Rabbi YY Jacobson
8 viewsRabbi YY Jacobson
Always Late
Sarah was always late to work no matter how much she tried to be on time, or how many times her boss scolded her. She just could not wake up on time. Her boss said she would fire her if it did not stop. Sarah decided to seek the advice of her doctor. He prescribed her some medication and told her to take one pill before going to sleep. She did and she woke up before the alarm clock sounded and headed into work feeling well rested. Sarah told her boss about the doctor’s prescription and how well it worked.
Her boss said, “That is great, Sarah, but where were you yesterday?”
Talking Too Much
A time management expert at a conference was to give a speech about her success in business and how time management plays a huge part of business success. She engaged the crowd and she loved so much what she was saying that it appeared to her that the crowd was loving it too (this happens often to many a Rabbi…) Suddenly, she realized she had been talking for many hours. She stopped to apologize to the wary group and explained that she had left her watch at home. A voice came from the audience, “There is a calendar next to you.”
Choosing the World
It is a very strange Midrash, found in this week’s Torah portion, Bo. At the surface, it seems baffling, but upon deeper reflection it contains an extraordinary meditation on how we live our lives.
The Jewish calendar has twelve (sometimes thirteen) lunar months. The first day of each month is known as Rosh Chodesh (the head of the month). The first day of the year (the first day of the first month of the year) is known as Rosh Hashanah (the head of the year.)
Says the Midrash: [1]
משבחר הקב"ה בעולמו קבע בו ראשי חדשים ושנים, ומשבחר ביעקב ובניו קבע בו ראש-חודש של גאולה.
“When G-d chose His world, He established ‘heads of months’ and ‘heads of years.’ [Each month has an opening day, known as Rosh Chodesh, the head of the month, and each year has an opening day, known as Rosh Hashanah, the head of the year. These were established when G-d chose the world.] When G-d chose Jacob and his children [the Jewish people], He established the ‘head of the month of redemption’” [the first day of the month of Exodus, Nissan, established in this week’s portion as the first month of the year.”]
What does this Midrashic tradition mean? What does it mean “when G-d chose his world?” Did He first create it and only then choose it? And why was the result of this choosing the world the establishment of system of Rosh Chodesh and Rosh Hashanah? And what does it mean that “when G-d chose Jacob and his children, He established the Head of the month of redemption,” the first of the day of Nissan? The Hebrew month of Nissan is a month like all others and would obviously necessitate its own Rosh Chodesh with the establishment of the initial calendar, regardless of G-d “choosing Jacob and his children?”
The average reader would bypass this Midrash as merely curious and enigmatic. Today I wish to present to you an insight presented by the Lubavitcher Rebbe, in an address from 1964 to a group of teen-age girls, studying in a New York Jewish girls’ high school. [2]
This profound perspective can teach us volumes about how to view a one-liner in the Midrash, and how to talk to teen-age girls.
This coming Monday marks the sixtieth anniversary of the leadership of the Lubavitcher Rebbe, who succeeded his father-in-law as the leader of Chabad 60 years ago, on the 10th of Shevat 1950. Instead of talking about the Rebbe, I want to share an insight of the Rebbe, a teaching of the Rebbe, one which captures something of the Rebbe’s approach not only to the study of Midrash, but to life itself.
Three Types of Time
Aristotle once asked his pupils: Who is the best teacher, who kills all of his students?
The answer is: Time!
There is no “teacher” like time. What we learn through time and aging is unparalleled by any lesson, degree or teacher. The experience of life is the greatest teacher. The saying goes: When a man with money meets a man with experience, the man with experience ends up with the money; the man with the money ends up with an experience…
And yet time kills us all. The clock stops for nobody. You may be sleeping, sipping a coffee, surfing the web or reading the newspaper, the clock is ticking away. How do we deal with the merciless reality of time?
There are three ways, suggests the Midrash. There are three types of time, or three ways to deal with the reality of time. There is depressing time, productive time and sacred time.
Depressing Time
For some, time is just an endless flow, a shapeless blob, a random stream which never ceases. A day comes and a day goes, and then another day comes and goes. Each day is exactly the same as the day before, and they add up to nothing.
