Rabbi's Blog

How many times have you heard it said “There just aren’t enough hours in the day!”? What would you do if you had an extra hour? What if we gave you an extra day in the week? Can you imagine all the extra things you could finally get to? All those projects and chores that have been sitting around waiting for you to “finally have time to get around to them”… The Jewish calendar is based on the moon, not the sun. As such, it is 11 days shorter than the regular calendar; this is why the Jewish holidays shift up and down the calendar. The Torah calls Pesach, “the Spring Time Holiday”, and understands from this that there is a positive commandment to ensure that Pesach always falls out in the Spring time, and to correct the calendar when necessary, to ensure that it does so. This is why we have a Jewish Leap Year every two or three years accordingly. The Jewish Leap Year is a little different than the secular one; we don’t just add one day or even one week – we add an entire month! Imagine what you could do with an entire extra month! Oh, by the way, this extra month ends next week…. Betcha’ didn’t realize it, eh…? You see, it’s not having extra time that counts, it’s how you make an account of the time that you have. When we wish to bless someone with a long life, we say that they should merit to have “arichas yamim v’shanim” – long days and years. The obvious question is “long years I understand, but what is ‘long days’?” This means that each day they should be productive and accomplished. It’s not the number of years but how you use them that really counts. So too with our calendar and outlook in life. Don’t be focussed on having “extra hours”, “extra days” or even “extra months”. Focus instead on filling the time that you do have with meaning and learn to use your time in a way that really counts! Have a wonderful Shabbos.