Slowing Down and Tuning In 

Last week was a strange week – with offices and schools closed for the holiday, Tuesday felt like a Monday.  Then, at least for those tied to the school systems, Tuesday and Wednesday were disrupted with the cold weather – and even for those that weren’t, I heard from congregants that plans to go to activities and errands were put on hold due to the cold and the snow, in favor of staying in the warmth and comfort of their homes.  I certainly enjoyed a few cups of warm beverages during the week!  One thing I noticed with those disruptions to routine was that it forced, in myself and those I encountered both a sense of chaos and simultaneously of added mindfulness to time.   

For some I talked with, the need to rearrange obligations throughout the week made them more aware of what they were spending time on, or what they wished to be spending more or less time on.  Instead of going with the flow of routine, the flow of the week required more conscientious thought. 

In the Fall, I participated in a Zoom series, “Book Club for Rabbis” where we discussed a chunk of Jenny Odell’s Saving Time: Discovering a Life Beyond the Clock.  Unlike a book about how to boost your productivity, hers is a thought-piece on the concepts of productivity and time.  She contends that the “time is money” mentality, which has pervaded capitalist economics is both embedded in our societal functioning, and detrimental to our well-being.  In essence, our paychecks are based on what an hour (or other unit) of our time is worth to our employer.  Employees want more compensation per hour; employers want more productivity per hour, which in turn means more profit for them.  Odell observes, the more work we attempt to squeeze into the same time – the more productive we seek to be – the more exhausted, burnt-out, and mechanical our work becomes, and so, she challenges the way we see time as a unit of currency. 

Drawing on Greek concepts, Chronos, chronological time, and Kairos, “crisis time”, the author proposes that we live in two worlds of time – the chronological march of measurable time where we dwell most of the time – tied to the clock to wake us up, get somewhere, do something, and the moments of time interrupted by crisis, by our awareness, or other factors.  And Kairos – when that gets disrupted, when time feels different, and provides the opportunity for transformation and hope – when we are creators in the world.  While not a ‘crisis’ – the disruption to routine forced a little taste of Kairos, where time might be viewed more as a gift than a finite resource.  To say that we all have 24 hours in a day, or 40 hours in a workweek, implies that those hours are created equally.  Chronos time says they are; but in Kairos time, hours are not equal.   

Traditional Jewish practice, with halakhic times, where an hour is not always 60 minutes, bridges these two worlds.  Shabbat occurs at sunset, not at a given clock time (even if our services do).  Our holidays fall in their seasons, not on a Gregorian calendar date.  It allows us to live in the moment and in modern life. 

As we emerge from the cold winter weather of last week, into what is currently less cold, but still wet weather as I type this, I hope that the jostle to our routine gives us a chance to see time a little differently.  With Tu Bishvat, which the religious school will recognize on Sunday with a Seder, we also remember our obligation to the timeline of our earth, and to reaffirm our commitment to be God’s partners in protecting it, even though our changes will likely not be evident in our lifetime – to live in a moment of Kairos time as a moment of transformation and hope.