25 May THE CHALLENGES OF SUMMER LIFE
It’s that time of the year again!! Thoughts of driving down the “seventeen” with the beach chairs, barbecue grill, and other paraphernalia in-tow fill our minds. Or, you might be travelling down to your summer home in Deal or to the mountains above Denver. Wherever our getaway destination is, rest assured our Yeitzer HaRa, evil inclination, is “packing up” and travelling with us. So, it behooves us to be on the lookout for the specific pitfalls that lurk around us at this time of year.
The posuk states in Behaloscha, “Al pi Hashem yachanu v’al pi Hashem yisau.” This is homiletically translated to inform us that both when one is stationed in his/her permanent residence and when one is “on the road,” our lives have to follow the work of Hashem. This is sage advice to guide us through the often spiritually challenging months of the summer.
The Mishnah in Avos (2:4, Taanis 11a) teaches us, “Al tifrosh min ha’tzibor – Do not separate yourself from the community.” One of the reasons for this important warning is to ensure that we always have the important factor of peer pressure to safeguard that we don’t sway from the correct path. Indeed, it is for just this reason that it is advisable to daven in the same Shul most of the time and not “Shtieblhop” (used with Country Yossi’s permission!). For if we always pray in the same place, it’s not easy for us to “take off” a Shabbos since we know we will have to answer for our absence!
During the summer months, many of us feel a lessening of peer pressure. We are out in the country, perhaps, without the “invasive” eyes of our more scrupulous city neighbors. We must make a personal commitment to ourselves that we will not allow this fact to cause a weakening of our tznius, modesty, and other spiritual convictions. This is also a very important reminder for the men who remain in the city alone the entire week. The Yeitzer HaRa gleefully realizes that the man is now home alone in an empty house, without the eyes of his wife and children upon him. He becomes ready bait for all kinds of temptations, such as the internet, that the presence of his wife and children would normally inhibit him from considering.
The flip side of the “empty nest” that the men experience at home in the summer is the absence of the usual valid excuses we employ for certain mitzvah observances. Thus, the explanation that he can’t attend the nightly Daf Yomi because he’s learning with the children, or that he simply has no time to visit his parents because as it is he has so little time with his wife, just don’t apply when he’s alone and available the entire summer week!! This change in schedule should be analyzed and we should wisely “plug-in” to our summer routine some mitzvos that we neglect because of time pressure during the rest of the year! Even if it’s just the opportunity to be able to say Birchas HaMapil without worrying that we will have to talk after already making the brocha!
Another challenge along the same lines is the importance of being alert to the dangers of shochen ra, a neighbor of bad influence. (Every day we pray to be spared from the evil of a bad neighbor.) The Yad Yecheskail queries why Yehoshua needed the special prayers of Moshe, and Kaleiv needed to travel to Chevron to the graves of the Avos in order to be saved from the wiles of the Meraglim (spies). Didn’t they have enough spiritual stamina to avoid the pitfall of speaking evil about Eretz Yisroel without these external benefits?! He answers that we see from this how immensely dangerous is the effect that a bad environment can have on a person! Thus, it behooves us during the summer to be wary of such “environmental hazards.”
Both the men who gather around a supper table after a hard day’s work and the women who have more time to gossip around the umbrella table by the pool have to beware of the deadly sin of Lashon HaRa! It is not easy to train ourselves to avoid talking about people, but this should be a commitment that we bring with us to the mountains. It’s at least as important as the suntan lotion and insect repellent.
Especially, we should avoid the lethal habit of talking to others about our spouses. The climate of an “all male crowd” in the city and an all “female society” in the mountains breeds such confidences, but they are almost all the time very, very wrong! The Torah mandates v’davak b’ishto, to be loyal to one’s wife (and vice versa) and included in this directive is to honor each other’s privacy and not divulge the affairs of one’s home to others!
One of the Ten Commandments is “Lo sachmod eishes rei’echa – Not to covet another’s spouse.” It is remarkable that this is a separate commandment after there is already a commandment about adultery! Bear in mind also that there is no commandment about Kashrus, learning Torah, or Tefilin. This, however, should help emphasize to us the distance we should keep from fraternizing (when our husbands/wives are 125 miles away) with the opposite gender. What seems like harmless socialization may indeed be trampling on the Tenth Commandment!
The Gemora in Yevamos (62b) teaches us the well known directive that one should love his wife like himself! Similarly, we know that the primary purpose of a woman is to be a partner to her husband. Therefore, during the summer months when they are apart, they should be extremely vigilant to show that they miss each other. They should call each other often (not to stifle or control each other but to show care and a sense of missing each other) and make themselves available when they are called. It is a grave error when a wife/husband lets the other feel that they are secondary to the other things that they are involved in.
Summer weekends can be beautiful moments or, chas v’shalom, marital nightmares. Wives have to realize that their husbands drive back and forth for long hours, sometimes in horrendous traffic, for just two short days! It is an unwise attitude to plan shopping trips in crowded Shop Rites for them and visits to the wife’s friends as their total weekend itinerary! On the other hand, husbands must be mindful of the fact that their wives are alone with the children the entire week and need the disciplining help of the father heavily over the weekend. And while the husband has all the comforts of home during the week, she might need to escape with him for a few hours over the weekend. The wise woman will display openly to her husband how much he was missed and educate the children to do so as well!! The smart husband will do so as well and an occasional gift or flowers, etc., is a wonderful touch. Couples should be mindful of their lack of time alone during the summer and although one might prefer to socialize Friday night, he/she should be mindful of the great importance of their having sufficient quality time for themselves and the bad feelings that the opposite behavior engenders!!
In the merit of our spiritual vigilance may Hashem bless us and our loved ones with a healthy, happy, and wonderful summer!