LATE AGAIN!

You are so excited! You are about to close a deal on your apartment which is now going for 200,000 dollars more than you bought it for only one year ago. [As an aside, if you have extra money lying around, investing in an apartment in Israel will almost definitely net you a tremendous profit in a short amount of time. But take the advice of a person like myself who sits and learns and understands nothing of the world of finance with a grain or more of salt. If I tell you pshat in a Rambam that would be more my territory. But take that with some salt as well:)]. You need your wife there to sign. Your parents came in from America to be there as well [they bought you the apartment so they deserve to be there for the selling]. Your in-laws drove an hour and a half from Ramat Beit Shemesh. The lawyers from both sides came. And of course the wealthy buyers from America. You BEGGED your wife to come on time. 8pm sharp.

8pm comes and goes. You call her cellphone. No answer. 8:30. 9. Constant calls to her cellphone are received with "the A.T. and T. customer you are trying to reach is presently unavailable". ARRRGGHHHH! 9:30. People are beginning to get restless. The cake and coffee has been consumed. The conversation is becoming forced and contrived. You feel the anger building up inside of you. You begin to recall other times when her lateness caused you discomfort. But this takes the CAKE [which as I said has already been consumed]. At 10pm everybody leaves. You are afraid that the sale is off. People don't like to be inconvenienced and there are other apartments available. 11pm. Oh boooy, when she comes home is she going to hear about it!!

11:30pm. The phone rings. "Hello, I am a nurse at the emergency room at Shaarei Tzedek Hospital. You wife fell and broke her leg and lost consciousness when she was running to come on time for your appointment. She just woke up in tremendous pain and is begging for you to come be with her."

SUDDENLY, all of your anger dissssssaaaaapaaatteeessssssss. You no longer care very much about the buyer, the apartment, the lawyers and the money. You are no longer angry at your wife. Why? What changed?

An irresponsible person makes you ANGRY. A person in distress engenders EMPATHY. Your wife is now [lo aleinu] in distress.

Let us translate this to daily life. Many of the things that anger or annoy us in our spouse or children should instead arouse feelings of compassion and care. They are having a rough time. How does the expression go?

"Cut them some slack".

Think about it:).

[Based on the sefer האיש מקדש page 97-99]