Time: Our Precious Resource
Some years ago, a watch called Tikker came on the market. It was designed to show us how short our lives can be and by estimating our life expectancy, emphasize how we should make the most of each second as we watch them tick away.
Depending on how you live it, life can be both ephemeral and lengthy.
Recently my family and I attended the fantastic Celebrate Israel Day and while spending time wandering among the exhibits with my kids, we met a woman from our community we had not seen for a while. It was clear that she didn’t recognize my children and as I introduced them by name, she marveled at their grownup appearance. Partly to herself and partly to me, she commented how “time just keeps marching on”.
That’s something to which we can all relate: the ongoing passing of time. Time takes no breaks; it takes no pauses or rests. It just keeps marching on. A day becomes a week then becomes a month then becomes a year, and, before we know it, we find ourselves looking back at an entire lifetime that has passed, wondering where exactly it went.
Jewish practice has its way of dealing with the inevitable passing of time. It’s a curious exercise we do Between Passover and the holiday of Shavuot - we count time. Every evening we make a blessing and proclaim,” Today is the first day”, “Today is the second day,” until 49 days have passed and Shavuot arrives. What’s the purpose of this exercise? Are we counting just for the fun of it?
In the seven weeks between Passover and Shavuot we know there will be exactly 49 days. There were only 49 days last year — there have only been 49 days for the last thousand years, and I’ll be willing to bet that there will only be 49 days this year as well. Yet, year after year, we count those same 49 days. It’s strange, right?
The answer lies in the etymology of the Hebrew word for counting—Sephirah. The word Sephirah has another meaning aside for counting—it means “to shine”. In fact, the English word sapphire is Semitic in origin, and is related to the Hebrew word Sephirah.
What does this all mean?
We cannot stop time. We cannot cause it to pause nor slow down its passage. What we can do, though, is illuminate the time we were given- we can make our time shine. How do we achieve that? By counting time. By being mindful of the time that constantly passes, and the infinite new opportunities every second brings. The more we acknowledge the immense gift behind every passing moment, the better we can unpack the unbounded potential it contains.
In the words of Maria Edgeworth, a famous English writer, “If we take care of the moments, the years will take care of themselves.”
A lifetime is a collection of years, a year a collection of days, a day a collection of minutes, and a minute a collection of seconds. When we treasure the value of a moment, and we see to it that it is utilized effectively, we create a minute, then a day, then a year, then a lifetime of mindful being and purposeful living.
There is a lot to be gained from counting time. The short moments our lives grant us are too precious to spend on idle gossip and useless hate. Life is too short to wait for the perfect mood, or to keep pushing things off until the perfect time.
Let us work together to put this into practice: “Today is one day”— all that exists is the present moment. We have the power to make sure it will shine. Let’s do it!