Sometimes you watch people who allow their days, weeks, months and years to pass without expectations, goals, ambitions, schedules, or structures. Time is meaningless. Every day is an invitation to squander yet another 24 hours, until it too will bite the dust. If the boredom gets to you, you escape it by shopping, buying new toys, watching TV, eating, sleeping, or other forms of fun which keep our minds off the void.
This is time devoid of any theme. Time as it is on its own, without any human initiative and creativity. The way time is on its own without human intervention is indeed shapeless and formless. One set of 24 hours is indistinguishable from another set of 24 hours.
Productive Time
Comes the Midrash and says, “When G-d chose His world, He established ‘heads of months’ and ‘heads of years.’” For the world to become a chosen place, a desirable habitat, a place worth living in, the human being must grant the endless flow of time the dignity of purpose. Every day ought to have a productive objective, every month—a meaningful goal, every year—a dynamic rhythm. The world G-d chose and desired was one in which humanity learns to confer meaning on time, to utilize it for constructive and beneficial endeavors.
“When G-d chose His world, He established ‘heads of months’ and ‘heads of years.’” For time to be utilized purposefully, every month must have a “head,” which gives the month its tone and direction. Every year must have a “head,” Rosh Hashanah, the time to put into focus the year that passed and the year ahead. For time to be used productively it must be delineated.
Sacred Time
You can live a productive life, imbue your days with objectives to met, your months with goals to be achieved and your years with heights to be reached. Your time is being used meaningfully and eloquently. Your life has rhythm. You have a morning, a night, a lunch break, a week-end, a vacation. Unlike a depressed teenager or a couch potato, you take note of a sunrise and sunset, of a new month and a new year. Each presents you with a specific calling.
But you are still confined within the realm of a mortal, finite and frail universe. Within the restricted structure of our bodies, our life span and our circumstances, we can manage to compose a tune our time. Yet, we can’t free ourselves from the prison of human reality. And at any moment something can happen which will shake up and destroy our entire structure.
Here is where the Midrash opens us up to another dimension of time, and this is where the Jewish story is introduces into history. “When G-d chose Jacob and his children He established the head of the month of Redemption.” G-d gave us the ability to liberate and redeem ourselves from our natural, mortal, finite, earthly experience. He allowed us not just to be productive with our time, but to confer upon each moment transcendence, to grant it the resonance of eternity, to liberate it and ourselves from the shackles of earthly reality.
You can be productive with your time. You can use it to shovel the snow, or mow the loan, fix the garage, read a good book, shop in Costco, enhance your computer speed, sell a building, cook a gourmet meal. But you are capable of more: You can make each moment Divine, elevating it to the realm of the sacred, where each moment, hour, day, week, month and year become infused with G-dliness and are thus transformed into true and ultimate experience, filled with absolute and authentic meaning.
“When G-d chose Jacob and his children He established the head of the month of Redemption.” This is the month of Nissan, the month when we were set free of Egyptian bondage, and were empowered to free ourselves from every form of bondage. Torah makes our time not only productive, but also sacred and Divine.
When you utilize your time to study G-d’s Torah, to perform a Divine commandment, or to do something for G-d, your time is not only purposeful but it is redemptive, uninhibited by the shackles of the world, soaring toward true freedom.
Our calling and challenge in life is to turn depressing time into productive time and productive time into sacred time.
[1] Shemos Rabba 15:11.
[2] This was the graduating class of Beis Rivkah. The talk is published in Likutei Sichos vol. 4 p. 1263. The Rebbe bases his explanation on Or Hatorah Bo p. 264. This Sicah is an extraordinary example of how to “translate” a maamar into relevant language. The maamar in Or Hatorah is very abstract and the Rebbe applied it in the most practical and relevant way.
It is one of those very strange Midrashim. “When G-d chose His world, He established ‘heads of months’ and ‘heads of years.’ When G-d chose Jacob and his children, He established the ‘head of the month of redemption’.” What does it mean “when G-d chose his world?” Did He first create it and only then choose it? And why was the result of this choosing the world the establishment of system of Rosh Chodesh and Rosh Hashanah? And what does it mean that “when G-d chose Jacob and his children, He established the Head of the month of redemption,” the first of the day of Nissan?
