20 Jan PARSHAT BO: DEPRESSING TIME, PRODUCTIVE TIME, AND REDEMPTIVE TIME IS TIME A STORM IN WHICH WE ARE ALL LOST?

Always Late
Sarah was always
late to work no matter
how much she tried
to be on time, or how
many times her boss
scolded her. She just
could not wake up
on time. Her boss said she would fire her if it
did not stop. Sarah decided to seek the advice
of her doctor. He prescribed her some
medication and told her to take one pill before
going to sleep, so she can fall asleep
immediately and rise early. She did just that
and she woke up before dawn and headed into
work feeling well-rested. Sarah told her boss
about the doctor’s prescription and how well
it worked.
Her boss said, “That is great, Sarah, but where
were you yesterday?”
Choosing the World & the Jews
It is a strange Midrash, found in this week’s
parsha, Bo. At the surface, it seems baffling,
but upon deeper reflection, it contains an
extraordinary meditation on how we live our
lives and manage our time.
The Jewish calendar has twelve lunar months.
The first day of each month is known as Rosh
Chodesh (the head of the month); the first day
of the year (the first day of the first month of
the year) is known as Rosh Hashanah (the
head of the year.)
Says the Midrash:
When G-d chose His world, He established
‘heads of months’ and ‘heads of years.’ When
G-d chose Yaakov and his children, the
Jewish people, He established the ‘head of the
month of redemption’ (the first day of the
month of Nissan, the month of the Exodus).
What does this Midrash mean? What does it
mean “when G-d chose His world?” Why
does the Midrash not say, “when G-d created
His world?”
And what does choosing a world have to do
with the establishment of the head of a month
and the heads of a year? And what does the
Midrash mean when it says that “when G-d
chose Yaakov and his children, He established
the Head of the month of redemption?”
Delineating time into months and years is
based on the astronomical lunar and solar
orbits. The moon completes its orbit after one
month. The sun completes its orbit after a
year. What does any of this have to do with
G-d “choosing His world,” or “choosing
Yaakov and his children?”
An Address to High School Girls
On January 16, 1964 (2 Shevat, 5724), the
Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem
Mendel Schneerson (1902-1994) addressed a
group of teenage girls, the graduating class of
a New York Jewish girls’ high school,
Beth Rivkah. He offered them a most
marvelous insight into this Midrash. This
profound perspective can teach us volumes
about how to view a one-liner in Midrash, and
how to speak to the hearts of teenage girls.
Three Types of Time

Aristotle said that time was the greatest
teacher who killed all his students. There is no
“teacher” like time. What we learn through
time and aging is unparalleled by any class or
teacher. The experience of life is the greatest
teacher. The saying goes: When a man with
money meets a man with experience, the man
with experience ends up with the money; the
man with the money ends up with an
experience.
And yet the clock stops for nobody. “Suspect
each moment, for it is a thief, tiptoeing away
with more than it brings,” John Updike said.
You may be sleeping, sipping a coffee, surfing
the web, or getting angry at your boss or your
spouse, the clock is ticking away. How do we
deal with the merciless reality of time?
There are three ways, suggests the Midrash.
There are three experiences of time:
depressing time, meaningful time, and

redemptive time. You choose in which time-
zone you will breathe.

Depressing Time
For some, time is just an endless flow, a
shapeless blob, a random stream that never
ceases. A day comes and a day goes, and then
another day comes and goes. Each day is the
same as the day before, and they all add up to
nothing.
Sometimes you watch people who allow their
days and years to pass without goals. Every
day is an invitation to squander yet another 24
hours until it too will bite the dust. If the
boredom gets to you, you find ways to escape
and dull the void.
This is an empty time: time devoid of any
theme. Time as it is on its own, without
human initiative and creativity. Shapeless and
formless. One set of 24 hours is
indistinguishable from another set of 24
hours.
Productive Time
Comes the Midrash and says, “When G-d
chose His world, He established ‘heads of
months’ and ‘heads of years.’” For the world
to become a chosen place, a desirable habitat,
a place worth living in, a place that G-d not
only created but chose, we must grant the
endless flow of time the dignity of purpose.
Everyday ought to have a productive
objective, every month—a meaningful goal,
every year—a dynamic rhythm. The world
G-d chose and desired was one in which
humanity learns to confer meaning on time, to
utilize it for constructive and beneficial
endeavors. A meaningful life is a life in which
every day is filled with meaningful choices
and experiences, utilized to promote
goodness, righteousness, and justice.
This is what it means to choose your world
and choose your life, to appreciate that G-d
chose this world. There is meaning and
purpose in each moment. You can view life as
random and valueless, or you can see life as a
gift, and view time as priceless, something I
ought to cultivate in the fullest way. I choose
to invest all my energy, creativity, and passion
into each moment; and for me, each day is an

