How to Use the Modern Gift of Free Time

Fear God and keep His commandments, for this is the entire man. (Kohelet 12:13) 

In the late 1800s, modernity took over Vienna as mass production created a new level of wealth. This wealth created a new breed of people with enough money that they didn’t need to work. The husband went off to the club to conduct business while the wife instructed her servants to clean the home, prepare meals, go shopping, and do the laundry.  

These were tasks that took effort. There was no refrigeration available to the masses, so you could only shop for a day’s worth of groceries, and you had to go back to the market the next day. Man spent upwards of 12 hours or more working to earn a livelihood, and the woman worked upwards of 12 hours maintaining the home.  

The prosperity of the newly rich allowed a wife to spend her days watching other people work. It should have been a paradise. Instead, it became a nightmare. Sigmund Freud made his reputation caring for housewives with nothing to do. He diagnosed their issues with the id and ego, prescribing psychoanalysis.¹ 

He was wrong. Dr. Freud did not believe in Hashem. He was not educated in His ways. Had he known the truth, he might have improved his diagnosis.  

Hashem creates us to serve Him. Our life is summed up in Psalm 16, when King David proclaims, “I have placed the Lord before me constantly.” (Psalms 16:8).  

We live for meaning.  

That meaning is in serving our children, our soulmate, our family. We serve our synagogue and our community. We serve our Torah. Through this, we serve God at every moment.  

Every time we go to work, dress our children, even take out the garbage, we serve others. We are serving Hashem. He blesses us with consistent meaning and purpose.  

This is what makes us feel good.  

The Ultimate Service 

God creates our inner being to reveal what makes us healthy: Him.  

Without the meaning that Hashem blesses us with as we serve Him, we need medicine, distraction, and therapy to fill the void.  

The modern era has empowered Satan with a deadly tool to divert us from our mission: Free time.  He uses the internet, Smartphones, bars, binge watching, sporting events, movies, and near limitless obstacles to keep us from serving Hashem.  

The modern era is filled with free time. We have an unprecedented number of hours, days, even weeks or months to do whatever we want. We can retire and spend decades doing what pleases us.  

We are just like the newly minted aristocrats of Sigmund Freud’s era.  

Fortunately, we have the advantage of hindsight. We know that if we waste our free time, Hashem will send us the blessing of misery. We will feel empty, sad, even listless. We can attribute our emptiness to Freud’s “melancholy,” and medicate with anti-depressants, substances, or forbidden activity. This will only widen the void.  

Better yet, we can attribute our emptiness to misusing Hashem’s modern gift of free time. We can dedicate at least one hour a day to the well-being of Israel, the return of the hostages, the safety of our soldiers, and the strength of our Torah scholars by pledging to replace one form of distraction with a Divine Service. It can be straight forward by using that hour towards Torah learning and prayer.  

We can get creative:  

• Take our soulmate to dinner 
• Call a parent or grandparent 
• Do volunteer work for your synagogue, Jewish organization, or a friend 
• Help your children with their homework 
• Talk to your children with complete attention 
• Talk to Hashem in personal prayer 

Currently, one in every 20 Israeli citizens is fighting our wars. One in every 40 Jews worldwide is fighting. What about the rest of us?  

God commands us not to rely on our military strength. We are supposed to field an army – and show gratitude to our beloved brothers and sisters making the greatest sacrifice for all of us – but the Jewish reality Hashem gives us is one where we know that He decides victory.  

Hashem commands us to serve Him through His mitzvot and He promises to personally destroy our enemies as we perform His service.  

The greatest way to back our soldiers, win all our wars, and live in peace and prosperity is to serve God through Torah and mitzvot.  

Every act we perform, every deed that we do adds to the merit of the Jewish People, making our plea to our Maker that He destroy our enemies and protect all of us more powerful.  

We are in a war against the evil inclination, the Satan, and his evil nations who want to finish the work of Adolph Hitler. With each passing day, they gain allies, they gain followers, and they gain strength.

It is up to you, my dear brother and sister, to invest as much free time as you can towards our defense by appealing to the only Ally we need.  

Every act, no matter how minute or massive, determines our fate.  

*** 

David Ben Horin lives in the Jezreel Valley with his family, Afula’s famous sunflowers, and the local camel, Matilda. David loves to write about Judaism, Torah, Israel, and personal happiness. 

¹ “Housewife psychosis” is not a recognized medical diagnosis. The term gained some use in early psychiatric contexts, such as Freud’s analysis of “Dora” and similar cases. Women’s “housewife” roles were linked to their mental health issues like anxiety, depression, and various somatizations.