This week, I am surrounded by boxes.
I am in the midst of a significant transition as I prepare to begin a new rabbinic position. That transition became very tangible as the movers arrived this past Tuesday and began packing my home. So far, everything has gone remarkably smoothly.
As the enormous moving truck pulled into my cul-de-sac, my wonderful next-door neighbor, who has moved many times herself, looked at me and asked, “Have you lost your mind yet?”
To my surprise, I laughed and answered, “Not yet.”
The truth is that I am feeling surprisingly calm.
My last move was anything but calm. From beginning to end, it was a difficult experience. This move has been entirely different. The movers have been punctual, thoughtful, and remarkably considerate. At the end of the day, they even left my bedside lamp unpacked so that I would have a reading light for one last night in my home.
Several times during the day, both the lead driver and one of the crew members said the same thing to me:
“Don’t worry. We’ve got you.”
Those five words have stayed with me.
Moving is often listed among life’s most stressful experiences. It requires us to leave what is familiar before we have fully arrived at what comes next. For a time, we find ourselves living between chapters. Our routines disappear. Our surroundings change. Much of what normally gives us a sense of stability is temporarily packed away in boxes.
In that sense, moving is not unique at all. Most of us spend at least part of our lives living between chapters.
We transition into retirement and wonder who we will be without the work that has shaped our days. We watch children leave home and discover that our family life is entering a new season. We grieve losses that forever change us. We begin new jobs, enter new relationships, face health challenges, or find ourselves adapting to a world that seems to shift beneath our feet with unsettling speed.
We rarely know exactly what lies ahead.
The Torah understands these in-between moments well.
Our ancestors spent forty years journeying through the wilderness. The wilderness was never meant to be their final destination. It was the space between where they had been and where they hoped to go. It was uncertain, uncomfortable, and often frightening. Yet it was also where they discovered resilience, faith, and the strength that comes from belonging to something larger than themselves. The wilderness was the place where they became Am Yisrael, the People of Israel.
Perhaps that is why the Israelites traveled as a community. The wilderness is difficult enough. No one should have to navigate it alone.
As I have reflected on these past few days, I have realized that one of life’s greatest blessings is not certainty. It is companionship.
We spend so much energy wishing for guarantees. We want to know that everything will work out, that our plans will unfold exactly as intended, and that the road ahead will be free of obstacles. Yet life rarely offers that kind of certainty.
What life does offer, however, are people: friends, family, neighbors, colleagues.
People who show up.
People who carry part of the load.
People who remind us that even when we feel overwhelmed, we are not alone.
Over the years, one of the greatest privileges of serving as a rabbi has been accompanying individuals, families, and congregations through life’s many transitions. I have walked with people through moments of joy and sorrow, celebration and loss, certainty and uncertainty. Again and again, I have witnessed communities navigate change not because they had all the answers, but because they faced uncertainty together. They leaned on one another. They trusted one another. And when the path ahead seemed unclear, they helped carry one another forward.
Now, as I prepare for my own transition, I find myself drawing upon those same lessons.
As June gives way to July and summer unfolds before us, many of us are standing on the threshold of something new. Some transitions are chosen. Others arrive uninvited. Some are exciting. Others are difficult. Most are a mixture of both.
Whatever wilderness you may be traversing at this moment, I hope you know that you do not have to navigate it by yourself.
Jewish tradition teaches that we are responsible for one another: “Kol Yisrael arevim zeh bah zeh” (B. Talmud 39a). We accompany one another through joy and sorrow, celebration and struggle, certainty and doubt. We help carry one another’s burdens when they become too heavy to bear alone.
Sometimes that support arrives in profound and life-changing ways.
Sometimes it arrives through a simple sentence spoken at exactly the right moment:
“Don’t worry. We’ve got you.”
May we each have the blessing of hearing those words when we need them most.
And may we also have the wisdom and compassion to say them to someone else.
“Don’t worry. I’ve got you.”
Shabbat Shalom!
