Living For Every Moment

Earlier this week, a young man in my community died suddenly. He left behind a wife, a mother, and brothers. His father tragically died 11 years earlier. A very sad and tragic story, and one that's difficult to find meaning in. But here's my attempt.

When you break it down, life is a sequence of moments. And we string moments together to create a narrative; of our day, our week, our year. In the narrative, we tend to leave out the time in between the moments. They're only placeholders, enabling us to get from Point A to Point B. Perhaps, one can assume, the "placeholder" is intrinsically worthless. I say that a tragedy, the death of a young man, a crane collapsing on a city block, a terrorist attack, should be the wakeup call to destroy the assumption of the "worthless placeholder."

Time is our greatest asset. It's what we never seem to have enough of, and passes us by too fast. Why is that? Because we devalue the in between time. The subway ride, the walk to work, the waiting for a friend to arrive. When we become cognizant of the reality that our time can be taken away from us at a moment's notice, then we should revalue the downtime. Make use of it. Make it into a moment.

How does one make wasted time into useful time? Think. Use the brain. Contemplate. Today its hard to think. We're distracted by our cell phone or our ipod. Start thinking. About what? Our life. Our family. What we can do for someone. What did someone do for us. Try and find a deeper meaning in our actions and relationships. Thinking can transform a minor moment and make it greater.

When tragedy strikes, it is a wakeup call. How can we improve ourselves? Our relationships with our spouses? Our children? Our parents, our siblings, our friends? How can we make better use of our time? Taking a tragedy, and using it as a springboard for improvement, will motivate us to become better people, which in reality, is a great tribute to the one who tragically, is no longer with us.

Yeshivat Merkaz HaRav

Two weeks ago, a terrorist, on a murderous rampage, murdered eight young students in Yeshivat Merkaz HaRav in Jerusalem. Many aspects of this tragedy have been discussed and written about, but I'm writing about the cleanup that followed the massacre.

The Torah writes, "And your camp should be holy." There are many different ways to describe being holy, but to paraphrase former Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart, who in describing something very unholy said, "I'll know it when I see it," I saw holiness in the cleanup that night. I strongly urge you to click on this link to see pictures of that effort, courtesy of Arutz Sheva. However, I warn you, the images are graphic and violent.

Holiness is caring for every last drop of spilled blood, every remnant of skin, and every last strand of hair. Seeing the attention given to every remnant of a life that once was a reminder of the great care that Judaism gives to the human body, in life and in death. The remains were collected with dignity and preserved to be buried with respect, and not discarded in a biohazard container.

Our bodies are not ours to do as we please with them. They are on loan from G-d. We don't have permission to destroy them. We need to care for our bodies, eat the right foods, exercise properly, moderate our alcohol consumption, and never put a cigarette in our mouths. Seeing the care given to the body after death, shouldn't we give at least equal care to the body when its alive?

Who Created You With Justice

It is well known that one says a bracha (makes a blessing) prior to eating food. However, it is not as well known that there is a bracha that is said when one hasn't seen a Jewish grave in the past thirty days. This bracha is called, Asher Yatzar Eschem BaDin (Who created you with justice).

The bracha is an acknowledgment that one's entire life, from when he is born to when he died (and when he will eventually be resuscitated), and all that he experienced in his life, was overseen by G-d's attribute of justice. This is an important lesson that helps give one perspective when he hasn't been in a cemetery for a while.

As we live our life, we are caught up in day to day living. We don't focus on the whys and hows of our existence. We don't focus on our place in the world, and what G-d does to us and for us. However, when we experience a death, we are shocked into thought. And when we go to a cemetery, we question why? And that's why we say the blessing. We are stating our belief that even though we don't know all the answers, we affirm that everything that G-d does is with justice.

This past month has seen many tragedies for the Jewish people. It is precisely at this point where we need to affirm our belief in G-d's justice. And as we greet the holiday of Purim, which tells the story of our triumph over our enemies, we should see another triumph this year, and see the end of all sorrow with the beginning of our redemption.