Time Marches On

[00:00:04] Speaker A: There's a little bit of a curious component of the commandment that we read in Leviticus 23, by the way, this week is a monumental Torah portion. It's a combination of a couple achoremot and kiddoshim, which has over 100 different mitzvot in it, different commandments that are listed there. Also has the story of Yom Kippur, but the Leviticus 23, which is coming next week, which speaks about all of the festivals, there's a curiosity there in the way that that commandment reads, which says, you shall count seven full weeks from the day after the Sabbath, from the day that you brought the sheaf of the wave offering, you shall count 50 days to the day after the seventh Sabbath. What we find, you shall count seven full weeks. You shall count 50 days. Now, listen, who would be surprised to know that there's a little bit of a controversy within Judaism about how we do this? Who would be surprised? I didn't think you would. Here's the deal. This seemingly simple instruction did create a sort of a interesting debate among the sages. It says, what happens if someone misses a day of counting? Okay, what happens if you miss? One perspective argued, you're out. That's it, you're done. The reason being, if you miss one day, then you cannot now complete the commandment to fill seven complete weeks. You've missed a day. You're out. If a day is missed, that's it. The other perspective came from the other side and said, no, no, no. Each day is a separate mitzvah. Each day stands alone as an opportunity for us to grow spiritually. If you miss one day, you can still. You actually must come back the next day for the remaining days. So what happened? What do you think happened? The great thing that happens all over Judaism, I wish it happened more. It's something called compromise. There was an agreement reached, and here's what it says. If you miss a day, keep counting, but you don't say the blessing before you count that day. Why? Well, because then if you're not saying the blessing, you're not saying the thing about seven complete. Okay, you get it. I'm not going to go into that. But that's Jewish wisdom for you, acknowledging both the entire integrity of the complete journey and the value of each individual day. I think that's brilliant. I like it. Now, there's something profoundly instructive about this. Weeks and days, the forest and the trees, the journey and the moments. It reflects, actually a fundamental tension in how we approach life itself. But before I go There I want to tell you about another bit of detail difficulty, another tension that occurs in Jewish history. The Talmud recounts that there was a major difference of opinion between Hillel and Shammai, the elders of the schools of thought that were there when Yeshua was. Well, they were before Yeshua, but Hillel and Shammai. Here's how Shammai lived his life. In honor of the Sabbath, if he found it says a well favored animal, early in the week, he would set that animal aside for Shabbat and say, we'll have that at the Shabbat meal. If he found a better animal than that, he would take that animal for Shabbat and eat the other one first. In other words, his eyes were always on the horizon. He was preparing for anticipating that sacred day at week's end, Sabbath to Sabbath. He lived, you might say. Now, Hillel, as you might imagine, took a different route. Hillel approached each day in contrast to Shammai. He believed that God would provide exactly what was needed for Shabbat when it was needed. So he did not live in, like, this sort of anticipation of the future. He had a more trusting and appreciative attitude, I guess we could say his motto. His motto was derived from Psalm 68. He said, Blessed be the Lord day by day. That reflects his mindset of daily gratitude and presence. Now listen, they're both beautiful. What's the difference? Well, Rabbi Sacks, of course, puts it beautifully. Hillel lived each day in and for itself. He did not obsess about yesterday. He was not anxious for tomorrow. Each day is its own universe with its own challenges, its own risks, its own opportunities. Now, does that sound familiar to you? It should sound familiar to you. There's this teacher, this rabbi, this master that we follow, who once said, don't worry about tomorrow. Today has enough of its own difficulty. Now, that's not exactly uplifting, but you know what he means. He's saying, be present, be fully in the moment. Don't constantly be anxious for tomorrow. And not that we shouldn't prepare for tomorrow. That's not the point. I'm not saying Shimei was wrong, but two different spiritual dispositions occurring here. Shammai teaches us prepare, plan, anticipate. Hillel teaches us to be fully present without obsessing over the past or the future. And it's wisdom, and I love both of those perspectives. But listen, just like that Omer Count conversation, we need the long view. We can call that Shammai, the whole seven weeks. We need the daily view. We can call that Hillel. That's counting day by day. We can prepare for Shabbat all week long, but really we can also find blessing in each individual day. And that's what we call seeing the forest and the trees. And that is hard. Sometimes I was studying, reflecting, reading, thought came into my mind. One of my favorite texts that's found in Deuteronomy 30, where the Torah reads, moses says, choose what? Life. Choose blessing. It's the same verse. Choose life, not death. Choose