By Rabbi Rachel Esserman

Man plans and God laughs. That Yiddish expression accurately describes major portions of my life. Sometimes it’s a major life event that doesn’t work as expected; other times it’s a small thing. Fortunately, the latest example from my life falls into the latter category. Earlier this month, I took a day trip to Skaneateles with a friend. We had a lovely afternoon: we walked through the shopping area, ate a nice lunch and went on a boat ride. On the way back to the car, we were discussing whether to stop at a winery on the way home or just get ice cream (or both), when, while we were walking across the street, my ankle turned and I fell hard. Fortunately, I didn’t break anything, but, as of this writing, I’m still hobbling a bit.
We changed our plans, making a quick stop at a gas station for ice and heading home. Well, we still did stop for ice cream. The streak of not great luck continued when I began to lick my ice cream cone and all the ice cream fell off. By that time, I was ready to laugh and I did. Plus, they didn’t charge me for a new cone, so it worked out fine.
This was a minor change of plans and one to which I could easily adjust. Doing so is not really in my basic nature. When I was growing up, my mother told me I needed to learn to bob and weave, something I have gotten better at because I’ve had little choice. After all, it’s not really a joke when I say that I am on plan H, I or J in my life. This became even clearer when I met with my new nurse practitioner later that week. Discussing various health issues with her meant explaining how my hearing impairment developed, what happened to my back in 1990 and more that you really don’t want to hear about (because I wish I didn’t have to think about them, either).
These thoughts do seem appropriate for the issue we call our High Holiday preparation issue. When we had far more papers to get to the printer, I would often be caught unaware when holidays actually arrived. There were years when I had a great deal to think about during that period. Other years, my internal conversation consisted of something like, “I have enough on my plate right now. I’ll worry about fixing my faults next year.”
This year, for the first time, I’m approaching the holidays well aware that I have more years behind me than I have in front of me. (Yes, I know I joke about how long I’m planning to live in order to read all the books on my bookcases, but I am well aware that won’t happen.) That’s partly because I have even more aches and pains when I wake up in the morning than I did a few years ago, long before my recent fall. This year, I also performed the funerals of several friends – younger and older – that couldn’t help but make me more aware of my mortality. But falling so quickly – and feeling so out of control while it happened – just makes it clear how quickly something can happen to us, despite our plans.
We plan and God laughs. We have to make plans because otherwise we won’t accomplish anything. We can’t live without thinking ahead. But, as the holidays approach, perhaps we should acknowledge just how precarious our lives are. Perhaps, we should also make certain that those we love and appreciate know just how much they mean to us. And we should take a moment to feel extremely grateful for all that we do have, even while being aware it could disappear within seconds.