Rabbi Mendy Herson's Blog

How quickly can you recall – with some specificity - what you did yesterday? Sure, you can probably do it, but how long will it take you?
How about last Thursday?
If you're like me, you spend a lot of energy responding to responsibilities of the moment, while stressing (at least a bit) about things yet to come. This makes most of life, whatever’s in the rear-view mirror, meld into a blur. One hour becomes virtually indistinguishable from another, one day runs into the next. We're managing. But we can do better.
Chassidic thought encourages us to take charge of our time and imbue each hour with meaning, making sure that our days really count.

Chassidism calls it "counting hours," similar to the way one countis precious diamonds, because we can – and should - make our time remarkable.

Here’s how it works: Think of your next hour as an empty vessel waiting to be filled. You get to choose how it will be used. If you make the hour’s character special, the hour will become significant; it’ll live on. It’s possible for a specific moment to become an outstanding slice of time; a development too special to lose its resonance in life’s overwhelming blur.

It’s not just that what happened is memorable, it’s that it mattered and made a meaningful contribution to your world.

If my days are meaningfully spent, I’ll know it. Life will feel full, and it won't matter whether I can remember exactly what I did at noon last Tuesday.
If we consciously recognize an hour as a time during which we are fulfilling G-d's intent in our creation - whether we spend it working to provide for our families or reading something inspiring on Chabad.org - we have done something remarkable. We will have actively chosen to make that hour a vehicle for purposeful living, aligning our lives with G-d’s intent in our very existence.

While it may not be apparent to the onlooker, choosing to meaningfully fill your time fulfills it Eternal Meaning.

Can time be any better spent?

This time of year (known as the Counting of the Omer), we put special emphasis on the Torah directive: “Love your fellow as you love yourself.”

At first blush, this seems like a poetic flourish, impossible in actual practice. Family and close friends aside, how can one really love everyone (our fellows) like we love ourselves? To know the needs, feelings and expectations of every “fellow” human being, let alone meet those needs? It doesn’t seem remotely realistic.

Maybe that’s why Hillel, a 1st century Sage, explained it from a different perspective:

"What you dislike done to you, don't do to others."

This guidance gives us some profound, practical messages:

1. The road to harmonious relations begins with your own self-awareness. Become conscious of what hurts you. Then stop doing it to others.

2. Hillel didn't say: "Go out there and save the world." He basically said "Do no harm." In other words: Even if you don’t know the likes and dislikes – or even the name – of the person sitting next to you on the bus, don’t do anything hurtful. How do you know what that person dislikes? Use yourself as the template.

Go ahead and be a hero to the world if you can, but first - and more importantly - make sure you’re not hurting anyone.

3. Hillel’s quote was in Aramaic, and I translated it in a way that I feel is true to the intent and understandable to a reader in 2021. But my translation misses one nuance. In the original Aramaic, Hillel used the word for ‘hate,’ not ‘dislike.’ Hillel isn’t saying, “if you don't like coffee, you shouldn’t offer it to your guest.” Hillel is telling us to consider the things that cause us hurt; think of how it feels to be judged, maligned, disrespected etc. Taste your revulsion; then remember that the other person has feelings too.

Step back and soak that in, because Hillel's perspective provides practical, achievable advice for real life.

Cause no unnecessary hurt to anyone. How do you measure hurt? By your own feelings.

Hillel encapsulated many Mitzvos in this brilliant principle. 

It's easy to remember.

It's more difficult than it sounds.

It's more rewarding than we can imagine.