Pesach has passed and we are all back to our normal routines. Yes, we related the story. Yes, we expounded on the Haggadah. Yes, we listened joyously while our children asked the four questions and shared with us the deeper explanations they had gleaned from their teachers.
Is there anything I left out? I certainly did – the greatest challenge of all. The story of our redemption is referred to in Hebrew as Yitzias Mitzrayim, which literally translated means Exodus Egypt. But would it not make more sense to say Yitzias miMitzrayim – Exodus from Egypt?
Yes, we were taken out of Egypt but that was not our achievement. That was a miraculous gift from our merciful G-d, but it left us with a greater challenge – a task that G-d Himself could not do for us: to remove Egypt from ourselves.
This challenge confronts us in every generation – to take the culture of our exile out of our minds and out of our hearts. No easy task, especially when we live in such an enticing society, but we Jews are meant to live by values that were bestowed upon us at Sinai and are neither negotiable nor subject to change. As such, we are charged with taking a totally different approach to life from that taken by others.
For example, in our American society time is valued as money (hence the expression “time is money”). Never mind devoting time to acts of chesed – visiting the sick; helping the homeless, the indigent, the handicapped; welcoming strangers into our homes – or to learning Torah without the goal of a diploma that would lead to a lucrative career.
In Judaism, time is synonymous with sanctity. A Jew cannot live without his luach, his calendar. When is the zeman, the designated moment, to light the Shabbos candles? From the moment we bless those holy lights we actually change time. We transform the mundane into the holy. Those little flickering lights vanquish materialism and greed and bring rays of peace, serenity, and sanctity.
It sounds like ludicrous. How can little flickering lights have such awesome powers? But just ask anyone who has kindled them, observed them, and absorbed them. Through the power of those lights you can hear a whispering voice in your soul. It awakens you to a greater Light that connects you to Sinai.
How does this impact our contemporary world? Well, if time has no value outside of money, what does that mean? I do not think I need to answer that question. Just look around and you will know the answer.
Then there’s the popular expression “Let’s kill some time.” What exactly does that mean? It means to render it non-existent, to throw it out in the garbage. People feel it’s their right to fritter away their days and devote as many moments as possible to “fun.”
And under that heading of “fun,” anything goes. Just recently, university students celebrating “spring break” in Florida were having some “fun” on the beach while, literally in front of their eyes, a girl was being raped by several thugs. No one interfered. No one helped the girl; no one said “STOP.” Some took out their phones, but not to call 911. No, this was great stuff to post on YouTube – “for all you know, it might go viral!”
There are those who will protest that this was an isolated incident. Sadly, though, examples of such callousness and viciousness abound. We read and hear about them on a near-daily basis.
“Fun” makes time valueless. In order to satiate the gnawing emptiness in your heart you seek out more and more “fun” moments and quickly your life flies by. One day you wake up and wonder, “Where did my years go? What did I accomplish with my life?” But unless you have a meaningful answer, you put away such disturbing questions and get back on the merry-go-round of meaningless (and at times even harmful) “fun.”
Did you know there is no word for “fun” in Hebrew, the holy tongue? That’s because a Jew is charged with a higher calling in life. We are expected to sanctify the moment, the hour, the day, the month, the year – our entire lives.
The self-absorbed “time is money” and “let’s kill some time” mindset has impacted not only our society but also our very world outlook. Why should we bother helping those who are downtrodden?
Just think of all those innocent people who even as you read this are being killed in the most gruesome ways by ISIS and other Islamic terrorists while the world largely remains silent. There is a new Hitler on the block. He may have altered his name and changed his appearance and address but he’s the same madman nonetheless. He is Iran, ISIS, and all the other fringe lunatics who are crazed with the goal of eliminating those who do not worship Allah or adhere to Sharia law.
Our world is on the brink of, G-d forbid, another catastrophe. To be sure, there are differences. Yesterday Hitler had to gather us in collecting stations and send us off in cattle cars to the factories of death. Today Hitler’s heirs do not have to expend so much effort. If Iran has its way some mullah will need only push a button and Heaven Forbid…I do not want to pronounce or even write the rest of that sentence.
Make a deal with Iran? Did not the prime minister of England negotiate with Hitler and happily assure mankind that he’d struck a deal with the monster that guaranteed “peace for our time”?
Each and every one of us must awake from our lethargic stupor. We cannot shirk the responsibility of reclaiming our world. It’s always “they should do it,” never “we must do it.”
So let us start with ourselves. Let us try to be kinder, more compassionate, more loving, more understanding. Let us not be afraid to invest our time and our days in the lives of others with one goal in mind: that of helping.
Let us not be afraid to fight for truth and that which is right and just. Let us reject the sick notions that “time is money” and that whatever time we have been granted is ours to “kill.”
Let us remember that we are children of Torah, entrusted with the mission of elevating and sanctifying time.
Let us remember that our goal in life cannot be “me, me, me.” Let us always have in mind that every moment is precious; that from the moment we are born we begin moving closer to the moment of our death and the accounting we will have to give of our lives when we stand before G-d.
Let us not forget that we can make a difference, and let us ask these questions of ourselves: “What am I leaving behind? Will anyone remember that I once walked on this planet? Did I make a difference?”