Camp finished at 3:30pm and being that the Shabbat party and singing was running late, most of the campers only exited the building at 3:35pm. Brimming with excitement after another week of camp, songs were still coming off their lips as the music played in the background, and they gave each other high fives and shared energetic Shabbat Shalom's to one another.
At 3:40pm as the last parent took their kids, I jumped into the car and headed to the Bridges Memory Care Facility in Sudbury and rushed into the meeting room, where about a dozen seniors and some family members were patiently waiting for me to join to begin the pre Shabbat program.
We started with some melodies, then some conversations and stories and then some more melodies that they were familiar with and Shabbat Shalom interactions.
The excitement filled their eyes in a different way than the children I had just left, perhaps a few more tears, or maybe with the memories of a time when perhaps their parents would sing them these same songs. Yet overall on the core level, it was the same inner depth, connection, joy and meaning, just expressed in a different way and at a different stage of the journey of life.
For some of the people I had gathered with, the ability to remember things had become a challenge, yet the familiar song of Shalom Aleichem, brought them to life, as they animatedly sung together and smiled with these familiar words and their message.
After forty five minutes I left to run and get some shopping for Shabbos, but not before I took a few moments to process the intensity of the joy and stimulation of the day's interactions with the very young and then with those who are so much older than that.
One of the themes I love to share with the people in nursing homes, is the ability that they have to continue to impact the world around them, to smile to another, and perhaps just to be themselves at this stage of life, and in doing so, giving us younger people what to pause and reflect on as we interact with them and enjoy their company.
The journey of life is not a straight highway, instead it is a series of twists and turns, bridges and valleys, roadblocks, construction zones, speed traps, an occasional collision, slipping on ice. distractions while driving and so much more.
Yet even when we feel we might be lost, stuck in traffic, or perhaps regressing in life, in truth these are all important moments, opportunities and critical milestones of our individual journey, that collectively enable us to make our own unique impact and difference on the world around us.
This is the opening theme of the second portion that we read this week, 'Masei', 'journeys'. The Jews took no less than forty two journeys while in the desert after they left Egypt. Some represented progress towards the destination and away from the challenges of the past, some seemed to be a regression to the misery they had just left behind, some contained failures and some contained huge successes. Together, they collectively made up the entirety of this pivotal journey of the Jewish people as they left the physical and metaphoric slavery of Egypt and traveled to the physical and metaphoric freedom and purpose of the Promised Land of Israel.
It is not always the age or the specific activity that we do at any given stage that is always the most important. Sometimes it is simply being able to live and be present in the moment, trying to do our best, and armed with the knowledge that this is all a part of a long and ongoing journey of growth, impact and goodness and kindness, even if at the moment it doesn't all add up.
As we each move forward on our collective journeys, may we all be blessed with the ability to recognize and be mindful of the bigger picture of our personal and collective journeys so that we find a way to always express our inner core and make every stage, moment of progress or moment of regression, into a springboard of growth for the next stage of the journey.
Shabbat Shalom & Good Shabbos to all!
Yisroel