In an address to teen-age girls, the Lubavitcher Rebbe showed how this Midrash is introducing us to three forms of time: Depressing Time, Productive Time and Sacred Time. Our calling and challenge in life is to turn depressing time into productive time and productive time into sacred time.
Always Late
Sarah was always late to work no matter how much she tried to be on time, or how many times her boss scolded her. She just could not wake up on time. Her boss said she would fire her if it did not stop. Sarah decided to seek the advice of her doctor. He prescribed her some medication and told her to take one pill before going to sleep. She did and she woke up before the alarm clock sounded and headed into work feeling well rested. Sarah told her boss about the doctor’s prescription and how well it worked.
Her boss said, “That is great, Sarah, but where were you yesterday?”
Talking Too Much
A time management expert at a conference was to give a speech about her success in business and how time management plays a huge part of business success. She engaged the crowd and she loved so much what she was saying that it appeared to her that the crowd was loving it too (this happens often to many a Rabbi…) Suddenly, she realized she had been talking for many hours. She stopped to apologize to the wary group and explained that she had left her watch at home. A voice came from the audience, “There is a calendar next to you.”
Choosing the World
It is a very strange Midrash, found in this week’s Torah portion, Bo. At the surface, it seems baffling, but upon deeper reflection it contains an extraordinary meditation on how we live our lives.
The Jewish calendar has twelve (sometimes thirteen) lunar months. The first day of each month is known as Rosh Chodesh (the head of the month). The first day of the year (the first day of the first month of the year) is known as Rosh Hashanah (the head of the year.)
Says the Midrash: [1]
משבחר הקב"ה בעולמו קבע בו ראשי חדשים ושנים, ומשבחר ביעקב ובניו קבע בו ראש-חודש של גאולה.
“When G-d chose His world, He established ‘heads of months’ and ‘heads of years.’ [Each month has an opening day, known as Rosh Chodesh, the head of the month, and each year has an opening day, known as Rosh Hashanah, the head of the year. These were established when G-d chose the world.] When G-d chose Jacob and his children [the Jewish people], He established the ‘head of the month of redemption’” [the first day of the month of Exodus, Nissan, established in this week’s portion as the first month of the year.”]
What does this Midrashic tradition mean? What does it mean “when G-d chose his world?” Did He first create it and only then choose it? And why was the result of this choosing the world the establishment of system of Rosh Chodesh and Rosh Hashanah? And what does it mean that “when G-d chose Jacob and his children, He established the Head of the month of redemption,” the first of the day of Nissan? The Hebrew month of Nissan is a month like all others and would obviously necessitate its own Rosh Chodesh with the establishment of the initial calendar, regardless of G-d “choosing Jacob and his children?”
The average reader would bypass this Midrash as merely curious and enigmatic. Today I wish to present to you an insight presented by the Lubavitcher Rebbe, in an address from 1964 to a group of teen-age girls, studying in a New York Jewish girls’ high school. [2]
This profound perspective can teach us volumes about how to view a one-liner in the Midrash, and how to talk to teen-age girls.
This coming Monday marks the sixtieth anniversary of the leadership of the Lubavitcher Rebbe, who succeeded his father-in-law as the leader of Chabad 60 years ago, on the 10th of Shevat 1950. Instead of talking about the Rebbe, I want to share an insight of the Rebbe, a teaching of the Rebbe, one which captures something of the Rebbe’s approach not only to the study of Midrash, but to life itself.
Three Types of Time
Aristotle once asked his pupils: Who is the best teacher, who kills all of his students?
The answer is: Time!
There is no “teacher” like time. What we learn through time and aging is unparalleled by any lesson, degree or teacher. The experience of life is the greatest teacher. The saying goes: When a man with money meets a man with experience, the man with experience ends up with the money; the man with the money ends up with an experience…
And yet time kills us all. The clock stops for nobody. You may be sleeping, sipping a coffee, surfing the web or reading the newspaper, the clock is ticking away. How do we deal with the merciless reality of time?
There are three ways, suggests the Midrash. There are three types of time, or three ways to deal with the reality of time. There is depressing time, productive time and sacred time.
