goooooooing today?”

It’s an old bad joke.

Luck doesn’t seem to be a very Jewish concept. We don’t believe in coincidences. The concept of hashgachah pratis dictates that everything that occurs to us is part of a divine plan, tailored for us.