Rabbi Alvin Kass Chief Chaplain of the NYPD

SUMMERTIME AND THE LIVING IS NOT EASY

In his magnificent song “Summertime,” Gershwin writes: “ Summertime and the living is easy”. Actually, living is never easy. Every moment of our life is a challenge, regardless of the season. Furthermore, you can’t really take it easy because every instant of your existence is a process of unceasing transformation. Physically, our organic structure replaces itself every seven years. What’s more, our roles are also steadily changing. One day you are a child then you turn into an adolescent. A few years later you become a spouse, a parent, a grandparent, and so it goes. It’s hard to put your finger on time because everything is constantly in flux.

Some people say: “Time is money”. This, however, is not only patently false, but it can also prove harmful and misleading. There is actually only one similarity between time and money. This is simply the reality that there are many people who don’t know what to do with their time, others who don’t know what do with their money, and still others who don’t know what to do with either. But from every other perspective time is infinitely more valuable than money, and they are quite different from each other. For example you cannot stow time away in an account. You cannot recover time that is wastefully dissipated. You cannot lend time, nor can you borrow it. Moreover, there is no telling how much time remains for us in the Bank of Life. In short, it is not an overstatement to say that time is life.

If time is such a precious commodity, we should use it most carefully. Ralph Waldo Emerson advised: “Let the measure of time be spiritual, not mechanical”. The significance of our utilization of time cannot be computed by a watch, but rather by its influence upon our minds and hearts. We must learn to sanctify time, to use it as a means of understanding ourselves, others and God more fully. From a spiritual standpoint there is no difference between a minute and a millennium, between a second and a decade. Rabbi Judah Hanasi declared: “ There are those who gain eternity in a lifetime, others who gain it in one brief hour.” It all depends on the level on which we live. If our lives are consumed by a lust for the physical and sensual; if we pursue bodily pleasure exclusively; if we prefer the superficial to the inherently meaningful, and the ephemeral to the enduring, then we have certainly not extracted from time its fullest and truest potential. A moment in which we try to reach God in prayer may be more meaningful than any other thing we have ever done. The Sages also tell us: “Better is one hour of repentance and good deeds than the whole life in the world to come.”

One of the most important characteristics of the major Jewish holidays is that they highlight great and unique moments of time. Passover celebrates the Exodus from Egypt. Shavuot marks the day when the Torah was given on Mount Sinai. Sukkot commemorates the dwelling of the Israelites in booths during their sojourn in the wilderness. Although the deities of other peoples have often been associated with places or things, the God of the Jewish people is the God of events. As Professor Abraham J. Heschel put it: “Judaism is a religion of time aiming at the sanctification of time”.

We live in an age know for its masterful achievements in the technical universe of space. It is also a century, however, in which humans undervalue and squander their limited allotment of time, Let us redirect our lives today, while we may, toward a closer alignment with our synagogue, our faith, and our God. Remember, you cannot kill time without injuring eternity. Unless we open ourselves now to the hope and sustaining comfort which our faith gives us, we may find that when we finally want to, time has run out!

Have a wonderful , healthful, fulfilling and meaningful Summer.