Depressing Time
For some, time is just an endless flow, a shapeless blob, a random stream which never ceases. A day comes and a day goes, and then another day comes and goes. Each day is exactly the same as the day before, and they add up to nothing.
Sometimes you watch people who allow their days, weeks, months and years to pass without expectations, goals, ambitions, schedules, or structures. Time is meaningless. Every day is an invitation to squander yet another 24 hours, until it too will bite the dust. If the boredom gets to you, you escape it by shopping, buying new toys, watching TV, eating, sleeping, or other forms of fun which keep our minds off the void.
This is time devoid of any theme. Time as it is on its own, without any human initiative and creativity. The way time is on its own without human intervention is indeed shapeless and formless. One set of 24 hours is indistinguishable from another set of 24 hours.
Productive Time
Comes the Midrash and says, “When G-d chose His world, He established ‘heads of months’ and ‘heads of years.’” For the world to become a chosen place, a desirable habitat, a place worth living in, the human being must grant the endless flow of time the dignity of purpose. Every day ought to have a productive objective, every month—a meaningful goal, every year—a dynamic rhythm. The world G-d chose and desired was one in which humanity learns to confer meaning on time, to utilize it for constructive and beneficial endeavors.
“When G-d chose His world, He established ‘heads of months’ and ‘heads of years.’” For time to be utilized purposefully, every month must have a “head,” which gives the month its tone and direction. Every year must have a “head,” Rosh Hashanah, the time to put into focus the year that passed and the year ahead. For time to be used productively it must be delineated.
Sacred Time
You can live a productive life, imbue your days with objectives to met, your months with goals to be achieved and your years with heights to be reached. Your time is being used meaningfully and eloquently. Your life has rhythm. You have a morning, a night, a lunch break, a week-end, a vacation. Unlike a depressed teenager or a couch potato, you take note of a sunrise and sunset, of a new month and a new year. Each presents you with a specific calling.
But you are still confined within the realm of a mortal, finite and frail universe. Within the restricted structure of our bodies, our life span and our circumstances, we can manage to compose a tune our time. Yet, we can’t free ourselves from the prison of human reality. And at any moment something can happen which will shake up and destroy our entire structure.
Here is where the Midrash opens us up to another dimension of time, and this is where the Jewish story is introduces into history. “When G-d chose Jacob and his children He established the head of the month of Redemption.” G-d gave us the ability to liberate and redeem ourselves from our natural, mortal, finite, earthly experience. He allowed us not just to be productive with our time, but to confer upon each moment transcendence, to grant it the resonance of eternity, to liberate it and ourselves from the shackles of earthly reality.
You can be productive with your time. You can use it to shovel the snow, or mow the loan, fix the garage, read a good book, shop in Costco, enhance your computer speed, sell a building, cook a gourmet meal. But you are capable of more: You can make each moment Divine, elevating it to the realm of the sacred, where each moment, hour, day, week, month and year become infused with G-dliness and are thus transformed into true and ultimate experience, filled with absolute and authentic meaning.
“When G-d chose Jacob and his children He established the head of the month of Redemption.” This is the month of Nissan, the month when we were set free of Egyptian bondage, and were empowered to free ourselves from every form of bondage. Torah makes our time not only productive, but also sacred and Divine.
When you utilize your time to study G-d’s Torah, to perform a Divine commandment, or to do something for G-d, your time is not only purposeful but it is redemptive, uninhibited by the shackles of the world, soaring toward true freedom.
Our calling and challenge in life is to turn depressing time into productive time and productive time into sacred time.
[1] Shemos Rabba 15:11.
[2] This was the graduating class of Beis Rivkah. The talk is published in Likutei Sichos vol. 4 p. 1263. The Rebbe bases his explanation on Or Hatorah Bo p. 264. This Sicah is an extraordinary example of how to “translate” a maamar into relevant language. The maamar in Or Hatorah is very abstract and the Rebbe applied it in the most practical and relevant way.
Parshas Bo 5770
Rabbi YY Jacobson
Rabbi YY Jacobson
Always Late
Sarah was always late to work no matter how much she tried to be on time, or how many times her boss scolded her. She just could not wake up on time. Her boss said she would fire her if it did not stop. Sarah decided to seek the advice of her doctor. He prescribed her some medication and told her to take one pill before going to sleep. She did and she woke up before the alarm clock sounded and headed into work feeling well rested. Sarah told her boss about the doctor’s prescription and how well it worked.
