Our daughter needed proof of residency and it was due on Friday so we rushed out to Guilderland Town Hall all the way down Western Ave. The process took 5 minutes but the way back took forever. There were signs for road-work. The road was milled (i.e. they dig up and peel away the upper layers of the asphalt pavement leaving a bumpy uneven grooved exposed roadway. The road was narrowing into two lanes and traffic was proceeding slowly.
Soon after we entered the roadwork zone on our way home we noticed a Line-Painting truck idling on the side, driver in the cab, just off the road. It had the same company name as vehicles we passed as part of the roadwork. We figured if the line-painting truck was idling, there had to be newly finished pavement soon up ahead.
The traffic crawled by. The clock was ticking on Friday afternoon before Shabbat. We saw more construction vehicles at various intervals, all engaged in milling the road. Digging up and churning the asphalt into matzah meal, no sign of any pavement trucks on the horizon. No newly fresh laid asphalt anywhere along the still-being-milled road!
So what was that line-painting truck doing there? The road was nowhere near ready for it! What message was there in seeing that? The Baal Shem Tov taught there must be a message in everything we see!
Perhaps seeing the waiting line-painting truck, idling, driver in front-seat, while road still being torn up helps us with perspective on life – when we have a hard time seeing the longer-term bigger picture. It’s hard to see the finished product while things are still being torn up and bumpy, without even a sign of new hot asphalt in sight.
Often we find ourselves in the road-milling stage. Things are being torn up and destroyed, the options (lanes) narrow, everything is slowed down by it. The road ahead isn’t smooth. The waiting line-painting truck reminds us to keep in mind the end-goal, not to get out of shape because of the current destruction, but to focus on where this is headed!
We entered this particular Shabbat with lots of uncertainties and unknowns about the Nissim Black concert. It’s a big undertaking, lots of hiccups with securing campus permissions and venue, and all kinds of bumps in the road tossing us back and forth, hither and thither! Gotta keep in mind the line-painting truck, the very first construction truck we saw on that road that day!
This Shabbat we are honored to host 3 guests from Israel and their Chabad on Campus rabbi from Afula. This is a time in Israel when so much is torn up and ripped apart, the pathway forward is uncertain and there is much grief, stress and many challenges. It’s a very difficult time. The road is all milled up. Gotta try to remember the line-painting truck! Waiting…
On a macro level of Jewish history, our whole history is full of road construction, detours, delays, road-closures and bumpy roads with the asphalt torn off. Jewish tradition reminds us to always be mindful and eager for the line-painting truck, the coming of Moshiach, speedily in our days, and though he may tarry, and though it can be almost impossible to envision due to a current situation, still we eagerly await Moshiach’s coming every day! May he come!