Birthday Stress
Some dates on my calendar give me an annual bout of stress and elevated blood pressure. April 15th, when my taxes are due and I haven’t even started doing my returns, is one example. My annual 6-month visit to the dentist is another. And of course another one is June 30. Why is that? Because it is the birthday of my dear wife, Miriam.
Unlike myself, who does not really care about my own birthday all that much, in fact I find it a little bit depressing as each year passes to be totally honest, Miriam REALLY LOVES her birthday! Starting a month or so beforehand she will start dropping gentle and not-so-subtle hints about the upcoming big day. When June 1 arrives she excitedly announces that June has arrived and that her birthday will be during the upcoming month.
Before I continue with this story, may I digress for a moment? I have never understood exactly why people make such a fuss over birthdays. Is there any other event in which a person gets so rewarded for doing so little?
Think about it: from the time a baby is one year old, his parents proudly throw a party replete with cake, streamers, whistles and all kind of treats. They invite guests to come join in the festivities and all those guests bring the honoree all kinds of gifts. “Congratulations!” everyone yells.
Congratulations for what? For being born? Wow! You are incredible! You really did an awesome job being born! And to top off that incredible feat you outdid yourself by proceeding to stay alive for an entire year! And next year we’ll celebrate again because, and by now you are defying all odds, you have lived for yet another year! Amazing! If we threw a birthday party for the mother who bore the child and gave birth to him and to the father who, along with the mother, raised the child for an entire year, I can understand. But to make a fuss for someone for doing no more than being born and then continuing to live always seemed, to me at least, a bit strange.
(Anyways, forgive my rant. I am not really against birthday parties; I personally never turn down a chance to have some cake and a party. I just think it’s one of those things that everyone does without thinking, but do so because that is what everyone else does and has always done, so it is my duty to point out the absurdity of the concept. While I am being mostly facetious you need to admit I make a pretty good point! Now, back to my original point.)
So, with Miriam being so excited about her birthday, I always feel a certain amount of stress as I don’t want to let her down.
With her birthday rapidly approaching this year I had a few ideas percolating in my brain, but nothing that I can say was perfect. Then came this past Sunday, a mere two days before the birthday. I was sitting in my dining room when the phone rang. I picked up the phone, “Hello,” I said. “Hi, my name is Sarah Glicksberg from Detroit and I am in Cleveland and have a package for you that I brought from Detroit.”
I knew nothing about a package from Detroit, so I quizzically asked Miriam if she knew what it was. Not surprisingly, she did. “Oh yes, I ordered myself a birthday cake from Detroit.” So that explained it, Miriam wasn’t about to take any chances with her birthday cake and let me arrange just any cake. Oh no, knowing me she figured she’d probably end up with some regular bakery cake so she took the initiative and ordered herself a delicious and super fancy carrot cake with cream cheese frosting to enjoy on her birthday from someone she knows in Detroit who has a cake business.
Later on Sunday Miriam took our van for a thorough car cleaning and detailing (I’ll spare the details of what the interior of our van looked like but we had just returned from a trip out-of-town and suffice it to say the inside looked like we temporarily housed the monkey exhibit from the Cleveland Zoo). Given the enormity of the mess and amount of work and labor required, Miriam was stuck at the car wash for a couple of hours.
Rather than wait at the premises Miriam found a local spa and treated herself to a pedicure as an early birthday gift. When she came home and told me that she had begun her birthday celebration, I was really bummed. You see, I was so excited when just a few days earlier one of the ideas I had for her birthday was to send her to a spa to treat her to a pedicure! Now I would need to again stress over coming up with a new idea for The Big Day! She had already taken care of the cake; she had already taken care of the trip to the spa. What was left for me to get her?
As I write this article, it is Monday, the day before her birthday. By the time you readers read this on Friday the birthday will have come and gone and hopefully I will have figured something out but for now I have just 12 hours to come up with something! Help!
One lesson I learned from this story is the following. Miriam is one of those people who don’t sit around and wait for things to happen. When she sees a need she steps up and does things herself. This is not only with regards to her birthday celebrations, but anyone who knows her knows this is how she operates in all ways of life. She is a “doer” and steps up to the plate when others can’t or don’t.
Not coincidentally, this week’s Torah portion tells of someone else who had this wonderful character trait.
At the very end of the parsha we read a story about a plot concocted by the wicked Bil’am to entice the Jews in engaging in sin. The plan was so successful and the sin was so rampant that no less than the leader of one of the Twelve Tribes himself was guilty of succumbing to sin. This aroused the wrath of G-d and a plague broke out from Heaven which killed many thousands of Jews.
While the rest of the nation stood around, dumbfounded and paralyzed with shock not knowing what to do, one person stood up and took action. This person was Pinchas, a great-nephew of Moses and grandson of Aaron, and stopped the sinners in their tracks. Immediately the Heavenly plague ceased and the people stopped dying. As a result of his decisive actions, not only were many lives spared but Pinchas himself was blessed with a bounty of reward from G-d.
While the entire nation remained passive and were stunned into immobility, Pinchas realized that if no one else was standing for the sake of G-d then in was incumbent upon him to step up to the plate.
The same diverse characters appear in every generation. Many of us are sometimes slow in taking action on matters (yours truly included) while others such as my wife, the birthday girl, realize that if you want something done you might as well grab the bull by the horns and get to work on it yourself.
This is a worthwhile lesson in life in general, but all the more so when it comes to matters of spiritual pursuits. Most people, even if inclined to seek spiritual growth, do so in a way that is more passive. This is an incorrect approach and one that greatly inhibits maximizing our potential. As the great Hillel said “If I am not for myself, then who will be for me?” In other words, it is up to me to aggressively take action in ensuring my own spiritual growth – I cannot wait for others to do it for me.
There is much more I can write about this topic but for now I will leave it at this as I need to feverishly come up with a birthday idea before that wife of mine comes up with something else on her own like a month-long trip to Hawaii or something. I’ll come up with something, I’m sure. Worse comes to worst I can always delay until her Hebrew birthday which is not for another two weeks (thank G-d for the Jewish calendar!). If nothing else, there’s always chocolate and flowers.
In the meantime, wishing you all a Shabbat Shalom!
Rabbi Yosef Koval