Her boss said, “That is great, Sarah, but where were you yesterday?”
Talking Too Much
A time management expert at a conference was to give a speech about her success in business and how time management plays a huge part of business success. She engaged the crowd and she loved so much what she was saying that it appeared to her that the crowd was loving it too (this happens often to many a Rabbi…) Suddenly, she realized she had been talking for many hours. She stopped to apologize to the wary group and explained that she had left her watch at home. A voice came from the audience, “There is a calendar next to you.”
Choosing the World
It is a very strange Midrash, found in this week’s Torah portion, Bo. At the surface, it seems baffling, but upon deeper reflection it contains an extraordinary meditation on how we live our lives.
The Jewish calendar has twelve (sometimes thirteen) lunar months. The first day of each month is known as Rosh Chodesh (the head of the month). The first day of the year (the first day of the first month of the year) is known as Rosh Hashanah (the head of the year.)
Says the Midrash: [1]
משבחר הקב"ה בעולמו קבע בו ראשי חדשים ושנים, ומשבחר ביעקב ובניו קבע בו ראש-חודש של גאולה.
“When G-d chose His world, He established ‘heads of months’ and ‘heads of years.’ [Each month has an opening day, known as Rosh Chodesh, the head of the month, and each year has an opening day, known as Rosh Hashanah, the head of the year. These were established when G-d chose the world.] When G-d chose Jacob and his children [the Jewish people], He established the ‘head of the month of redemption’” [the first day of the month of Exodus, Nissan, established in this week’s portion as the first month of the year.”]
What does this Midrashic tradition mean? What does it mean “when G-d chose his world?” Did He first create it and only then choose it? And why was the result of this choosing the world the establishment of system of Rosh Chodesh and Rosh Hashanah? And what does it mean that “when G-d chose Jacob and his children, He established the Head of the month of redemption,” the first of the day of Nissan? The Hebrew month of Nissan is a month like all others and would obviously necessitate its own Rosh Chodesh with the establishment of the initial calendar, regardless of G-d “choosing Jacob and his children?”
The average reader would bypass this Midrash as merely curious and enigmatic. Today I wish to present to you an insight presented by the Lubavitcher Rebbe, in an address from 1964 to a group of teen-age girls, studying in a New York Jewish girls’ high school. [2]
This profound perspective can teach us volumes about how to view a one-liner in the Midrash, and how to talk to teen-age girls.
This coming Monday marks the sixtieth anniversary of the leadership of the Lubavitcher Rebbe, who succeeded his father-in-law as the leader of Chabad 60 years ago, on the 10th of Shevat 1950. Instead of talking about the Rebbe, I want to share an insight of the Rebbe, a teaching of the Rebbe, one which captures something of the Rebbe’s approach not only to the study of Midrash, but to life itself.
Three Types of Time
Aristotle once asked his pupils: Who is the best teacher, who kills all of his students?
The answer is: Time!
There is no “teacher” like time. What we learn through time and aging is unparalleled by any lesson, degree or teacher. The experience of life is the greatest teacher. The saying goes: When a man with money meets a man with experience, the man with experience ends up with the money; the man with the money ends up with an experience…
And yet time kills us all. The clock stops for nobody. You may be sleeping, sipping a coffee, surfing the web or reading the newspaper, the clock is ticking away. How do we deal with the merciless reality of time?
There are three ways, suggests the Midrash. There are three types of time, or three ways to deal with the reality of time. There is depressing time, productive time and sacred time.
Depressing Time
For some, time is just an endless flow, a shapeless blob, a random stream which never ceases. A day comes and a day goes, and then another day comes and goes. Each day is exactly the same as the day before, and they add up to nothing.
Sometimes you watch people who allow their days, weeks, months and years to pass without expectations, goals, ambitions, schedules, or structures. Time is meaningless. Every day is an invitation to squander yet another 24 hours, until it too will bite the dust. If the boredom gets to you, you escape it by shopping, buying new toys, watching TV, eating, sleeping, or other forms of fun which keep our minds off the void.
