I was driving back to the Shule office this week after dropping the kids at school and I saw the most incredible and perhaps crazy thing I have seen on the road for a long time. Traffic was quite slow and I was travelling in the right hand lane.  The left lane was at a standstill. As I drove past the vehicle that was holding everyone up I noticed that the guy was fast asleep at the wheel. I am talking about a full on sleep, head tilted back and perhaps he was even snoring had I been able to hear him. As I moved a little further a guy got out his car and walked over, knocked on the window and then the driver woke up and seemed to have got the fright of his life. He quickly stepped on the gas and sped off.

I obviously have no clue about the driver’s background or what his schedule might be like but if someone is having a full-fledged sleep on the road, one would assume he needs to get some more sleep at night! He is not only putting his own life at risk but the life of those around him!

Sitting in my office some time later I had time to reflect on this. As I have mentioned before, the Chassidic masters teach that everything we see or hear can serve as a lesson in our own life. The message I took from this was that sometimes in life everything may appear in order. We may have the vehicle, we’re on the road, and there is petrol in the car and traffic all around us. However we are fast asleep. We are missing everything that is happening around us because we are vershloft!

We may be living and going through the motions of life but we are in fact ‘asleep’. We are missing out on all that is happening around us. We are missing out on enjoying time with our children, spending time with our spouses or parents or accomplishing the goals we had set out for ourselves!
We need to wake up and pay attention to the important aspects of our life!

Wishing you a beautiful Shabbat and weekend ahead!