stop.. wait.. go..

A few days ago, I was driving down the street, when I approached a red light at the intersection. As I pressed on the break, I noticed 3 little boys crossing the street. They were walking, completely oblivious to the big dangerous machine that was driving towards them. The car stopped and I watched them, calmly strolling across the street, talking about whatever it is 8 year old boys talk about, one of them holding a ball in his hand, neither of them glancing over at my car.

Suddenly I got this thought in my mind, how could they be so careless and indifferent? Didn’t they realize that if I hadn’t stopped the car, I could have hit them? I could have driven right through the street, just as they were crossing! I was amazed at how calm and unaware they were to the danger they had just escaped. I wondered how it was that these three little boys could cross right in front of a potential killing machine without flinching.. and then it occurred to me that the reason they had barely even noticed me was because I was at a red light and they had the green light. It was my time to stop and their time to safely cross the street.

Now I know you’re thinking 'she cant possibly be writing a blog post about the wonders of traffic lights', well you're right, its actually a post about the wonders and beauty of boundaries.

Whether they're boundaries given to us by the Torah, or boundaries we've established in our relationships, I think these serve not only to protect us, but to enable growth and development. Rules or boundaries give us security, and only when we feel secure can we reduce the fear factor and raise the growth factor. When I have set boundaries I am able to explore and dare much more than when I have complete 'freedom'. In a situation without rules, I'm theoritically free to do as I please, but I lack the ability put that into practice because I am constantly worrying about the potential dangers.


Remember when you were a kid and you would jump on the bed? You’d jump in the middle of the bed, up and down and up and down… and then you’d start to get bored and eventually get a little more daring and get closer and closer to the edge. You could only go so far, though, before you'd risk falling off the bed. Now imagine there had been a fence around the bed that would protect you from falling over, you’d have been able to jump across the entire bed, with no fear of tumbling off. The result would be that by adding this barrier you’d have a much greater area to jump on. This seemingly limiting addition would in fact give you more freedom, the freedom to jump around the entire bed area.

Rules and boundaries act in that way, they delimit how far we can go, but contrary to our intuitive reaction, they don’t reduce how much benefit we can get, instead, they increase the range we can benefit from.

So back to those three little boys, if there was no green light for them and no red light for me, they still could have crossed the street, but they’d have no way of knowing when it would be safe. They would need to approximate and evaluate the speed of my car and how long it would take them to get to the other side, they then would run across just to be extra safe, and in the end they’d either make it..
or not..

Removing those traffic lights would in theory grant me the freedom to drive when I wanted to, and them the freedom to walk when they wanted to, but in reality both of us would be worried to cross at the wrong time. The lawlessness would in fact hinder our peace of mind and freedom to cross freely and carefree.

So.. the next time i feel that a rule I've taken on myself, or a boundary I've established in a relationship, is stifling or reducing my range of movement, I'll try to remember the carefree crossing of these three boys and remind myself that it is precisely those ‘constraints’ that give me the freedom to stroll through life with peace of mind while benefiting from a fuller range of experiences.