TO RETURN

By, Linda Korn

As a B'al Tsuvah, one who has returned to traditional Judiasm, returned to G-d, I expected to find great meaning in a deeply spiritual and traditional way of life. I expected that coming back to my roots would ground me, and I do feel that I have arrived "home" at last. For certain, such meaning is found in our great traditions, however many of the most koshercool(tm) moments tend to take place not high on a mountaintop or deep in spiritual thought and learning, but in the most ordinary places, doing ordinary things.
One would hesitate to assert that a trip or two to Baby Gap could be exalting. But then again, one would not expect to purchase a pair of toddler pajamas, arrive home, and two days later, when it's cold enough to wear the warm fuzzy feeties, sort of, but not exactly, recall stuffing the pajamas and other items into baby's drawers, and now search and search for them to no avail. How odd; they must not have gotten into the Gap bag.
"I can't believe we left the pajamas at the store!"
Receipt in hand, I fly on my winged motor car to the store to retreive the missing PJ's. The manager is helpful and sympathetic to my story. Grateful, I return home with the cozy striped sleep wear.
Toddler's have this way of showing you how extraordinary life is. They are constantly surprising you, and often making a large fool of you. Well, mine likes to take all the clothes out of his drawer and place them around the room in various baskets or on the floor. As he was attempting to pull the drawer completely out of it's frame, I had an idea. I pulled the bottom drawer off the rollers myself and let him take everything out and put it back in.
Meanwhile, on a whim, I reached inside the empty space where the drawer used to be noticing clothes that had fallen down onto the floor. Lo and behold, there were the cute original striped pajamas with the Gap tag still on them. OOPAH! (Hebrew for OOPS!)
Now isn't that silly?
Well, that store manager is really going to think me quite disorganized now, but I'll have to risk my reputation and bring the extra pair of PJ's back. I only paid for one pair.
It sure would be nice to have an extra pair while one is in the wash; my little guy loves thems so.
But, no, I couldn't place that burden on my innocent child- he would have no idea he is wearing stolen goods. That couldn't be good for his soul, or mine.
The thought of looking the manager in the face, explaining the situation and watching his eyes roll at the image of me cramming my kids new clothes into his overstuffed drawers without taking care to even notice them, was too much for a new mom to bear. I sent my husband to make the return.
He was glad to do it. Arriving at his destination, he was able to find the Baby Gap manager who I'd spoken with previously. After a comical review of the details, my husband handed the manager the outstanding pajamas, at which time a woman next to him noticed the Yarmulka on his head. As the manager took back the pajamas with a polite thank you, the woman standing near, leaned in to say something privately to my husband.
"It's a total Kiddush Hashem", she whispered.
It is in this unassuming moment that we learn that to return is not about arriving somewhere; it's about bringing something back. It is about enableing others to notice Hashem. It's about shining g-d's light on the ordinary in this world. And that is very Koshercool(tm)!