blessing, not cursing. Now, at first glance, you might read that and say, well, that's the same thing. Choose life. Choose blessing. But I don't think so. I don't think so. I think they represent two essential, essential perspectives on time and purpose that I want to talk to you about today. To choose life. Okay, choose life. This is the big picture. This is the long arc of existence. It's about making decisions that when woven together over time, they create this big life of meaning and purpose. It's Shammai's approach, sort of choose life. Like the big picture of the seven weeks and living with the end in mind. And we're going up and we're making choices today that bear fruit tomorrow. It's about life, legacy. It's about journey, about building something that will stand when we're gone. Choose life. The big picture. Now you ask, what's the difference? Isn't that the same thing as choosing blessing? Did Moses unnecessarily repeat himself as the Torah duplicative here in saying choose life and choose blessing? No. Why? How do we choose life? Here's the twist. We do it by choosing blessing each day. This is Hillel's wisdom, finding the sacred in each moment, making each day count for something. Regardless of what happened yesterday, regardless of what we fear could happen tomorrow, choosing life is a strategy. Choosing blessing day by day is a mechanism, it is a tactic. Choosing life is the destination. Choosing blessing is the step by step journey. Both are essential. Now, listen, we talked last week about gratitude, your breath, right? Counting blessings. That's a good thing. We should count our blessings. But even some of the things that we talked about being grateful for, those aren't things that you really choose actually. Breath, bodily function. That's what makes it so good to be grateful for those things that are easy to overlook. This is different. There is an active tense verb associated with this. Choose life. Choose blessing. That is to say, the opportunities that we have because we have breath, not just to be aware of them, to choose them, to engage with them, the chance to be a blessing. And I am really Thinking, pondering about how easily we fall into routines, routines that dull our senses to the preciousness of each day. Now, listen, there is nothing inherently wrong with structure, consistency. We need predictability. But when routine becomes autopilot, then you are going to miss the very life that you want to build. And we talked a few weeks ago. I talked about herds, the herd animals, right? And we talked in the context of putting some of that stuff, the herd and the flock mentality on the altar. But here again, it's appropriate because we are undeniably, in many ways herd animals in the way that we approach our lives. We crave predictability. We want security. We love our comfort zones. And as we know, on some level, it's okay. Consistency provides safety and structure. But that very same tendency can absolutely rob us of the power to see and choose blessing. There's a book called the Power of Moments. It's by two researchers named Chip and Dan Heath. It's a really good book. One thing they describe is what happens when our lives are on autopilot. Okay. That weeks and months and even years can pass without distinctive memories being formed. Your brain is actually wired to remember novelty and emotion, not really sameness and predictability. Even if it's what we think we crave, those things are very powerful in your brain. There was an amazing study that was conducted. It's called Attention and the Subjective Expansion of Time. Do you want me to go through the full abstract with you and every detail of how it was conducted? It sounds amazing, right? Attention and the Subjective expansion of time. What this study did was identify something called the oddball effect research. What they did is that they would cause. They flashed in images, series of images, repetitive sequence of images. Brown shoe, Brown sho. Brown shoe. Brown shoe. Brown shoe. Alarm clock. Brown shoe, alarm clock. Brown shoe, Brown shoe. Brown shoe. Alarm clock. You get the message the same amount of time each image was flashed. When your brain sees something different over and over, and then when your brain sees the same thing over and over and then something different appears. Your brain goes, whoa. And processes the oddball as the more important thing. And get this. It actually feels like that moment lasts longer. Brown shoe, Brown shoe. Brown shoe. Alarm clock. Brown shoe. Brown shoe. Brown shoe. Brown shoe. Brown shoe. Alarm clock. In the studies, when they showed them these pictures, they would flash that image same duration, the oddball effect. They revealed that that alarm clock they thought lasted much longer than the brown shoe images. The profound effect of that is. It's my point, is how we experience time in life when we break through patterns, what The Heaths call delightful surprises. In this book, we actually expand time, even if it's only in how we perceive it. You understand the power of that. I'll make you understand it. We make moments, moments more memorable, more meaningful, more lasting in our consciousness. Now, that's amazing. We can make time feel differently by breaking routines. And this is what I mean by choosing blessing day by day. I'll come back to how we do it. But here's the challenge. Creating those moments takes intention. It takes investment. Not every day of