Word Prompt – DAYLIGHT SAVINGS TIME – Chaya Sima Koenigsberg

It’s amazing how a one-hour change can throw off your whole routine! As a student in high school, I remember looking forward to the initial “Fall back” where we roll back the clock by an hour and for one or two mornings you felt like you gained an hour of sleep! This joyous gain was quickly eclipsed by the reality of somehow still heading to and from school in the dark and feeling that all the daylight shined while we students were tucked away in our classrooms, never to see it. Come Shabbos though, you had those wonderfully long Friday nights after the meal, to learn, read, or catch up on the week’s sleep. As a high school mechaneches at Shevach High School, I coordinated our annual grade Shabbaton around those “short” Shabbatot, with their long Friday nights ripe for workshops, discussions, and singing, and Motzei Shabbos options for Melave Malka food and activities. Now, as a college professor at Touro University, where I have an international student body over Zoom, including other parts of North America, South America, and Israel, my association with Daylight Savings is remembering each fall and spring to send out reminder emails when we in the U.S. or another country changes its clock, so that students remember to join an hour earlier or later than they are used to. Each semester, those reminders reinforce my gratitude for the opportunity to teach without borders, so to speak, and for the amazing age we live in, where technology can be utilized to share Torah worldwide