Hello, everyone. I hope you had a wonderful Purim last week! I had an almost strangely calm one, and it was nice.
Recently, I read The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum to my nephews. This is a great illustration of the hero’s journey. It was fun for me to revisit the book as an adult and read it as an allegory of life’s journeys.
When Dorothy’s house lands in Munchkin Land, she’s propelled forward onto a journey to find her way home. It’s a journey she takes against her own will, of course — after all, she would have never chosen to be hurled away by a cyclone from everything comfortable and familiar — but so it is with most journeys in life. We don’t choose them, we’re just placed on a path and following the path forward is the only option. Of course, Dorothy is joined by companions who are on parallel journeys — and so it is in life, we have individual needs but we find companions along the road to travel with. Dorothy and her companions confront a variety of obstacles along the way, some seeming to spell the end for them, but help always comes eventually and they continue on.
Near the end of the story, Dorothy and her companions meet with Glinda the Good, who tells Dorothy how to get back to Kansas:
“Your silver shoes will carry you over the desert,” [said] Glinda. “If you had known their power you could have gone back to your Aunt Em the very first day you came to this country.”
Seriously??? Like, now you tell me? But. But…
“But then I should not have had my wonderful brains!” cried the Scarecrow. “I might have passed my whole life in the farmer’s cornfield.”
“And I should not have had my lovely heart,” said the Tin Woodman. “I might have stood and rusted in the forest till the end of the world.”
“And I should have lived a coward forever,” declared the Lion, “and no beast in all the forest would have had a good word to say to me.”
Our journeys happen for many reasons and touch many people. We don’t know why things go the way they go but everything happens for a reason and the reason is Good. We just need to trust that putting one silver shoe in front of the other along the yellow brick road will bring us home.
Have a great Shabbos!