Shabbath Tshuva: derailleur

Shabbath Tshuva: derailleur

On the day before Rosh Hashannah, I biked to the hospitals to see some sick patients before the the 2 day Yom Tov.  On the way there, my bicycle broke, I could no longer shift the front gears.  I was stuck in low gear.  It slowed me down, but I could make it.   On the way home I stopped at a bike shop.  The bike needed a part that had to be ordered. 

I wondered what message, relevant to the season of reflection and repentance  was being sent to me.

David Khaneman, in Thinking Fast and Slow ( p40) describes the state of "flow." He describes this state of effortless concentration as " and optimal experience."  Interruption is something that I find very annoying.  I (used to ) become angry when interrupted.  

On Rosh Hashannah, I was studying Talmud with Ellisheva, my daughter.  It was a small passage about  how a women could come to own property independent from her husband.  We were in the flow. My pager beeped.  It was  a pharmacist who asked me about  a drug interaction in a patient that I see for lymphoma.    I had prescribed neither of the drugs in question.  I was annoyed that I was called on Rosh Hashannah.  I yelled at the pharmacist.  My anger came from the interruption ( I later called to apologize). 

The Torah reading for the second day of Rosh Hashanna is the binding of Isaac.  the comentators imagine Abraham as extremely reluctant to sacrifice his son, Isaac.  But,  out of the depth of his faith, he becomes determined to carry out the command of the Almighty Creator in every detail.  He becomes so determined, so in the flow, that almost nothing can stop him.  Only a second call from heaven: Abraham, ABRAHAM, could derail  him. ( see Kli Yakar)

I understood the message of the bicycle.  I needed a new deralleur, a new part that allows for a smooth change of gears.  I needed to learn how to be derailed without resentment or anger

To climb the hill, all I need is the low gear,  To get there in time, I need both gears... and a good derailleur.