your life can be monumental. Not every conversation or interaction that you have is mind blowing. But without occasionally breaking the script of our routines, time simply vanishes. And I'm not talking about expensive worldwide trips or skydiving, talking about being present in ordinary moments in extraordinary ways. And this connects beautifully with. Yeah, what we discussed last week about gratitude, about seeing the good in our lives. The same intentionality that allows us to notice blessing also enables us to create these moments. It is this sense of awareness, break the script to choose blessing that leads to. To the arc of choosing life. Now, I want to explain something. This is very. This is deeply personal for me because like many of you, I am busy. I try to not say that word. I don't like that word, but it's undeniable. I have many responsibilities. Basically, I work three jobs, and it just. I always feel kind of pulled. And when people ask me how I'm doing, I have for so often responded, busy, tired, I'm stressed. Does that sound familiar to anyone? Has anyone ever felt that or said that? Of course it does. That's the most common answer today. How are you? Oh, busy or fine, which just means I'm too busy to want to talk to you about it. There have been countless days where I have gone through the routine, moving from task to task, meeting to meeting, only to come home, sit next to Kelly at the dinner table, mumble some probably unintelligible words about my day, and a casual, disingenuous, probably, how was your day? And then collapsed into bed at night, unable to recall anything meaningful about the entire day that had just passed. Just going through motions, not really prioritizing and looking for any ways to be a blessing or to experience a blessing. Now, in my line of work, I know I'm doing the only work I do right now all week. 30 minutes, 15 minutes to play music. I know this is. I got an easy life. These messages don't write themselves. Okay. I experience. I have a pastor friend who once described the relentless return of the Sabbath as soon as one sermon or teaching is delivered, the next one looms on the horizon. It's got this sort of Shammai like fixation on what's coming, but without the joy of anticipation, just simply the anxiety of preparation. It sounds almost heretical to say it, but sometimes the Sabbath itself can become a matter of preoccupation rather than joy. I'm definitely living for Shabbat, but not the enjoyment of it, the work of it. Oh no, my goodness, it's Tuesday. I don't even have two brain cells firing about what I'm going to talk about on Saturday. What am I going to do? I've got to show up and deliver something. Now. I know someone could say, oh, poor baby, you gotta think and write and talk. Oh, that's not the point. My point is in the danger of losing our daily perspective. Even in spiritual practices, which sounds unheard of. Crazy, right? No, absolutely not. Weeks build into months, months into years. Suddenly I look back and where has this time gone? I've invested in work and responsibilities, but I don't know if I've really chosen life. I mean, choosing blessing. Have I looked for moments to bring joy into someone's life, to taste a little bit of the oddball effect in a good way. Not just thankful that I can breathe, but experiencing the breath of life with energy, with direction. And I'm afraid too often in my case, the answer to that question is no. I hope your answer is different. I had two stories that crossed my path recently. This week we're just sort of crystallizing much of what I've been thinking about. One I read in the Power of Moments. It's from a book called Chasing Daylight, which was authored by Eugene O. Kelly. Eugene O. Kelly was a 53 year old CEO of a multi, multibillion dollar corporation. He went to the doctor, they told him, eugene, you have three months to live. You have an inoperable brain cancer. There's nothing we can do about it. In his book Chasing Daylight, he wrote this. I was blessed. I was told I had three months to live. Blessed. What a terminal diagnosis as a blessing. How is this possible for o' Kelly? And this is a pretty familiar story, what happened is it brought absolute clarity in his life about what really mattered. He sat down, he wrote down on a piece of paper 5 concentric circles working from the outside in his relationships that mattered, but weren't all the way weren't at the top of the list. And with each circle, he worked in close friendships and finally into the middle, into the family. And he Then set about doing what he called beautifully resolving these relationships, working from the outside in those outside things were relatively brief. But as he moved in, more and more time was spent creating perfect moments. He described them as times of genuine connection and presence. He died. Obviously he died. But, he wrote in the book, I experienced more perfect moments and perfect days in two weeks than I had in the last five years of my life and probably would have in the next five years had my life continued the way it was going before my diagnosis. Now I want you to let that sink in. The man found more joy, more meaning, more perfect moments in the shadow of death than he had in years of normal life. That's incredible. And it's to be noted. Last week I spoke about near death experiences. I'm doing it again. It's a similar phenomenon that happens when people have a near death experience. They