What's Time Well Spent?
Immersed in the kishkes of existence at the National Archaelogical Museum in Athens.
Dear friends,
After ten days of probing, difficult questions, this morning’s Soul Math challenge quite literally cut to the chase. Excellent Jew that he was, Ibn Paquda offers an answer to the question of our purpose - in the form of another question: How much time are you wasting?
Naturally, this brings up the question – what is wasted time, versus time well spent?
Let’s start by negation:
Last night I got home after a busy day around 11pm. I opened my laptop and sought to wind down by... checking the latest election polls. Yesterday’s Soul Math question was what we are doing that we think no one sees, which we are embarrassed about. Well, now you all know one way in which I completely throw into the garbage my precious time. How embarrassing for me.
Why do I do it? I’m seeking confirmation of my biases. I’m seeking material for my mind to chew. I’m seeking to worry less. But am I? Looking at polls, if one is concerned about the state of the world, is a classic example of feeding one’s anxiety. It pulls me away from the nighttime all around me, the calming cycle of the moon and the stars and the trees outside my window, which offer the promise of continued peace, and into the meaningless noise of the present moment.
A better hour was spent this morning talking to a member of the Shul’s Rabbinic Chavurah, cantor and teacher Yoni Kretzmer. I asked him what defines good use of time?
YK: There’s a Talmudic argument between two rabbis about whether making a living is a proper use of time, which might help us dig into this. The Torah says: “Vehagita bo yomam valayla,” “Think about it (the Torah) day and night.” Rabbi Yishmael says that this proves that making a living is a great use of time, because we can easily think and study in the morning and the evening, so obviously we are being encouraged to work the rest of the day in between the two.
Rabban Yochanan Ben Zakai says that’s silly, and what we are clearly being told by “day and night” is ALL the time!
MS: So...Work on creating a life in which you can study while other people work. Oh, the patriarchy. The ultra-orthodox. White nationalism.
YK: Not necessarily. Your friend Ibn Paquda offers a reading on Ben Zakai that focuses less on whether you work, but on your state of mind while you work. We have to work, he says, on bringing ourselves to a state in which even when we are working, we are doing it with the consciousness of our deeper purpose.
MS: I see, so It’s not necessarily about how you use the time, but about the attitude you carry as you do whatever you’re doing. That reminds me of the way the mindfulness teachers talk about washing the dishes.
YK: If your attitude toward the fact that you have to wash the dishes, go to work, take out the garbage, treat people fairly, is indignant, betraying a sense that it has nothing to do with what you’re supposed to be doing with your time, then all of those will feel like a burden. Take for example the following Mishnah from Pirkei Avot:
“Whoever takes upon himself the yoke of the Torah, they remove from him the yoke of government and the yoke of worldly concerns, and whoever breaks off from himself the yoke of the Torah, they place upon him the yoke of government and the yoke of worldly concerns.”
Ibn Paquda teaches that the yoke of Torah ceases to feel like a burden when you accept it. Likewise, it is only when you do not accept your work as part of your purpose in this world that it feels burdensome.
MS: So, in order to spend our time well we have to let go of the resistance to whatever we’re engaged in.
YK: It’s possible the Ibn Paquda might accept that formulation. For me it’s one step deeper though. I don’t think we’re meant to completely resolve our resistance. We have to accept that we’re human beings, and we’re designed to have different forces pulling us in different directions.
MS: Work-study-pleasure-depth-Spanish soap operas.
YK: The instinct to resolve the tension between what you want to do and what you should do, what is impossible and what is possible, only makes that existential tension unbearable – and then time is wasted.
MS: When we fight against our portion in this life – including our very humanness - we suffer, and then we end up in front of the screen feeding our anxieties.
YK: When you are immersed in the kishkes of existence, the internal battles of what to do, right and wrong, worthwhile and not, you’re okay. When you try and untangle that innate part of our lives, you’re not.
MS: So an hour immersed in the kishkes of existence is one well spent.
YK: Like this conversation.
Shabbat shalom,
Rabbi Misha