Hashem’s Timeless Gift

“The night moves and the day arrives, and the day moves and the night arrives.”  (Gemara Berachos 3b) 

Today, I celebrate the 18,572 day of my life. All of these precious days are gifts from Hashem to collect priceless diamonds in the form of mitzvot. I will pass this day tomorrow and never get it back. 

For every being in Hashem’s universe, it’s the same pattern:  

• We are born 
• We produce 
• We grow 
• We die 
• We all follow this cycle  

Along with the trillions upon trillions of beings in this world, we all follow this path of persistent movement.  What do we all have in common? Once we pass a moment, we can’t get it back.  

This makes every moment of our lives irreplaceable.  

What Will We Do with Them? 

In some warped, yet uncanny perspective, a sin can be better than doing nothing.  At least you did something that can be redeemed. You might not be able to relive that past moment of mistake or transgression, but you can fix your deeds going forward and Hashem will clean up your past. But you can’t go back there yourself.   

What’s worse than a sin? Doing nothing. Passing these precious moments with nothing good or bad (with the potential for greater good) to show for it.  

The greatest danger to our civilization of comfort is that we are all encouraged to waste the most precious gift God gives us: Time.  

Cable TV. The internet. Smart phones. Social Media. TikTok, it all serves a single purpose: To rob you of immeasurable opportunities for good that you can never have back.  

How do we fight this?  By reading the situation clearer. 

Rabbi Avigdor Miller relates a story about different families vacationing during the summer. Some families rent bungalows to spend the entire summer. They take it slow, walking the seashore, enjoying some fishing, a family barbecue once a week, even going on the occasional hike. They have the luxury to spend many an afternoon swinging on their hammock.  

Then, there are the families that rent out a bungalow for a week. They don’t waste time. Swimming, hiking, fishing, and that barbecue? They do it all every day.  

The people with the less amount of time are more determined to make the most of every moment because they know they cannot afford to let a single one of those precious seconds pass by in idleness.   

This is the serious irony of life.  We pace ourselves like the family with the summer house, deluding ourselves into thinking that 90 years is plenty of time.  

Our mission in life is to realize that we are, in reality, the family who rents a piece of paradise for seven days.  

That’s all. Like the billions of people that have lived on this earth, from the most powerful kings to the helpless servants — we all have our checkout time.  

None of us can afford to swing on the hammock.  

What Do We Do with Our Moments 

 “The Lord desired, for the sake of his [Israel’s] righteousness, to make the Torah great and glorious.” (Isaiah 42:21)

Knowing that every moment is of critical importance, we should dedicate every second of our existence to serving Hashem.  

But can we? Everyone gets tired. We have to sleep. We have to rest. We cannot move 24/7, even if it is to pick up priceless diamonds at every turn.  

Here’s what we can do at every moment: 

• Always trust in Hashem. Believe that God creates everything all around you.  
• See God in all His creations. Do not believe in any power other than the One Creator. 
• Never speak profanity.  
• Avert your eyes from lewd sights.  
• Don’t get jealous. At all costs, never hate a fellow Jew.  
• Live in the Land of Israel.  

Here’s what we can do every day: 

• Pray 
• Say Blessings 
• Learn Torah  
• Do kindnesses to one another 
• Thank Hashem for His gifts in the form of Modeh Ani at the beginning of the day, Birkat HaMazon when we eat bread, and Asher Yatzar when our body functions properly.  

How much does Hashem love us?  

He gives us Shabbat. God knows that we cannot work every hour of the day, every day of the week. One of the greatest kindnesses He gives us is that even throughout those moments we are at rest – we can make the most out of even these moments by serving Him.  

Hashem gives us one day off each week to recharge our batteries and to do it without wasting the precious time He gives us.  

That’s how much God loves us.  

Hashem gives us the gift of never losing a moment of the life He gives us by enabling us to serve Him without stopping. He knows the value of a moment in time and wants to give us all of them to merit eternal grace in His eyes.  

It’s a timeless gift. We must not waste it! 

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David Ben Horin lives in Afula with his family, millions of sunflowers, and Matilda, our local camel. David‘s Israeli startup, 300 Marketing Solutions, is a lean marketing agency for startups and small businesses that creates and promotes SEO-optimized ROI-driven to the right audience on LinkedIn to make your business the star of the show.