face death, they return with the same profound realization. Suddenly they understand. I have gone, got to choose life with intentionality. I've got to be present. How do they do it? Not through grand gestures, but they completely transform their daily routines. They develop a heightened day to day awareness. They actively pursue these special moments and the delightful surprises. If you walk out of here with nothing other than all this talking, I want you to remember delightful surprises. What those who faced death seem to discover is that the ordinary becomes extraordinary when you're fully present to it. They don't take it for granted. And what did o' Kelly prioritize? It wasn't, you know, the classic thing of a bucket list and renting a yacht for my family to go all around the world. It was just sitting down with people, relationships, connection, presence with people who mattered most. The second story that has really moved me this week, Netflix Love on the Spectrum. You've seen it. Who has seen Love on the Spectrum? Love on the Spectrum follows people on the autism spectrum as they navigate daring the dating relationships. Okay, it's funny, it's cute, it's not supposed to be like you're laughing at them, but just it's amazing the way the honesty and the portrayal of how they interact with one another and you can't help laugh, but what you can't help is to feel inside something amazing that these individuals bring to life. That connection, companionship, being known and loved by another person that they demonstrate that with such clarity, the need for relationship, knowing that people know and care about you. These are universal human longings and they express them so beautifully in this show. They remind us of what matters. And study after study after study after study confirms what we intuitively know. Relationships are the most important thing you have in your life. Not achievement, not possessions, not status relationships. And I know that not everyone has a bunch of healthy ones. And I know that there are plenty of people to struggle to have even one. I get it. I understand. But the truth remains that choosing Blessing day by day often comes down to how we invest in other people around us. That is part of Hillel's. That's the heart of Hillel's wisdom, I think, in this illustration, this sacred in each interaction, conversation moment. They're not all monumental, they're not all oddball. I get that. But that's not real life. But you never know when a delightful surprise can emerge from something. Talking to the person who brought you your iced tea or the gas station clerk, or, my goodness, how about your spouse or your children? How many conversations are massively memorable? Not very many. But when you have the one that has the connection and the opportunity to pour in and have a relationship connection, it's a perfect moment. It's a delightful surprise. That is a blessing. Now we are halfway through the Omer count. I can't even believe it. This is to my point. I said it. Four weeks. April gone. Passover seems like it was yesterday. We have three weeks remaining. Eugene Kelly said I had three months to live. Well, what if we approach these three weeks with similar clarity? What if we said we are blessed? We are incredibly blessed. We have the opportunity three weeks to elevate our souls through choosing Blessing day by day. I'm not suggesting you quit your jobs and upend your routine and go, you know, hot air ballooning around the world looking for maybe, who knows? Maybe that's what you need to do. Consistency and structure are important. But what if we can seek out delightful surprises? What if we create moments that break the script, that expand our subjective experience? What would it look like? Here's three easy things. Three things you can do. Very, very easy. I want you to identify your concentric circles. The o' Kelly exercise. Who are the people that matter most? Who are in the middle? Circles that you value but haven't perhaps connected with meaningfully. Make a simple map. Second, you're going to create one perfect moment each week. A time of genuine presence, a time of connection with someone in your inner circles. It doesn't mean you have to go spend $500 on a candlelight dinner. It might be as simple as a walk with no phone. It might be a conversation that goes deeper than usual or an expression of appreciation for the person that you love. That breaks the routine, your relationship. Third, show up daily. Daily presence. Each morning, count the Omer. Take a. Well, take a breath. Each day you count the Omer. Identify a relationship where you might potentially break the script. Have that unusual conversation with intention. Express gratitude in a new way. Create a moment, moment of unexpected joy. They all align beautifully with everything we've talked about with the Omer, what Judaism's traditional thing is. We're working week by week, day by day. But listen. Remembering, of course, that not every day can be filled with monumental experiences. But without breaking the script of your routine, time simply slips away. Time simply slips away. That's a scary statement. You look back and you say, wow, what did I do? I had a good life. What's memorable? I had a job. I raised a family. Okay. That's okay. This isn't about condemnation. What I'm trying to point us toward is a memorable life. Memorable. You know, there's this powerful exercise that's used in life planning. It's