Word Prompt – SHVITZ – Ann Diament Koffsky

As we walk to shul in the 90-degree heat, work or attend an outdoor camp, or just load our groceries into the car, we will all be doing some serious shvitizng in the coming, hot summer months.

But besides perspiration, the word shvitzing can also suggest effort. (I’m shvitzing here working on this word prompt, for example!)

Or sometimes, I shvitz in worry, wondering when and how my kids will overcome their next challenge. Or how the war in Israel is going. Or the Jewish community here in America is faring.

We learn in Bereishis that the very first person who shvitzed was actually the very first person: Adam HaRishon. Hashem tells him there that he will have to earn his food by the sweat (or shvitz) of his brow.

That means there is something ordained in the shvitz: that, as humans, we all must make our effort, we must worry. We can’t escape it. If it’s baked into the character of Adam HaRishon, it is therefore baked into our nature and who we are, too.

So, dear reader, if you are out there shvitzing, and working hard, and worrying – that means you are human. You’re doing it right.

But I hope that it’s not too much effort and it’s not too much worrying. Because the shvitz that Adam suffered was a curse; and curses are things that we are allowed to try and fight, and thwart, and mitigate.

And so: This summer, as you work and worry and toil…I wish you much air conditioning! And perhaps even a refreshing dunk in the pool.