Message from the April 29, 2016 service.
Have you ever noticed our tendency to count down to something? We count down when we launch a rocket. How many of us remember gathering around the TV and hearing the NASA announcer say 10-9-8-7-6……My kids right now are counting down the school days until summer vacation. Believe it or not, it’s only 15! This week the Nashville Predators made franchise history when they won a Game 7 in the playoffs but as the clock counted down, the tension grew until it was down to 5-4-3-2-1 with the tenths of a second speeding by. We count down to retirement, to vacation and even to each New Year as the ball drops in Times Square and we count down those last 60 seconds! But maybe we should really be counting up. When we count down, we are focused on the destination. It almost feels like we are wishing away the time between where we are now and where we want to be. When we count up, we recognize the value of every moment. We recognize that each moment “counts” as it brings us experience, learning and emotion, whether that is disappointment, anger, love or joy. It is all meaningful and not only contributes to where we are headed, it really IS where we are headed because without each of those moments there is nothing. My 11-year old daughter, Sarah, read me a quote this week that made me chuckle and then think. The quote, which was attributed to anonymous, said “Everything in the universe is either a potato or it isn’t.” Think about it. Everything in the universe is either a potato or not a potato. So I adapted this from Ms. Anonymous, and you can quote me on it. “Each moment in your life is either meaningful or it isn’t.” Of course that’s true no matter what. But my real point is, why not have them all be meaningful rather than simply counting them away? The definition of the word count reinforces this as there are two meanings. One is to determine the total number of and the other is to be significant. Counting can become an exercise in significance if recognizing each one as we determine the total number leads us to also recognizing the significance of each.
We have been counting the days of Passover this week as we celebrate, and actually depending on where you are from and how you were raised, you have been either counting to 7 or 8. Traditionally if you live outside of Israel, you celebrate for 8. The exception is if you are Reform, as many of us are, as the Reform movement adopted the 7-day holiday as Israel celebrates it because that is how it is written in the Torah and because modern mathematics eliminates the reason it became 8 when we stopped relying on eyewitnesses to the new crescent moon to determine when the month started and then having to communicate that throughout the land. Now we know officially when Passover starts so we do not have to extend it to ensure that we have the right day. The Torah portion associated with today, the eve of the eighth day of Passover, also commands us to count the Omer. That is the practice of counting the days between our freedom and the receipt of the Torah on Mt. Sinai which is also traditionally the day for the wheat harvest. That is why we call it counting the Omer, because an Omer is a sheaf of grain. We are told to count the Omer for seven weeks before we celebrate Shavuot. That is 49 days that begins on the 2nd day of Passover. But we do not start at 49 and count it away, we start at 1 and count up. We say “Today is one day of the Omer,” and then “Today is two days of the Omer,” until we get to 49. Each day is filled with planting and study, work and play, successes and challenges, laughter and tears. We don’t count them down. We treasure them as we day by day approach Shavuot. Each day is a step along our journey. There is a destination, but really everything in the universe is the journey, or it isn’t.
So as we face our week, and the next six weeks after this, on our way to Mt. Sinai, let’s not take the days of our lives for granted. It sounds easy….and it really is. Because it is as simple as recognizing that each moment has meaning. That when we look in the mirror, we are not who we were, or who we are going to be, but exactly who we are supposed to be at this moment. My business partner is a wonderful sales person and an extremely bright, creative and kind person, but she is not the most organized person you will ever meet. Recently, one of our employees was trying to nicely describe that fact to a client of ours, and what she came up with was, “Teresa is not the right person to ask to organize the tour. Teresa lives in the moment.” We both laughed at how delicately that was stated, but in reflection, there is something to be said for living in the moment. Now that doesn’t mean we should throw away our to do lists and calendars, but if we get too caught up in what is coming next, we might miss the beauty and holiness that is right in front of us.
