In this season of reflection and renewal, of brutal honesty and exquisite, painstaking, self-examination, I have a confession to make: I converted this past year. After thirteen years as a PC computer user, I have gone back to Apple Macintosh.

 

As any of you who have made such a move can attest, a transition like this comes at a cost. And those costs are not always ones we can anticipate.

 

Here’s an example: Like many technophiles, I keep a calendar and contact file, that is an address book on a variety of devices. I have an electronic calendar on the server at work, a copy on my Blackberry phone, another copy on my Macbook Pro Laptop, not to mention on Mac’s cloud computing platform, me.com. I suspect Yahoo and Google have their own copies of my calendar.

 

Back in the day, one would never keep so many calendars, since it would be practically impossible to keep them current. Today, however, thanks to the miracle of microchips, each of the calendars is automatically updated to display the latest data.

 

For example: at lunch, a colleague gives me his cell phone number. I put it in my cell phone, and without doing anything else, I know that when I get back to work, the new phone number will have preceded me, and will already be in my computer’s address book. It’s quite remarkable. Or, to be more precise, it’s quite remarkable… when it works.

 

Which it isn’t. This is what happens now. At lunch, a colleague gives me his cell phone number. I put it in my cell phone, and when I get back to work, my computer still has the old phone number and, what’s more, when I look at the cell phone, it has reverted back to the earlier number.

 

In short, my system is synchronizing not to the newest data, but to the oldest. It’s like computer version of the movie groundhog day, where Bill Murray is destined to wake up each morning, knowing that the clock has been rewound back to the start of the day before.

 

What’s happening right now is something very different. Instead of adjusting all the accounts to the newest information, my system seems to want to synchronize to the oldest. Now I know some of you are ready to call me up and tell me how to fix this and believe me, I will be grateful when we talk. But for right now, I feel like I am stuck in the database twilight zone.

 

So you will excuse me if I laugh when you use the term, “Time Management.” On a good day, the phrase is only a harmless paradox. On a bad day, it’s a cruel, unattainable goal that taunts me. 

 

Last night, we spoke about Tikkun Olam, the work of healing the broken world, and the ways our congregation is getting involved on a number of fronts. This morning, I want to turn to another aspect of tikkun, Tikkun Nefesh, the healing of our own individual souls. In the contemplative season of these high holy days, it’s fitting for us to think about our relationship with time.

Let’s begin with the term: Time Management. "Time management" implies that time is a commodity, ours to use and control; ours to make time or waste it, to invest time or spend it. But when we find our schedule reverting back to earlier iterations again and again, we realize, in reality, time controls us. No matter what we do, time flies, time marches on, time waits for no man ... or, for that matter, woman.

 

On Rosh Hashanah, we leave our calendars and PDA’s at home and confront a different sort of time management: not the day to day juggling of appointments, but the year to year audit of our goals and priorities. The books we open today are not daytimers, as much as they are lifetimers, and the appointments we've made are with ourselves.

 

We begin by taking measure of this past year. If we were busy with work and family, perhaps the year flew by quickly. But if we experienced the loss of a job, or illness, or a loved one's illness or death, the passage of time may have seemed interminable.

 

Reviewing the year reminds us that we can't control the passage of time; nevertheless, our tradition suggests we can control how we manage time. Jewish time management is not about juggling schedules; it is about finding temporal balance; that is, maintaining proper perspective on our past, our present and our future. Whether we are young or old, the holy days provide a chance to stop, reflect, and evaluate the attention we devote to each dimension of our existence.

 

What might an ideal balance be? We would be aware of our past as a source of our identity and values. We would look to the future, alert to its possibilities, committed to its betterment. And we would experience every day in the present, living according to our values, grateful for every moment.

 

Keeping that balance takes work since our attention naturally shifts from the present, to the future, to the past, and back again. Even so, if we begin to fixate on one dimension of time exclusively, we can lose our balance and become disoriented in time.

 

This scenario, taken to the extreme, unfolds in Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse fro The protagonist literally comes "unstuck" in time, hour to hour, never knowing which segment of his life he will experience next. Bounding from old age to childhood, from adolescence to middle age, he has entered an existential black hole, where past and future are meaningless because the present is so unstable.

