Three "Bad Things," Kappora!

There's a "legend" of sorts that bad news comes in three's.  Something in my mind connects this with the post I wrote last night about my husband's visit to the emergency ward. 

It's rare for me to break things, but yesterday three relatively minor things broke:

• my thermos, which I fill with hot delicious (less expensive and much better than buying ready-made) coffee
• a pen which I found leaking in my bag, dirtying my yoman, pocket diary/schedule
• the metal tab for pulling the zipper on my good backpack

About the thermos, it had been one of those amazing free give-aways with instant coffee one Pesach time.  I knew that I had another one (from the same sort of source) in a closet, found it immediately and quickly made another pot of coffee.  Yes, of course it broke when it was full of steaming vanilla flavored (from good vanilla extract, not the fake flavored junk) percolated Turkish coffee with milk and sugar.

Kappora!  There's a Jewish concept that something material like the things that broke can be atonement, instead of human lives and illnesses.  I used to be the most hysterical person about anything breaking.  Not long ago I mentioned to one of my kids that we're probably rare in that we have the same drinking glasses for close to forty years, and she said that's because everyone always lived in terror of breaking anything, because I'd get so angry.  Now, I see it all differently.  Priorities, let the material things go and keep us all safe, sound and healthy!  Kappora!

May this be a refuah shleimah for Natalie Netany) bat Chaya Rasia