Road Signs from the Past | Rabbi Eliyahu Sonnenschein

Living in Seagate, a quaint beachside town, our family has the opportunity, every Sukkos and Pesach, to be able to take beautiful Yom Tov afternoon strolls after the Seudah on the boardwalk, while it's still too cold for the crowds to be joining us. One such afternoon, after the Seudah, we went with our strollers, box drinks, snack bags, and all other crucial necessities, to be able to take a Yiddishe family walk after the Seudah. We're walking down the boardwalk, enjoying the beautiful weather and time together, when a jogger, one of those professional joggers, starts jogging by. He was wearing a headband. He was wearing sweatbands on his wrists. He had some computers connected to his arm that were sending his metabolism and heart rate to NASA and back, to be able to keep track with his cardiologist. And he was jogging together with his Chavrusa, a little poodle, down the boardwalk. I don't know what about my family made him feel that we're a good target for this, but he took the opportunity when he saw us, as he jogged by, to share with us his less than positive feelings about our president. And he began to berate us, as if we were part of the cabinet, about all of the things the president is doing to destroy the country. I held my children's ears and the jogger kept jogging by. But we noticed, as he was running and yelling, that his phone slipped out of his shorts pocket and onto the floor. There was another man over there, who noticed the phone fall out, picked it up and began screaming to the person that he dropped his phone. The jogger, certain that the person behind him felt other things about the president, began screaming back, No, I won't be silenced! I'll say it as it is. It's my right as an American. Everyone needs to know. And the man behind him, coming after him, said, Sir, your phone, your phone. Not listening to anything that the person behind him said, he just kept screaming, I won't be silenced! Nobody will be silenced! Everyone needs to know the truth! Everyone will know the truth! The man behind him starts running faster and faster. Sir, your phone, your phone. Seeing the person approach him from behind, the jogger runs faster and faster and faster. You won't catch me and you won't silence me! You won't catch me and you won't silence me! We watched this comedy scene unfold as part of our Oneg Yom Tov. The man behind him eventually gave up. He turned to us, lifted his arms. Me, not wanting to pasken on that Hashavas Aveidah Sheilah, turned around with my family. But we received a very special message. Often in life, we drop things, too, but we assume that the voices from behind us are yelling at us, chasing at us, growling, taunting, haunting, coming in disapproval to be able to haunt us forever. When in fact, if we just stop running, if we just turn around, we'd realize the voices from behind us are trying to guide us, to nurture us, to give us advice and guidance, moving forward. Past failures tell us so much about ourselves and about our challenges, and they turn into some of the greatest weapons facing Nisyonos, moving forward. All we have to do is slow down, turn around. Our past is not full of roadblocks. It's full of road signs. We need to learn how to slow down, read them and march on forward. עלה והצלח.