Slowing Down Time
Rabbi Tom Samuels
Time seems to be moving faster than ever. Fall is already here and my memories of last Spring seem almost from the ancient past. Perhaps it is the slowing-down of my aging brain’s internal clock which makes the pace of life appear to be speeding up. Perhaps it’s the political roller-coaster of the past half-year that my psyche craves respite from. Regardless as to why, my life, time itself, seems to be passing me by at warp speed.
And so, I turn to our Torah, our Jewish tradition, to find solace in knowing that I am not alone in my craving for time to slow-down, if even for a brief moment.
Let’s imagine we’re at the part in the Passover story, the moment after the final plague, the death of the firstborn. God “passes" over the Israelite houses as the firstborn in the Egyptian houses are dying. Imagine the sounds, the crying, the pressure, the anxiety. Moses instructs the Israelites on how to prepare and to eat the Pessach, the paschal lamb, the sacrifice. He tells that they are to do so, בְּחִפָּזוֹן, b’Chipazon, in panic, in haste:
וְכָכָה תֹּאכְלוּ אֹתוֹ מָתְנֵיכֶם חֲגֻרִים נַעֲלֵיכֶם בְּרַגְלֵיכֶם וּמַקֶּלְכֶם בְּיֶדְכֶם; וַאֲכַלְתֶּם אֹתוֹ בְּחִפָּזוֹן פֶּסַח הוּא לַיהוָה
“This is how you are to eat it: with your cloak tucked into your belt, your sandals on your feet and your staff in your hand. Eat it in haste; it is the Lord’s Passover.” (Exodus 12:11)
Everything that ominous night is happening far too fast for the Israelites to assimilate. To digest. To register. And this haste, this Chipazon of pressure, continues, doesn’t cease, or even offer a moment of respite, as the Israelites flee the Land of Goshen with the dreaded Egyptian army in hot pursuit. Death, a genocide, seems absolute, imminent. (Rabbi Jay Michaelson)
This sense of urgency defines the Jewish people’s foundational story. And it all happens too fast to process.
The Torah understood the fundamental need for the human psyche to slow down time and inserts the “Omer” into the narrative. This refers to the portion of wheat that was set aside to count the forty-nine days between Passover and Shavuot. Seven weeks from their night of flight from Egypt, to receiving the Torah from God at Mount Sinai:
וּסְפַרְתֶּם לָכֶם, מִמָּחֳרַת הַשַּׁבָּת, מִיּוֹם הֲבִיאֲכֶם, אֶת-עֹמֶר הַתְּנוּפָה: שֶׁבַע שַׁבָּתוֹת,תְּמִימֹת תִּהְיֶינָה. עַד מִמָּחֳרַת הַשַּׁבָּת הַשְּׁבִיעִת, תִּסְפְּרוּ חֲמִשִּׁים יוֹם; וְהִקְרַבְתֶּם מִנְחָה חֲדָשָׁה, לַיהוָה.
“You are to buy from your own people on the basis of the number of years since the Jubilee. And they are to sell to you on the basis of the number of years left for harvesting crops. 16 When the years are many, you are to increase the price, and when the years are few, you are to decrease the price, because what is really being sold to you is the number of crops.” (Leviticus 23:15-16)
The Omer is a period of in-between time. It provided the necessary time for the Israelites to assimilate their new identity as a people freed from the shackles of slavery, to the freedom of self-expression, ready to receive the Torah from God at Mount Sinai. The time, in other words, to build the trust, the social capital, that is at the core of all thriving relationships, let alone one as complex and intimate as an aspirational community.
The great medieval Jewish philosopher, Moses Maimonides, the RAMBAM (1138CE - 1204CE), pointed out that all processes in nature are gradual:
אפשר לצאת מן ההפך אל ההפך פתאום ולזה אי אפשר לפי טבע האדם שיניח כל מה וכאשר שלח האלוה 'משה רבנו' לתתנו: ממלכת כהנים וגוי קדוש
“It is impossible to go suddenly from one extreme to the other. It is therefore, according to the nature of man, impossible for him suddenly to discontinue everything to which he has been accustomed.” (Maimonides, The Guide for the Perplexed, III:32:2)
That time is everything. To our relationships. To ideas. To the evolution of human society. “That is why, in the Torah,” Rabbi Jonathan Sacks writes, “Moses repeatedly tells the adults to educate their children… why the covenant itself is extended through time, handed on from one generation to the next… in Judaism, (there is) no sudden transformation of the human condition, no one moment or single generation in which everything significant is fully disclosed.”
This reminds me of a famous story about Frank Lloyd Wright and how he designed the architectural icon, the Falling Water Home. Supposedly, Wright had not laid pencil to paper after over a year of being paid a hefty commission to design the home for retail store magnate, Edgar Kaufmann of Kaufmann’s department store (now part of Macy’s). One day, Wright’s assistant stormed into his office announcing that the client was making a surprise visit to see actual drawings. In the few minutes it took for Mr. Kaufmann to make his way up to Wright’s office from the street, Wright was able to sketch-out a detailed drawing of Falling Water. When later asked how he was able to design such an architectural gem in so short of a time, Wright answered that he had been working on the project for over a year. All he had to do was sketch out what he already knew.
Let us take time in our relationships. Time in our politics. Time to change ourselves. Time to change our world. After all, life takes time.
