"Hashem, please let me enjoy Shabbos again."
— Sara Minkin
When my children were around two or three years old, I remember how miserable Shabbos felt.
I know that is not the kind of thing we are always comfortable saying out loud. Shabbos is supposed to be beautiful. A gift. A me'ein Olam HaBa.
But I wasn't enjoying it.
My children were so difficult, and I constantly felt like I was failing as a mother. They were my first children. I didn't know what was normal and what wasn't. I didn't have anything to compare my motherhood to.
One of my children had special needs, although at the time I didn't fully understand what that meant for our family or for me as a mother.
There were comments.
There were questions.
There were so many opinions.
Why does your child do that?
Why don't you do this?
Have you tried this?
Maybe you should be stricter.
Maybe you are doing too much.
Maybe you are not doing enough.
And slowly, all those questions started becoming my own questions.
Maybe I am a bad mother.
Shabbos became especially hard. The lack of routine, the long hours, the expectations of a beautiful family meal and happy children. I would look around and feel like everyone else knew how to do this except me.
Then came Rosh Hashanah.
That year, I don't remember davening for health.
I don't remember asking for parnassah.
I don't remember asking Hashem for all the things we are supposed to want for the coming year.
I remember asking for one thing.
Hashem, please let me enjoy Shabbos again.
That was my tefillah.
And Hashem gave me the biggest bracha that Rosh Hashanah.
He didn't make my Shabbos perfect. He didn't suddenly make my children easier. He didn't turn my life into the version I thought it was supposed to be.
He gave me something much bigger.
He allowed me to see my life through different lenses.
Is every Shabbos perfect now? No.
Does my house suddenly feel like a me'ein Olam HaBa every Friday night? Definitely not.
My children are still my children. There are still challenges. There is still noise. There are still moments when things don't look anything like the beautiful Shabbos table I once imagined motherhood would be.
But I see the bracha.
I enjoy Shabbos again.
Maybe not every minute. Maybe not in the perfect way I once thought I was supposed to.
But Shabbos was given back to me.
Looking back, I also understand something I couldn't understand then: I wasn't parenting with the same information I have now. I was a first-time mother trying to understand a child with needs I didn't yet know how to name.
And while everyone around me had comments and questions, I was quietly questioning my entire motherhood.
Life can be so beautiful when you are able to accept what you have and see the bracha inside of it.
Maybe that was what I was really asking for when I begged Hashem to let me enjoy Shabbos again.
I thought I was asking Him to change my life.
Instead, He changed the way I saw it.
"I thought I was asking Hashem to change my life. Instead, He changed the way I saw it."
— Sara Minkin
