It’s about time

A local shul advertises a time management course for the community. On the given day, the rabbi gets a call enquiring what time the course on time management will be held. “Six-ish” says the rabbi …

You may have heard of “Jewish mean time”. It’s not a compliment. Yet Judaism is actually quite preoccupied with time.

Consider that a family in mourning observes what is prosaically called “shiva”, literally translated as, “seven”, for the seven-day period of intense mourning. This period is followed by “thirty”, and then a “year’s time”. Couldn’t we come up with more profound names for this searing experience? Because in Judaism, what one needs to know, is not how much am I spending on this thing, but how much time am I giving for it?

Significantly, the Torah refers to Yom Kippur in this week’s parsha as “achat bashanah”, the one day of the year. We’re given 24 hours to focus on our relationship with G-d, ask forgiveness, and celebrate the intimacy that the Jew has with their creator. Twenty-four hours to tap into the deepest recesses of our soul and discover the Jewish child within. Twenty-four hours to tip the scales in our favour. Not just any day, the one day.

And here lies the mystery of the mitzvah to count the Omer, when we count the days from Pesach to Shavuot. As the Lubavitcher Rebbe points out, one normally counts things which fluctuate, like money, so you can determine how much you have. But no matter how many times you count time, you can never get more of it, so what’s the point of counting time?

I vividly recall the first time I entered the Rebbe’s holy study after his passing. From this room, for more than 50 years, the Rebbe guided, inspired, taught Torah, and expanded the Chabad movement into today’s vanguard of Jewish consciousness. Yet, the first thing I noticed wasn’t the books that lined every bit of wall space, rather I noticed the clocks. A small room, measuring about 5m², had four or five clocks. Does a Rebbe even need a clock to tell time?

Time management expert Laura Vanderkam of TED Talks fame makes the point that truly successful people “stretch time”. The more one is aware of time, the more one masters time. And a master of time gets more done. Her research shows that when we say, “I don’t have time,” what we really mean is, “It’s not a priority.” There’s always time. It’s just a question of what you want to do with it.

Similarly, the Rebbe teaches that the bridge from the physical freedom of Pesach to the spiritual liberation of Shavuot is built by valuing time. By actively noticing each day, we utilise each day fully. Perhaps that’s why the Rebbe had a clock in each direction. By knowing at any given moment what time it was, he was then in a position to choose how to fill that time.

So, whether it’s the 24 transformative hours of Yom Kippur, the seven days of mourning – G-d forbid, or just noticing the gift of today, be a master of time. You have enough time. What do you want to do with it?

Rabbi Dovid Wineberg – Hamakom (The Space) Cape Town