Whipped Cream, Card Games, and Important Lessons from Life and the Aftermath 
from our Holy 6th Grade

“If you could have witnessed one miracle from the Pesach Story, what would it have been?” That was this week’s Question of the Week at the famed Cafe Frank.
Yes, this year I have the wonderful opportunity to run a small cafe every Friday out of my office. Our amazing Hebrew teacher, Hanita, sends four students to my office for cookies, hot cocoa, and whipped cream for a discussion all in Hebrew about life.
Expecting to hear answers such as the Ten Plagues, Moses’s stick changing into a snake, or other amazing Passover miracles, two of the answers made me think most as they helped me to frame a central idea of life.
The first student said  that she would have liked to have witnessed “Kryiat Yam Suf”--the great splitting of the sea. This was the moment of such miraculous nature, where, according to the midrash, even “a handmaid saw what [the prophet] Ezekiel, did not see.” – (Mechilta Beshlach, Ch. 3). Not a surprising answer as it is certainly a seminal miracle in the story of our people.
But the next one was what made me think even more. The next student said that she would have wanted to be part of the song and celebration following the splitting of the sea. According to her, the joy and celebration must have been so incredible that it is that moment she would have liked to share.

The more I think about it, this makes sense. Think about our everyday tefillah. Out of all of the moments in Jewish history noted in the siddur, it is the Shirat HaYam, the celebration at the sea, that gets the most play: the entire song is recited at the end of Psukai D’Zimra, and a narrative of it leads into the centerpiece of Shacharit, the Amidah.

So what is it--what is more critical -- the miracles or events that happen, or our reactions to them? While certain events dramatically define us- the miracle of a new day, recovering from an illness, the birth of a child, the victory of a war, it seems that Judaism focuses mostly on the reaction to the event as even more meaningful.

It is what we do with G-d’s gifts, miracles, or tests that truly define us as individuals, and as a nation. The memory of the exact moment will fade. Our reaction, how we make sense of the event and our lessons taken from that moment will have much more life down the line than the moment itself.
This may be why tefillah is so essential to our psyche and consciousness. If we think about it, nothing ever happens at tefillah, rather it is our chance to put our days, our lives, and our moments in context, forcing us to think about what we will do with the fate we are given, and how we will turn it into destiny. As Rav Soloveitchik famously said,“Humanity's mission in this world is to turn fate into destiny, an existence that is passive and influenced to an existence that is active and influential.”
This, more commonly stated in a metaphor (that would also be loved by our sixth graders who play cards incessantly) “It's not about the cards you're dealt, but how you play the hand.”

May we take the miracles we recount on this Chag, and not only retell them, act them out, or discuss them, but may we realize that it is what we take from them, how we sing a new song or a Hallel in reaction to them, how we focus, and frame our lives because of them, that can truly move our world toward redemption.

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