LIFE'S NOT TOO SHORT
by Encounter Director Rabbi Yisroel Roll
What's all this about New Year's resolutions? I guess... that we all want to get our act together because LIFE'S TOO SHORT and we want to get it right before it's too late. Well, I've got news for you: life is NOT too short.
Life is only too short if you don't take full advantage of every opportunity, and make it work for you. If you look at life as a chore and a burden, then, of course, you haven't enough time for anything. If all your time is spent moaning, complaining and playing the victim of 'this' or 'that' injustice, then, it is true, life IS too short. There is no time to enjoy life, because you spend all your time worrying and pitying yourself. However, if you learn to look at life as a learning and growing experience - as an opportunity and a challenge - then every moment of life can be full of energy and meaning.
When I officiate at a wedding, as I did most Sundays, as the Rabbi of the New West End Synagogue in downtown London, from 1991-1997, the couples often asked whether videos were allowed to be taken of the wedding ceremony. "Of course!" I would answer. "But you don't really need one! Listen carefully, and I'll save you a lot of money!"
At many a wedding, the father of the bride would often take me aside, right after the veiling ceremony, and right before the Chuppah, and say: "Rabbi, I'm about to walk my daughter down the aisle - but I don't know where the time has gone. Just yesterday, I was teaching her how to ride a bike - she was six - and today she's getting married. How is it that I've missed her growing up?" I'll tell you (but I wouldn't tell him) that the reason why he's missed his daughter growing up is that he never took the time to appreciate the moments of her life AS THEY WERE HAPPENING. "That's nice", he would say, without really paying any attention to her first day at school, her first lace dress or her first girls' sleepover party with the regulation pilow fight. So time would fly by and now they're at the Chuppah.
So, what I say to my brides and grooms is this: When you walk down the aisle, take a snapshot of the moment - with your mind and your psyche. Become aware of what you are doing, and appreciate standing under the Chuppah, placing the ring on her finger, the sip of wine - and make it part of you. In this way, you won't need a video - you can look and feel within yourself and re-experience the feeling by "going" to the place within your soul where the moment lives. In this way you can revisit and relive these special moments, without the need for expensive videos.
Most people go on a trip, and before they actually experience the sight of the mountain, the Mona Lisa or the waterfall. they're ready with the camera and are taking a picture. Been there, saw that, bought the tee-shirt. But did they really SEE or EXPERIENCE the place? Did they live in the moment? No. They were there in body, just to say "Been there" - but they were not really there.
Many people look at life this way. I'm a tourist passing through, so I'd better take all the photos I can. They take a video of their child's first steps, or Bat Mitzvah, but they don't actually feel or live in the moment. They fail to Carpe Deum - seize the moment. They capture it on film, but not in their soul. In this way, life flashes before their very eyes, with very little real living being done. In this way, life can be too short.
Next Saturday morning, when you fell the services getting a bit boring, read these words from Psalms, and become inspired: "Teach us to count our days - then we will acquire a heart of wisdom" Psalms 90.
