Keeping ourselves and our surroundings clean is an important Torah value. In this week’s Torah portion (23:14), we learn about the extra care the people took to keep their camp hygienic. Cleanliness isn’t only good for our bodies—it’s good for our souls!
In our story, a kid finds out that it’s not so bad to...come clean.
STANDING ROOM ONLY
Kovi was lying on his bed — that is, the small part of it that wasn’t piled up with laundry, both dirty and clean, about a year’s worth of sports magazines, and assorted half-empty snack packages in various stages of decay — when he thought he heard his cell phone ringing from beneath one of the piles.
After digging through the debris obscuring his desk, the boy managed to find his phone and flip it on.
“Hey, Kovi! You psyched to go to the big game today?” Benny’s voice boomed through the phone.
“You bet I am!” Kovi said. “And it’s a good thing we’ve got reserved tickets. I heard the game’s been sold out for days."
“Of course it’s sold out,” Benny said. “This game’s the talk of the town — it could decide who wins the division championship! Listen, the stadium shuttle bus leaves in an hour. I’ll meet you at the pick-up stop, okay?”
“No prob,” Kovi said, clicking off with a smile.
Kovi stretched back out on his bed when the thought crossed his mind that he’d promised his mom he’d clean his room today. Of course, he’d been promising that for a lot of days, and somehow, it just hadn’t happened. Maybe tomorrow. Right now, his head was swimming in thoughts of bats and balls, cheering crowds, and maybe even an autograph if he was lucky. He tried to remember which row his and Benny’s seats were. Well, easy enough to just check the ticket and find out, Kovi thought, as he reached over to the one cleared-off spot on the trash-packed shelf where he’d put it.
Suddenly he froze. The ticket wasn’t there!
Kovi rifled through the shelf, then the desk beneath it — but no ticket. Where could it be? He looked around his room — which could have been designated as the National Museum of Clutter—and sighed. It would be like looking for a needle in a haystack.
The only possible way to find it would be to do the thing he thought he never would...
Like a cleaning cyclone, Kovi began to stack, straighten, and organize his room, corner after corner, searching for the priceless ticket, tossing all his dirty clothes in the until-then empty hamper and all the trash he came across into the big garbage bag his mom had dropped off as a hint a couple of days ago.
He glanced up at the wall clock and groaned. If he didn’t find the ticket soon...he couldn’t even think about it.
More time passed, and by now, Kovi was frantic. His room was looking neat as a pin, but still no ticket! In despair, Kovi tossed himself down on his now-cleared-off bed and dug his head into his pillow. Why was his pillowcase so stiff?
Oh, no!...Oh, yeah!!! Now he remembered. He’d stuck the ticket in his pillowcase last night so he’d have good baseball dreams! Kovi quickly fished the precious ticket out of the pillowcase, stuffed it into his pocket, and started running out the door. He could still make the shuttle bus!
As he glanced back at his now neat and clean room, Kovi gave a smile. If he’d only found the ticket earlier...well, maybe it wasn’t so bad to make his mom happy and...he had to admit...give himself a much more pleasant place to live.
