My thanks to Rabbi Hirshky Minkowicz for the Helocopter metaphor
You may have heard the story in the news a few weeks ago. Two tenth grade girls from a Chabad school in Miami went missing while on a school trip.
They were on a Shabbat weekend retreat in Orlando, and they had gone for a leisure walk in the afternoon and never returned.
It was 18 hours later when they were finally were spotted by helicopter, stuck knee deep in the swamps near the hotel. After much effort, guided by communication from the helicopters, a ground crew was able to reach them and get them out to safety.
What started off for them as a regular normal day, eventually ended with a dreadful and nightmarish experience, with the two of them lost in the forest, spending the night in the Florida marsh, at times stuck deep in the swamps, murky waters known to be teeming with gators.
As they made their way through the bushes and thorns, waving frantically every time the helicopters flew by above, their ordeal included moments chin deep in the water, followed by climbing trees to find high ground, only to have the trees break and put them back in the swamps again. Kind of like the way some people feel about their challenges in life.
They knew that in order to survive they needed to do two things; stay awake and never lose hope.
Staying awake was the hard part, yet for the hope they had some help.
Although they know that their situation was bleak, there was a reason they never lost hope. It was the helicopters.
After their ordeal ended, they told their friends that what had given them the hope and determination to survive the experience, was the sound of the helicopters.
Hearing the choppers flying above gave them a sense that they would surely be found before it was too late. If the helicopters were up above, they knew that help would eventually arrive below. Their job was to continue waving and signaling until help showed up.
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While few of us (thank G-d!) go through an ordeal like that, we all have times in life we’re (figuratively) stuck in a swamp amongst the thorns and alligators. Whether it is a painful personal issue we are dealing with or simply thinking about the state of the world, it can be challenging to keep up the hope and optimism that is critical to life as a Jew…
How do we do it? And how have Jews done it for thousands of years?
The answer is helicopters.
While there may be chaos down below, Jews have always felt the sound ofhelicopters above. Deep faith in G-d. Emuna that we are being watched and cared for by our Father in Heaven. Knowledge that there is meaning in our struggles. And faith in the promise one day the darkness and confusion will end below and the entire world will be filled with G-dly clarity and goodness. Through the worst of times, in our prayers and dreams we have heard these sounds in our Torah and waved and signaled our belief in the coming of Moshiach. We know that day is coming…
But there is one day a year when those helicopter sounds are stronger than ever. The last day of Passover, this Shabbos. While the beginning of Pesach marks our redemption from Egypt, the theme of the end of the holiday is the ultimate redemption of the entire world. Our Rebbes taught the last day of Pesach is a day saturated with the spiritual energy of Moshiach, one so real that it has become the tradition to eat a final meal in the closing minutes of the holiday in which we once again eat Matzah and drink four cups of wine. The reason for this custom is in order to take our belief in Moshiach, something that can often be abstract, and turn into a concrete idea & physical meal. More on this beautiful tradition here.
May this Passover be the day when those sounds above finally become our reality below.