I love my sleep. And I need it desperately. Though it is something I rarely get. If I am lucky, I have about five hours of shut eye a night. If I am lucky. Many other nights that is reduced to only four, sometimes three. Being that I get up at 7:00 am to get the kids ready for school, I try to head to bed at 2:00 am. But last night, to my utter dismay, before I knew it, the clock read 3:00 am.
Day light savings time.
I must say, I am not a big fan. On the one hand, I love the extra hour of sunlight. And there is no question that extra time on a Friday to prepare for Shabbat is the best. But for right now, until I adjust, I feel like I've been robbed of an hour, and it is an hour I desperately need.
Just the other week I was returning from a speaking engagement and flew back from the West Coast to Philadelphia. I left on the red eye flight, had a layover, and returned at what should have been 9:00 am. But of course, add three hours to that, and it was already noon and by the time I was home, the day was practically over.
Time.
It is something so precious and yet something constantly taken advantage of. Hours can just disappear. Days can disappear. And unfortunately, even years can disappear.
The only thing that gives meaning to time is how time is spent. When utilized properly, it is productive, it can create. When misused, when abused, it simply vanishes, disappears, never to be regained again.
There is the common expression that time flies when you are having fun. Amazingly, when you are doing something you enjoy, hours can fly by in what feels like minutes. And yet, when you are doing something boring, difficult or even painful, you become intensely aware of every single second. Get on that elliptical and hit level five and see just how long ten minutes really are!
Is it possible for us to live our lives in a way where we can be aware of every second that passes? Can you imagine if every minute spent was focused and thought through and if we were truly present? For all of us who have lost loved ones, is there anything you wouldn't trade for one more minute with that person, even ten more seconds? Can you think about how much you could pack into that time? How if without all the distractions of the world you could just focus. Totally focus and utilize every single moment?
Torah has always instilled within us the importance of time. And how everything, absolutely everything, can and does change in that split second. The moment before Shabbat comes in and the moment after is the world of difference. So too with all of our holidays, with all of the time we experience throughout the year.
We just began the second month of Adar. This year we were blessed with two months of joy, two months in which we are taught to increase in our happiness. And yet, that time can also fly be if we allow it to. We can spend the time before Purim worrying about Passover. Or we can choose to spend the days before Purim, being in the time. Being in the moment.
The Lubavitcher Rebbe reportedly once asked the Chassidim what time something would begin. The reply was that they would begin around 10:00 or 10:15. The Rebbe answered, "Which one is it? 10:00 or 10:15? Do you know how much I can accomplish in fifteen minutes!"
Daylight savings time should not just mean one less hour of sleep. It should serve as a reminder of how precious every hour is. How meaningful and how powerful our time is. And it should motivate us to realize that time can be taken away, and once it is, it is never returned. So we must utilize the time we have, while we have it, and respect and cherish that we are fortunate to have it to use.
