Wow-I really thought, now that I am semi-unemployed, having lost some of my teaching and family/teen programming work at one synagogue, I'd have more time on my hands-especially to do things like write, blog, etc.
As I have discovered before (and therefore should not have been surprised) is that the work that needs to be done always seems to manage to expand to fill the available time (and then some.) Seems there is always too much to do and not enough time to do it. The question I'm always asking is, does it happen to us, or do we do it to ourselves?
Many management gurus suggest that it's all a matter of things like delegating, organizing, prioritizing. Yet, as the expression goes, Humans plan, and G"d laughs.
Nevertheless, it is a cop-out to just give up on attempting any type of planning. The best planning tries to allow for as many possibilities as it can. That's certainly what I was taught when learning to be a good Stage Manager. A good "performance plan" includes plans for when things don't go according to plan.
Yet, at some point, doesn't this become a cat chasing it's tail, or a tail wagging the dog? The scientific side of me wants to assert that "random" means "random" but the more spiritual side of me suggests that sometimes, the more we strive against the randomness, the harder it pushes back. No wonder so many cultures developed dialectical deities representing good and evil.
It helps, of course, to have a deity on your side. Like we sing at Purim "utsu eitza v'tufar dabro davar v'lo yakum ki imanu El." We taunt, almost dare our enemies to plan their plans, make their evil plots, for they will come to naught because G"d is with us. Yet I don;t recall anywhere in the megillah where it says that G"d pre-disposed King Ahashverosh to be receptive to Esther's please (or for that matter, no reference to G"d hardening, er, that is, raising Ahashverosh's golden scepter.)
So why no musing last week? Life interfered, I could say. Frankly, I just ran out of time, didn't want to rush out a half-baked job, and I've grown weary of simply falling back on re-cycling old musings. Still, I did get a good Shabbat meal on the table in time for the family and our Shabbat guests (and a vegetarian meal at that, for 8-year-old Abigail has decided to go vegetarian for now - mostly because most of her friends at school are-how's that for a picture of Amherst-peer pressure vegetarianism! I even managed to create a vegetarian meal that I would eat.) So everything wasn't a total waste, or completely out of control.
OK, I've done my self-flagellation now. Seems like it should be enough. Still, there's more to explore here. Wonder how I can work this into this week's musing on parashat Tsav?
Adrian (aka Migdalor Guy)
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