 

Such a frightening disorientation in time is not limited to fiction. In his book, The Man who Mistook his Wife for a Hat, Neurologist Dr. Oliver Sacks described a patient whose disorder prevents him from remembering anything save the immediate moment. With no sense of a past, he has no fixed identity; incapable of imagining a future, he had no hope his situation might change; thus he is left forever trapped in the present, frantically trying to make sense of the unstable world around him.

 

While illness can disorient us in time, so can attitude. A famous Talmudic tale tells of Honi, who one day came upon an old man planting a carob tree. He asked the man how long the tree would take to bear fruit. Seventy years, the man replied. Honi laughed. "Fool", he said. "Do you think you'll be alive to eat of its fruit?" Suddenly, Honi was overcome with drowsiness, and slept for seventy years, the Jewish Rip Van Winkle.

 

When he awoke, he saw a man gathering fruit. "Did you plant that tree?" asked Honi.

 

"No, my grandfather did," the man answered. "He planted it that I might someday eat of its fruit."

 

For us, the story's message is self-evident; Honi's experience alerted him to the value of planting for the future. The carob reminds us of the trees our parents and grandparents planted on our behalf, and how we, in turn, should take our place fulfilling the responsibility that extends from one generation to the next.

  

If concern for the future were all Honi's story had to teach, dayenu, it would be enough. But there is more: Honi, it seems, left the carob orchard, and went to the House of Study. Standing in the doorway, he heard the scholars say, "This law is as clear as it was in the days of Honi, alav HaShalom."

 

Honi entered and exclaimed, "I am Honi." Understandably, the scholars did not believe him. Crestfallen that his companions were gone, Honi prayed for death, and died.

 

In its second part, the story presents a different message: that while the future demands our attention, it should not do so exclusively; for if we fixate on the future, we risk missing out on what we have in the present.

 

Taken as a whole, Honi's story underscores the importance of maintaining our balance in time. It's an especially appropriate message for the high holidays since these days present an opportunity to ask: have we got the past, present and future in perspective? Or are we living too much in one dimension of time and neglecting the others?

 

If, we find ourselves occasionally preoccupied with the future, we are not alone.

 

The demands of living in an affluent area fuel an insatiable drive to achieve. Some demands are financial, such as maintaining a certain lifestyle, paying the mortgage, tuition, childcare, planning for our later years. Some demands are academic, like completing assignments, juggling extra-curricular activities, making honor roll or dean's list. Some demands are logistical, like arranging carpool for three soccer teams and doctor's appointments. Some are related to the workplace, getting a particular job assignment or promotion; being productive; making the grade.

Such demands steer our attention to the future. And if such a pressure filled life were a car trip, we would doubtless be in the back seat, asking, "Are we there yet?"

 

It's not a new problem. Consider Abraham in this morning's Torah portion, imagining him, perhaps, as a fellow North Shore resident.

 

Abraham has done well in corporate life. He understands that career advancement often means personal sacrifice. He travels widely and has several times uprooted his family. But his dedication has paid off; he's landed an unusual contract, the terms of which extend to his children and even his children's children. His compensation, it is rumored, even includes real estate!

 

Today's Torah portion begins with a call from the boss and Abraham is only too eager to accept the challenge. He wakes especially early, selects his favorite tie, prepares his talking points for the big presentation, and is not the least bit suspicious of the request to bring "that lovely boy of yours, Isaac." The trip takes three days; Abraham is so intent on the impending meeting, he and Isaac hardly exchange a word. Abraham knows the stakes; if the meeting goes well he'll be assured a glorious future with the company.

 

If, upon reflection, we find we are preoccupied with the future, the Unetaneh Tokef suggests Tefilah -- prayer. While it is possible to pray anywhere, Tefilah occurs here, in the synagogue, in the midst of community. The prayer's melodies and words ground us in the past. Its themes remind us to be grateful for the blessings of family and friends. The view of the future espoused in Tefilah augments our achievement oriented goals with the messianic goal of building a better world. What's more, Tefilah is available every Shabbat. On Shabbat we forego thoughts about next week, or next month, or next year. On Shabbat we concentrate on experiencing the present.