Rabbi Tom Samuels
Time seems to be moving faster than ever. Fall is already here and my memories of last Spring seem almost from the ancient past. Perhaps it is the slowing-down of my aging brain’s internal clock which makes the pace of life appear to be speeding up. Perhaps it’s the political roller-coaster of the past half-year that my psyche craves respite from. Regardless as to why, my life, time itself, seems to be passing me by at warp speed.
And so, I turn to our Torah, our Jewish tradition, to find solace in knowing that I am not alone in my craving for time to slow-down, if even for a brief moment.
Let’s imagine we’re at the part in the Passover story, the moment after the final plague, the death of the firstborn. God “passes" over the Israelite houses as the firstborn in the Egyptian houses are dying. Imagine the sounds, the crying, the pressure, the anxiety. Moses instructs the Israelites on how to prepare and to eat the Pessach, the paschal lamb, the sacrifice. He tells that they are to do so, בְּחִפָּזוֹן, b’Chipazon, in panic, in haste:
וְכָכָה תֹּאכְלוּ אֹתוֹ מָתְנֵיכֶם חֲגֻרִים נַעֲלֵיכֶם בְּרַגְלֵיכֶם וּמַקֶּלְכֶם בְּיֶדְכֶם; וַאֲכַלְתֶּם אֹתוֹ בְּחִפָּזוֹן פֶּסַח הוּא לַיהוָה
“This is how you are to eat it: with your cloak tucked into your belt, your sandals on your feet and your staff in your hand. Eat it in haste; it is the Lord’s Passover.” (Exodus 12:11)
Everything that ominous night is happening far too fast for the Israelites to assimilate. To digest. To register. And this haste, this Chipazon of pressure, continues, doesn’t cease, or even offer a moment of respite, as the Israelites flee the Land of Goshen with the dreaded Egyptian army in hot pursuit. Death, a genocide, seems absolute, imminent. (Rabbi Jay Michaelson)
This sense of urgency defines the Jewish people’s foundational story. And it all happens too fast to process.
The Torah understood the fundamental need for the human psyche to slow down time and inserts the “Omer” into the narrative. This refers to the portion of wheat that was set aside to count the forty-nine days between Passover and Shavuot. Seven weeks from their night of flight from Egypt, to receiving the Torah from God at Mount Sinai:
וּסְפַרְתֶּם לָכֶם, מִמָּחֳרַת הַשַּׁבָּת, מִיּוֹם הֲבִיאֲכֶם, אֶת-עֹמֶר הַתְּנוּפָה: שֶׁבַע שַׁבָּתוֹת,תְּמִימֹת תִּהְיֶינָה. עַד מִמָּחֳרַת הַשַּׁבָּת הַשְּׁבִיעִת, תִּסְפְּרוּ חֲמִשִּׁים יוֹם; וְהִקְרַבְתֶּם מִנְחָה חֲדָשָׁה, לַיהוָה.
“You are to buy from your own people on the basis of the number of years since the Jubilee. And they are to sell to you on the basis of the number of years left for harvesting crops. 16 When the years are many, you are to increase the price, and when the years are few, you are to decrease the price, because what is really being sold to you is the number of crops.” (Leviticus 23:15-16)
The Omer is a period of in-between time. It provided the necessary time for the Israelites to assimilate their new identity as a people freed from the shackles of slavery, to the freedom of self-expression, ready to receive the Torah from God at Mount Sinai. The time, in other words, to build the trust, the social capital, that is at the core of all thriving relationships, let alone one as complex and intimate as an aspirational community.
The great medieval Jewish philosopher, Moses Maimonides, the RAMBAM (1138CE - 1204CE), pointed out that all processes in nature are gradual:
אפשר לצאת מן ההפך אל ההפך פתאום ולזה אי אפשר לפי טבע האדם שיניח כל מה וכאשר שלח האלוה 'משה רבנו' לתתנו: ממלכת כהנים וגוי קדוש
“It is impossible to go suddenly from one extreme to the other. It is therefore, according to the nature of man, impossible for him suddenly to discontinue everything to which he has been accustomed.” (Maimonides, The Guide for the Perplexed, III:32:2)
That time is everything. To our relationships. To ideas. To the evolution of human society. “That is why, in the Torah,” Rabbi Jonathan Sacks writes, “Moses repeatedly tells the adults to educate their children… why the covenant itself is extended through time, handed on from one generation to the next… in Judaism, (there is) no sudden transformation of the human condition, no one moment or single generation in which everything significant is fully disclosed.”
This reminds me of a famous story about Frank Lloyd Wright and how he designed the architectural icon, the Falling Water Home. Supposedly, Wright had not laid pencil to paper after over a year of being paid a hefty commission to design the home for retail store magnate, Edgar Kaufmann of Kaufmann’s department store (now part of Macy’s). One day, Wright’s assistant stormed into his office announcing that the client was making a surprise visit to see actual drawings. In the few minutes it took for Mr. Kaufmann to make his way up to Wright’s office from the street, Wright was able to sketch-out a detailed drawing of Falling Water. When later asked how he was able to design such an architectural gem in so short of a time, Wright answered that he had been working on the project for over a year. All he had to do was sketch out what he already knew.
Let us take time in our relationships. Time in our politics. Time to change ourselves. Time to change our world. After all, life takes time.