1) The joys of working in IT... someone called our hotline to ask whether anyone is in the office and can go over and feed their pet fish in the bowl on their desk.
Why don't people call the accounting dept, or legal, or some other team to see if someone will do something like that? Or call the HR dept -- can't be too many new hires they are working on now, right? Nobody does that because they know those folks are busy doing "important" work. We in IT are doing nothing other than keeping the entire network afloat so that 99% of the staff can work from home and trying to solve all the problems you may run into when working remotely, but how hard can that be? There must be hours of free time we have to feed your fish, maybe water the plants, etc.
2) There are SO many organizations and people that need help both for pesach and going forward. My wife asked why is it among all the shiurim being given no one (at least she and I have not seen this topic yet) has given a shiur on how to prioritize one's tzedaka. Who do you give to first when everyone is asking? Good question and a good topic. (Why don't I cover the topic here, you may be wondering. See above -- I'm busy feeding the fish and watering the plants.)
3) So after my anti-chizuk rant yesterday, let me end today with some chizuk, with a nice Sefas Emes you can hold on to until seder night.
Why do we open the door for Eliyahu haNavi on Pesach night?
You know what Klal Yisrael was doing leil ha'seder? They were locked down in their bunkers. "Al yeitzei ish m'pesach beiso ad boker."
The Yerushalmi in the beginning of Brachos writes (BTW, this is one of my favorite pieces - my wife is sick of hearing me quote it. If you are even half a tzioni, you have to know this Yerushalmi) that there were two Amoraim travelling, and they saw the sun begin to slowly rise over the horizon. This, one said to the other, is how the geulah of Klal Yisrael happens -- little by little. First there is just a bit of brightness in the sky, then a small ray of light, then the sun finally peeks over the horizon, until finally it is day. Geulah is a gradual process, not BOOM - an abrupt event.
We are in the bunker, says the Sefas Emes (5652), "ad boker" -- until the sunrise of true geulah breaks. Sometimes the bunker is a physical room, sometimes its something psychological that constricts our growth and holds us back. Either way, we're stuck!
Comes Pesach night, every year we open the door because every year we say to ourselves this is the year when the sun will finally completely rise on the "boker" we are waiting for and we can finally leave our bunkers behind.
"3) ...just a bit of brightness...then a small ray...then the sun...peeks..."
ReplyDeletethe hyperactive Tishbite will slow...himself...down, and ace his test at last: 'geulah is neither in the wind, nor in the earthquake, nor in the fire!';
the father who never heard his fourth son ask, will ["finally"] hear him ask, in a kol d'mama daka, and take heart*,
while the son who sat in perennial scorn will ["finally"] acquire from his father a stir of conscience, just a peep, a kol d'mama daka, and take heart*...
*Malachi 3:24
I hear that this year Eliyahu haNavi is stopping at each house roughly 4 amos (6 feet) from the door.
ReplyDeleteStupid joke aside, thanks for the Sefas Emes.
As for why they call IT and not HR -- because you have a hotline. They're used to dialing you.
Yes, they think of us as plumbers rather than professionals. Especially those of you on the support side, whose job is most often (aside from upgrades and on-boarding) to keep things run smoothly enough for people not to think about the tech -- or the effort you guys put in.