But what happens if we live too much in the present? Is it possible to become too focused on the here and now?

 

It is, and those who live for the moment risk becoming self centered, their short sighted perspective blinding them to the needs of others. Like a nation whose attention span is limited to the length of its elected officials' terms of office, those focused on the present look for quick fixes, spend until they're in debt, and pay little heed to the preservation of their environment. Living too much in the present induces a moral decay, a disassociation between our actions and their consequences, and generates a climate in which all is justified by the needs of the moment. While we must live in the present, living for the present exclusively denies both the relevance of the past and our obligations to the future.

 

 

 

If we find we're too focused on the present, The Unetanah Tokef suggests doing Tzedakah. Doing Tzedakah moves us outside of ourselves, and focuses us instead on the needs of others. Tzedakah means taking responsibility for our neighbors' welfare, for ameliorating their suffering, and restoring them to a life of Human dignity.

 

 

 

Tzedakah is predicated on Tikun Olam, the Jewish belief that God's creation is incomplete and that we have an essential role in envisioning and creating a better future. Though our lives have limits, doing Tzedakah can give our lives enduring purpose.

 

 

 

What if on this Rosh HaShanah our thoughts are unduly preoccupied with the past? While the high holidays are an appropriate time for such reflection, some people live every day in the past, caught up in regret for lost chances, weighed down by memories of failed relationships, paralyzed by previous failures of will. Their motto is: "if only ... " They are frozen in time, unable to appreciate life, powerless to progress.

 

Others inhabit an idealized, nostalgic past. Their motto is: "those were the best years of our lives." While aspects of the past deserve fond reminiscence, an obsession with the past may mask a retreat from today's problems. Those who do so may be unwilling or unable to face the commitments and responsibilities of the present, or afraid to hope that things might improve in the future.

 

And sadly, for some the past is a closed book, not to be opened under any circumstances. They live in denial. Their motto is: "What's done is done."

 

Even if we don't fit any of those categories, we all need to check in with the past.

 

As Joan Didion put it: "I think we are well advised to keep on nodding terms with the people we used to be, whether we find them attractive company or not. Otherwise they turn up unannounced at 4 a.m. of a bad night and demand to know who deserted them and who is going to make amends."

 

To make amends with the past, the Unetaneh Tokef suggests Teshuvah. Teshuvah means repentance, literally, to return.

 

Teshuvah's first step is to return to the scene of the crime: the times we hurt others, knowingly or unwittingly; the times we failed to do our best; or failed to stand up for what we believe.

 

When we revisit the past, we occasionally find unresolved issues like guilt. In order to maintain temporal balance, Teshuvah encourages us to resolve such issues and move on lest we get stuck in the past.

 

This point is illustrated in a tale about a Chassidic rabbi and his disciple who were out walking and came across a young woman unable to ford a stream. To the disciple's distress, the rabbi picked her up, and carried her across the stream. The disciple was perplexed; the law of negiah, of modesty, precluded such contact between the sexes.

 

Six hours later, the disciple was no longer able to restrain himself. He confronted the rebbe: "Master, how could you have committed such a transgression?"

 

His master's reply was brief but to the point: "Are you still carrying that woman around? I put her down hours ago!"

 

Through Teshuvah we can relieve ourselves of the disappointments and mistakes and guilt we might otherwise carry forever. Teshuvah enables us to keep the past in perspective, so that we don't confuse the mistakes we've made with the people we are capable of becoming.'

 

The next ten days before Yom Kippur are the season for Jewish time management, our opportunity to get the past, present and future in perspective; and to use the tools suggested by the Unetaneh Tokef to bring our lives into temporal balance.

 

Through Teshuvah -- repentance -- may we become aware of our past but not burdened by it.

 

Through Tefilah -- prayer -- may we plan for the future, but not be obsessed by it.

 

And through Tzedakah may we experience and share with others the blessings of the present.

 

May the year 5769 be a healthy one for us all, and may we find the balance in time that will help us to lives of meaning and of purpose.

 

AMEN