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December 24, 1999/15 Tevet 5760, Vol. 52, No.17
Millennial message: Time of the essence
GARY ROSENBLATT
New York Jewish Week
Dealing with time is always a bit of a mystery. Like what happens if you get a 24-hour virus on the day you change the clocks in the spring or the fall? The virus doesn't know when to leave.
Or how many times a day is one obligated to pray when traveling through space? Be assured that rabbinical scholars, no longer content with contemplating how many angels can dance on the head of a pin, have taken up the davening-in-space question, and when trips to the moon become common, the folks at Lunar Lubavitch will surely sponsor preparatory speed-praying courses.
Looking back in time, ever wonder what life was like toward the end of the year 999? Did people worry about Y1K, obsessing over whether their abacus or sundial would still be working on Jan. 1? Were they afraid to travel on that fateful day?
I once had an elderly rebbe as a teacher for four hours a day, and our class would move the clock forward to shorten our time with him, each week a little more. On the Sunday morning in April that began Daylight Savings Time, it was 10 a.m. "new" time, and we'd already set the clock to 11. We tried to convince him that the wall clock was still on the old time and hadn't been reset. We said it should be noon. He insisted that it had been reset and should stay at 11. This went on, back and forth until, finally, exasperated, the poor rabbi sought a compromise and exclaimed in Yiddish, "Alright, boys, mach halb nach elf - make it 11:30."
In another rabbi's class, we sensed that he dreaded teaching us even more than we dreaded sitting there. So in our most diabolical move, we pushed the clock backward, forcing him to endure us an extra 15 or 20 minutes a day.
Time is relative, flexible, and the most powerful constant - and motivator - in our temporal lives. We are morbidly aware of its fleeting nature, but that very awareness makes our every pleasure all the more precious.
In the last days of the 20th century, perhaps a bit of millennium madness has affected us all, reminding us of our place in history and of the vastness of time, whether we measure it in millions or thousands of years since the world's creation.
Judaism teaches a most valuable lesson about time, the concept of sanctifying it, as we do each week on Shabbat, carving out a spiritual and personal oasis of 25 hours from our all-too hectic workweek lives. Throughout history, even the poorest Jews, who worked like slaves all week, were transformed into royalty on the Sabbath, at least in their hearts and minds. For them it was a day of rest, relaxation, reflection and rejoicing, when they were able to transcend their earthly misery and taste a bit of heaven and eternity.
The Shabbat sustained us as a people, replenishing within us the strength and faith to go on. Now, as always, we must learn to accept the limits of time and rise above its constraints by infusing holiness into the ordinary and the profane.
The Jewish calendar lives and breathes, as we painstakingly determine whether a festival is celebrated seven or eight days, depending on whether we are in or outside of Israel, and what time Sabbath candles are lit, or Yom Kippur ends. The underlying lesson? Time is what we have - all we have - to change our lives and our world, and we must make the most of it.
For us, the new millennium is less about marking time since the birth of Jesus than it is a reminder that time is our most fleeting and valuable gift, and we must treat every moment with reverence. Hillel asked, "If not now, when?" and the echo of his challenge should resonate within us always.
Gary Rosenblatt is editor and publisher of the New York Jewish Week.
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