This is time devoid of any theme. Time as it is on its own, without any human initiative and creativity. The way time is on its own without human intervention is indeed shapeless and formless. One set of 24 hours is indistinguishable from another set of 24 hours.
Productive Time
Comes the Midrash and says, “When G-d chose His world, He established ‘heads of months’ and ‘heads of years.’” For the world to become a chosen place, a desirable habitat, a place worth living in, the human being must grant the endless flow of time the dignity of purpose. Every day ought to have a productive objective, every month—a meaningful goal, every year—a dynamic rhythm. The world G-d chose and desired was one in which humanity learns to confer meaning on time, to utilize it for constructive and beneficial endeavors.
“When G-d chose His world, He established ‘heads of months’ and ‘heads of years.’” For time to be utilized purposefully, every month must have a “head,” which gives the month its tone and direction. Every year must have a “head,” Rosh Hashanah, the time to put into focus the year that passed and the year ahead. For time to be used productively it must be delineated.
Sacred Time
You can live a productive life, imbue your days with objectives to met, your months with goals to be achieved and your years with heights to be reached. Your time is being used meaningfully and eloquently. Your life has rhythm. You have a morning, a night, a lunch break, a week-end, a vacation. Unlike a depressed teenager or a couch potato, you take note of a sunrise and sunset, of a new month and a new year. Each presents you with a specific calling.
But you are still confined within the realm of a mortal, finite and frail universe. Within the restricted structure of our bodies, our life span and our circumstances, we can manage to compose a tune our time. Yet, we can’t free ourselves from the prison of human reality. And at any moment something can happen which will shake up and destroy our entire structure.
Here is where the Midrash opens us up to another dimension of time, and this is where the Jewish story is introduces into history. “When G-d chose Jacob and his children He established the head of the month of Redemption.” G-d gave us the ability to liberate and redeem ourselves from our natural, mortal, finite, earthly experience. He allowed us not just to be productive with our time, but to confer upon each moment transcendence, to grant it the resonance of eternity, to liberate it and ourselves from the shackles of earthly reality.
You can be productive with your time. You can use it to shovel the snow, or mow the loan, fix the garage, read a good book, shop in Costco, enhance your computer speed, sell a building, cook a gourmet meal. But you are capable of more: You can make each moment Divine, elevating it to the realm of the sacred, where each moment, hour, day, week, month and year become infused with G-dliness and are thus transformed into true and ultimate experience, filled with absolute and authentic meaning.
“When G-d chose Jacob and his children He established the head of the month of Redemption.” This is the month of Nissan, the month when we were set free of Egyptian bondage, and were empowered to free ourselves from every form of bondage. Torah makes our time not only productive, but also sacred and Divine.
When you utilize your time to study G-d’s Torah, to perform a Divine commandment, or to do something for G-d, your time is not only purposeful but it is redemptive, uninhibited by the shackles of the world, soaring toward true freedom.
Our calling and challenge in life is to turn depressing time into productive time and productive time into sacred time.
[1] Shemos Rabba 15:11.
[2] This was the graduating class of Beis Rivkah. The talk is published in Likutei Sichos vol. 4 p. 1263. The Rebbe bases his explanation on Or Hatorah Bo p. 264. This Sicah is an extraordinary example of how to “translate” a maamar into relevant language. The maamar in Or Hatorah is very abstract and the Rebbe applied it in the most practical and relevant way.
It is one of those very strange Midrashim. “When G-d chose His world, He established ‘heads of months’ and ‘heads of years.’ When G-d chose Jacob and his children, He established the ‘head of the month of redemption’.” What does it mean “when G-d chose his world?” Did He first create it and only then choose it? And why was the result of this choosing the world the establishment of system of Rosh Chodesh and Rosh Hashanah? And what does it mean that “when G-d chose Jacob and his children, He established the Head of the month of redemption,” the first of the day of Nissan?
In an address to teen-age girls, the Lubavitcher Rebbe showed how this Midrash is introducing us to three forms of time: Depressing Time, Productive Time and Sacred Time. Our calling and challenge in life is to turn depressing time into productive time and productive time into sacred time.
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