Who Knew?

Do we really have any idea of who we are married to or who our children really are? Who knew how holy Denise is and who knew what kind of impact Shoshie was having in her short life. Who the heck knew? Day to day what can you see? Laundry? Homework? Even when you are married to someone you live your life in errands; to-do lists, shopping, cooking, etc. We all have our normal routines of taking responsibility for our lives. We often don't see each other in the seams of life where we touch others. Why? Because we are involved with our own stuff. Self-absorbed in a legitimate way. I got my own life and concerns on my mind.

Glimpses of the real you and your true greatness peer through the curtain of our day to day lives, but often, only to the extent it impacts me and my life do we take notice. Little did I know is that, holy and great people are exhibiting brilliance between the seams time and time again, but we don't see it. In fact, this is so prevalent that it's the seam that is more of an accurate measure of who we are, and the other things we normally do day to day just obfuscate what really is there.

We see each other but we don't see, we hear each other but we don't hear. Our minds are filled with pre-occupation with one's self. In a way everyone is below the radar, lying in wait to reveal their greatness but I think it's we who pigeon-hole them and see them one and same with their flaws.

This is what happened here with Denise and Shoshie. As I type, I am filled with awe of these people who were right under my nose. You know when someone possesses true holiness and greatness it's integrated in one's personality in the most natural way. One doesn't have to do anything to exhibit this greatness, it just is. Hagar finally saw the well- it had always been there- this is what that pasuk meant.

Let's not allow ourselves to judge another and be fooled by the day to day superficial mundane activities of a person and realize that the glimpse of greatness you see (or don't even see) time to time is who that person really is. These ladies in my life have taken my breath away, my teaches, my Rebbe's- when push came to shove, they both have shown a brilliance, true greatness beyond words, people who only exist in Rabbi Art Scroll biographies. I myself realize that it was always there and I was stuck in my own head, full of myself, fooled by the outer veneer of the mundane. I mistook who they were.

As the sages say "don't look at the jug but what is in it" - (In nature we get stuck at the jug the outer veneer of what appears to us as reality) - Let's go beyond the jug with one another and see each other as who we are. Let's notice the greatness of each other of how we each act between the seams, leave your insecurities aside and allow yourself to see the measure of a person. I sure have. To think that I have had 2 great teaches in my midst (in my house) and I didn't even know.