Eps 18. From Surviving to Thriving: Making Space for What Matters Most

So we are up to Pasuk Tadit, which states, "Sofia Lecho Beisa V'lachem Atzlus Lo Sochal." So what this translates to, she oversees the activities of her household and never eats the bread of idleness or laziness.

Atzlus could be translated also as laz- laziness.

So I'm just gonna jump right in here, and I want to share that the Metzudas David brings down that Sofia, the lashon of Sofia, is the onion of looking or observing.

So almost like observing what her household is doing, the go abouts of her households, the ins and outs of her households, almost like looking from like a bird's eye view.

What does her household need? The needs of a Yiddishe home.

What are the needs of her ho- Yiddishe home? Well, to me, initially, I would imagine dividing this into emotional or practical and physical, and so much of our job is to observe.

And Sofia is that type of observation, like a bird's-eye view.

Like, I'm looking from above, coming in as a manager, coming in as on top and seeing, what does my family need? Okay, so this child needs a family photo for school tomorrow.

We need a coat rack ASAP because this place is starting to look like a coat store.

Do we have enough milk? How about, do we have enough clean, untangled tzitzits? What is going on with Moishy? Is he okay? He's kind of acting out.

Is, uh, something going on with him? Kind of trying to think about all of the pieces in our home, that is Sofia overlooking, overviewing, and seeing our home in that perspective.

And these observations from afar can make all the difference for a child or for a husband, can be night and day.

It can literally change their life.

If a Eshet Chayil, a wife and a mother, is overlooking her home and trying to make sure things don't fall in between the cracks and making sure things are really being taken care of, this can be the difference between a functional home and a dysfunctional home, let alone allowing the kid to not just survive, but thrive.

And of course, with all these observations, we could either articulate positively or negatively, which also is a tremendous koach.

To positively observe our children and husband and our household, how beautiful that can be that just for yourself, for you to have that, for you to be able to view your home, and that could be something so beautiful for yourself.

And even more than that, then the pasuk continues and says, "V'lachem Atzlus Lo Sochal." She doesn't eat the bread of laziness.

So I'll be honest, when I was preparing this episode, this pasuk really made me laugh, and it made me feel like Hashem is being a little humorous.

So what do I mean by that? There's two parts of this pasuk, and again, I'm just sharing my own thoughts here.

The first part is, "Sofia Lecho Beisa," which is that she's overlooking her home, and she's taking care of all the pieces, and she's coming in from a bird's-eye view on her home at large and her husband and her kids and what needs to get done and making sure everything is running smoothly and that she's seeing the child and the husband and the children as from an emotional perspective and a practical perspective.

So that's the first part of the pasuk.

And then the second part of the pasuk is saying that she doesn't eat from the bread of laziness.

And to me, it's like the Eshet Chayil, who is Sofia Lecho Beisa, is lazy.

No way.

The two cannot exist.