invitation to deeper growth and awareness.
So “When G-d chose His world, He
established ‘heads of months’ and ‘heads of
years.’” For time to be
utilized purposefully, every month must have
a “head,” which gives the month its tone and
direction. Every year must have a “head,”
Rosh Hashanah, the time to put into focus the
year that passed and the year ahead. For time
to be used productively, it must be delineated.
I must take note of sunrise and sunset, of a
new month and a new year. Each presents me
with a specific energy, calling, and
opportunity.
Redemptive Time
You can live a productive life, mark your days
with worthy objectives. Your life has rhythm.
You have a morning, a night, a lunch break, a
weekend, and a vacation.
But you are still confined within the realm of
a mortal, finite and frail universe. As one wise
man said, Men talk of killing time, while time
quietly kills them. Or: Time is a storm in
which we are all lost; time is free, but it’s
priceless; you can’t own it, but you can use it.
You can’t keep it, but you can spend it. Once
you’ve lost it you can never get it back.
Within the restricted structure of our bodies,
life span, and circumstances, we can use our
time productively. Yet, we can’t free ourselves
from the prison of mortality. Even when I
work hard and use my time well, it is still
cruel to me. It ages me. At any moment
something can happen which will shake up
and destroy my entire structure and rhythm.
Here is where the Midrash opens us up to
another dimension of time, and this is where
the Jewish story is introduced into
history. “When G-d chose Yaakov and his
children He established the head of the month
of Redemption.” G-d gave us the ability to
liberate and redeem ourselves from the
natural, mortal, and finite reality. He allowed
us to align our posture with Divine infinity;
not just to be productive with our time, but to
confer upon each moment transcendence, to
grant it the resonance of eternity, to liberate it
and ourselves from the shackles of mortality.
You can be productive with your time. You
can use it to shovel the snow, mow the lawn,
fix the garage, read a good book, shop in
Costco, enhance your computer speed, sell a
building, cook a gourmet meal, and help
society. This is worthwhile. But you are
capable of more: You can make each moment
Divine, elevating it to the realm of the sacred,
where each moment, hour, day, week, month,
and year become infused with G-dliness and
are thus transformed into eternity. You can
allow your time to become a conduit for the
timeless.
“When G-d chose Yaakov and his children He
established the head of the month of
Redemption.” This is the month of Nissan,
the month when we were set free of Egyptian
bondage and were empowered to free
ourselves from every form of bondage. Torah
and Mitzvos make our time not only

productive but Divine.
When you align your time rhythm with the
Divine, realizing that every moment of time is
an opportunity to connect with the infinite
light vibrating through your body and the
cosmos; when you use your time to study
G-d’s Torah, to connect to G-d, to perform a
mitzvah, and to live in the Divine
consciousness of oneness, your time is not
only productive, but it is redemptive,
uninhibited by the shackles of nature finitude.
You redeem and transform your time—by
aligning it with the divine blueprint for life.
The Choice
When the sun rises, and I declare “Shema
Yisroel” to align my posture with Divine
oneness—the moment of sunrise is now
etched in eternity. When the sun of Friday is
about to set and I kindle the Shabbos lights, it
is a moment transformed into transcendent
peacefulness. When I take a moment to do a
favor for another person, for tuning into the
love of the universe, for studying Torah or
praying, I elevate the moment into
transcendence.
In the words of the Tanya (ch. 25), “In the
higher reality, this union (between the soul
and G-d when we perform a mitzvah) is
eternal, for G-d and His will transcend time…
Only here below is the union within the limits
of time.”
Each of us can choose in which “time zone”
we will live. Do I live in a “depressing time,”
letting my days and nights pass without
meaning? Do I elevate my days into
worthwhile experiences? Or, in my ultimate
calling, do I turn each day into a redemptive
experience, into a conduit for infinity?
How We Study Science and Physics
The Rebbe said one more thing to these girls
about their academic studies. Some of us
study the sciences and see them merely as
interesting data, raw facts. However, much of
humanity has come to appreciate that when
we study biology, physics, history, or math it
must be with a productive and meaningful
purpose—to make the world a better place, to
enhance life on our planet, and to promote
justice and compassion.
Yet, our ultimate calling is to see all of our
studies, all branches of wisdom, as an
instrument to transform our world and our
lives into an abode for the Divine infinite
reality, to infuse all aspects of our lives with
true and timeless meaning, with everlasting
love and holiness, by revealing that ultimately,
we are all one, and everything is part of that
oneness.