fairly morbid imagining that you're at your own funeral, right? And you ask yourself, what would you want people to say about you? What would you want them to remember? But, you know, I realized it's actually. It's actually less about people, what they say, if I could just see who was there. If I could just see who was there. It's sort of enough of a testimony who showed up, who was there. I think about Angel Goodwin's funeral. Man, wow. What matters in that moment is who's there. Because you've invested, because you chose blessing day every day, day after day. Not every day, not in every interaction. It's impossible. But with enough intentionality that your life became a blessing to other people. They'll show up. This is the essence of choosing life, building a story worth telling. When we're gone, we don't build that story through occasional effort. It requires intention and investment to become that it is. Rarely, rarely do people in the funeral exercise imagine other people saying, wow, they were really successful in their career, man. They could answer emails like, no one's business. They always seem stressed. Wow. No. People are there because of feelings and saying things like, they made me feel alive. They changed my life. They brought value to my life. They were present when I needed them. They loved deeply. We created memories I'll never forgive, forget. Age is irrelevant for this message. Teenagers, you can listen, you can say old guy. Old guy. Living in the past, reflecting back. I get it. But let me tell you how fast time goes. And even that makes me sound like an old man, but listen, you won't believe me until you look back and see it yourself. Take advantage of your youth. Young adults, young married people cherish these moments. Every single day you invest in each other because sooner or later, what often happens is those kids that become teenagers come along and then they mess everything. No, I'm just kidding. Life changes. Life changes. Don't ever, ever, ever lose the ability to see the blessing in the person across from you. Parents of young children, believe me, believe me, they grow up quick. Man, if I could have mine back. And I. I don't know if every parent feels that I never try to live in regret. Regret. But that. That personal reflection I shared with you about living week to week, man, gosh, I've been doing this for a long time. I would do it so differently. It's not that we didn't have delightful surprises or perfect moments, but there could have been so many more. I read a study that parents that said you basically have influence over your children. You are their hero. From the time they're about 4 to 12, after that, their mental and physiology changes and the world changes. You gotta take the time. You got to be present every day. Choose blessing. Empty nesters, retirees, septuagenarians, octogenarians, centenarians. I don't care how old you are. The message is universal. Choosing life is the combination of all the small blessings that you choose day by day, and they work together to create something beautiful. That's what we do and that's what it means. We're building this thing. There's a teaching from the BAAL Shem Tov, where the Hebrew word is hitchhadshut, which means renewal spiritual life. True spiritual life depends on renewal. The ability to approach each day, each prayer, each mitzvah, as if it's new. Even holy things become lifeless when they're just routine. We want to stay ahead of our habits, he said, and this is very Jewish, but he said, forget yesterday's accomplishments. Each day you must begin anew in service of the Creator as if you have done nothing yet at all. That's a very high quality calling. But man, you want to talk about choosing life and renewal, choosing blessings. It's a very familiar idea again to refer back to what the master said. What did he say? Give us today our daily bread. These are invitations to present tense faith, to wake up. The counting of the omer. It has this exact principle in mind. Each day. Today is the first day. Today is the first. This is the eighth day, which makes one week and one day. It's in your mind and as they culminate, it comes together at the end of this period. But each daily choice is cumulative. Modern life, I'm telling you, modern life too often for us feels like survival mode. We can't do that. So I want us to continue through these last three weeks. I want you to see both the forest and the trees. I want you to see the days and the weeks. I want you to see the life and the blessing and I want you to create moments. And I really believe that we can do it. Eugene o' Kelly said he was blessed to have three months. We are blessed to have three weeks and all the days that God gives us after that, however many they may be to choose every day blessing leading to a life more abundant. Can you do it? Of course you can do it if you want to. [00:34:46] Speaker B: Shabbat Shalom I'm Darren with Shalom Makin. If you enjoyed this teaching, I want to ask you to take the next step. Start by making sure you subscribe to our channel Next. Make sure you hit the like button on this video so that others know it's worth their time to watch. Last. Head over to our website to learn more about Shalom Macon, explore other teachings and events, and if you're so inclined, contribute to the work that we're doing to further the kingdom. Thanks for watching and connecting with Shalom Macon. [00:35:18] Speaker A: Sa.