“There is a crack in everything/That’s how the light gets in.”

-Leonard Cohen

Ok, folks.

Raise your hand if you’re living your life according to Plan A… (cricket’s. Silence. The most awkward of silences).

Ok…Raise your hand if you’re living your life according to Plan B… (a few hands gingerly spike up).

What about Plan C? (The hands shoot up a bit faster now).

Plan D? (Dozens).

Plan E? (Dozens more!).

Let’s get real: None of us are living our lives according to Plan A. Plan A was birth…after that, it was just a matter of winging it until the pieces of our lives fit together.

Hashem designed this world in broken fragments. Think about the events and the timelines of this world. Avraham was definitely not living according to Plan A. Yosef? Heck No. Moshe? Certainly not.

All of these people—these divine, holy people—were living their lives according to Plan WXYZ. Was Plan A ever part of the deal? More than that, each of them had to come to terms with and cope with a broken version of their lives and the lives they took on in spite of their plans falling through. Their worlds ‘shattered’ so to speak. One life ended, and another instantaneously began. And who they were before those moments no longer matter,

Are you familiar with the “I Died But I’m Not Dead” feeling? That disturbing feeling of watching your life shatter in two, and knowing that, no matter what, you can no longer return to who you once claimed to be. It’s the icky, sticky, ‘my life is ruined but I’m still here” feeling.

I’ve been there, and let me tell ya, it didn’t make for a pretty picture. Promising opportunities turned into dead ends, relationships turned into heartbreaks…there were plenty of times that I thought I had it ‘all figured out’ only to find that Hashem wanted to stretch me further into an entirely different direction. It’s like driving on a dimly lit road at night with a GSP that reroutes every 10 minutes. There’s a destination somewhere in the horizon, but it’s never quite as close as you’d expect.

That feeling? It might not take a lot to get you there. Sometimes it’s the smallest things, and sometimes it’s the big ones. But, at some point in your life, I’m sorry to tell you, you will feel that excruciating pain of realizing that your life as you knew it is over, and you’ll never get it back.

Ask anyone you know—go ahead, go ask them right now—and they’ll tell you that they are most certainly not living their lives according to their plans.

But when does life ever go according to plan?

Our ownership of Judaism, right there after receiving the Ten Commandments on Har Sinai began this very way. The destruction of the first luchos was devastating. There we were, after having made a covenant with Hashem and receiving the Torah only days before, breaking our promises and every ounce of hope that came with it. Boom. Crash. Down went the luchos, down went the plan.

This was the worst possible thing that could ever happen. This was most definitely the end of the world.

Except that it wasn’t. Except that it isn’t now either.

Destruction is an opportunity for growth. But, it’s not so simple to look at the worst possible things that could happen to you as an opportunity to grow and behold a new life. As the Red Hot Chili Peppers so eloquently put it: “Destruction leads to a very rough road but it also breeds creation.” Yes, but first it’ll tear you in two and make you feel like lying on the floor in fetal position and crying for days (or years).

The destruction of the luchos was the worst possible scenario, but from the wreckage, came something new. It was different, it was not as planned, but it gave the Yidden the opportunity to better appreciate and respect what they were given, and work harder to make the second round count.

Were they perfect? Far from it. Did they make mistakes? You bet. Were there many more destructions to come? Unfortunately, yes. But, with each crack, a new light, a new opportunity, a new chance for growth emerged.

And that, is a sense, is what we’re all doing here: stepping through the cracks in order to recognize a better outcome on the other side. Brace yourselves: The glass is sharp, but it sure is pretty. Moreover, what lives beyond the wreckage might just be better than any outcome you yourself could have planned.

Onwards, my friends!