Hello! Sure, I can help you check the status of your reservation. Encountering problems missing reservations can be inconvenient on your part. I too, can relate to how you feel when things don’t go as expected. Please allow me to help you find a solution to your concern. Thank you.

I found this response from the airline to be touching and considerate.  To use the modern vernacular, they were holding space for my frustration and inconvenience. They were being with my discomfort.

To appreciate the beauty of the garden one must first appreciate the darkness that might exist in the absence of the garden. The more we can appreciate the darkness the more we appreciate the light.

The Rebbe in his first discourse as Rebbe in 1951 (commemorating this day, the 10th of Shevat this Shabbos) gave our generation a mandate; to restore G-d’s world into a garden.  

Over the years of the Rebbe’s leadership, the Rebbe pushed his emissaries and in fact everyone who he came in contact with, to find the dark places in the world around them and illuminate them.

The Rebbe taught this in his teachings as well, particularly on this annual anniversary of the passing of the Previous Rebbe and the day of the Rebbe’s leadership. In one of these teachings, he focuses on the darkness within our life’s experiences. The Rebbe emphasizes that to recognize the darkness is to be with it, to embody the discomfort or to be present with it.

Why would we want to do that? Why would we want to be in that space?

The Rebbe taught that G-d is most found in the absence of light. It is in the places that make the least sense, that are the most uncomfortable, that the only presence that can be there is the unknowable, beyond comprehension G-d alone.

When we can embrace that truth, we can then move through the darkness into the garden and into the light.

These past 16 months have been very dark and challenging for our People. Our job is to not run from it, but rather lean into it and begin to appreciate the wonderful garden around us.

Then we can embrace our mandate and clean up the garden and restore the Shechina back.

Keep strong, lean in, Moshiach is coming!