We’ve been working the last few weeks to arrange for the “Let HERE Be Light!” Tour coupled with a live Nissim Black concert to come to UAlbany. So many things had to align, Nissim’s schedule, the Chabad on Campus tour schedule, the various funding resources to make such an events possible – and the permissions and arrangements with UAlbany, to make this happen!
And even with 11 days left until the event, we now have the approved venue space for the evening concert: The Campus Center Ballroom. But we only found that out yesterday! And we still don’t know the final location for the afternoon fair portion, and we don’t have all the details about the concert venue.
Raizy and I were driving to a Bar-Mitzvah in Clinton NY on Thursday and we were musing how unsettling it is to have a larger-scale expensive event coming up so quickly and we still have so many unknowns!
Then Raizy recalled an oft-repeated verse from this week’s Parsha of Re’eh: “The place that G-d will choose!” This verse refers to the future Temple in Jerusalem but referred to repeatedly (14x!) in Parsha Re’eh, but always with this ambiguous, unclear phrase.
Sometimes we know it will happen, but we don’t know how it will work out. Uncertainty is more of a reality in today’s world, but hopefully it doesn’t dampen our conviction, our determination, our calm and our confidence.
That was on Thursday.
On Friday afternoon an alumni family stopped in to visit. They spent a week north of us on a horse ranch, and were headed down towards a camp-site. You know the Labor Day Weekend last hurrah of summer. We’re glad they stopped for a nice visit at Shabbos House in between.
They were talking about the horse ranch, and the mother told us how horse-riding has a lot of messages in it, and could be a nice Dvar-Torah (she knows how we like to pull lessons out of things).
She explained how horse riding is a combination of letting go and keeping control. Allowing the horse to do its thing, but also to guide and coax in the desired manner and direction. A horse isn’t a car, you are not in total control. Part of getting good at it, is allowing the horse, is for us to loosen up and let go a little, go with the flow – but not too much, because we still need to hold the reins on the ride. A confidence despite the uncertainty!
This is true in many areas of life, not just horse-riding or event planning. It’s relevant in parenting, in being a freshmen new at college, in starting up at a new job. Or even in running a business or organization for years and years.
It’s message about healthier dealing with uncertainty, we can’t control or know every variable, but we’re still goal-oriented, we still keep focus. We’re not throwing up our hands and giving up either. We’re in it and on it for the ride!