Blessing the Conclusion of Our Summer

Shalom to all my friends at Beth Israel at the Tri City Jewish Center. I can’t believe it’s been almost a month since I started as new rabbi at this special community in the Quad Cities. 
As I sit at my computer writing boxes still surround me in my house. I am using my office that I share with my two boys, Ari and Alex, as their playroom.  While writing this article for August I can’t help thinking about what this month means to us as we close out our summer and begin our serious life of school and our preparation for the High Holidays. 
Tisha B’Av has just passed us and, as we move on from the mourning of the loss of our holy temple, we begin to prepare for the inner workings of our spiritual growth of Rosh HaShannah and Yom Kippur. 
Before we begin this awesome task let’s take a moment to bless the lingering days of our summer.
One of the most important aspects of our life is how we spend our free time.  The great philosopher Plato often described the greatness of the leisure class and the idea of making philosophical pursuits in this free time. 
Some thoughts that I want to share this month are the ideas of time, how we spend it, and how we can make it special. What is time? Time is perhaps the one thing in the world of which the most use is made and of which the least is known.
Alfred North Whitehead, a 20th century philosopher, once remarked that it is impossible to meditate on time without being overwhelmed by the limitations of human intelligence. Having more time is a goal we always seem to chasing and never really catching. The hope for slowing time usually happens when we see the finite quality of it.
Regardless of our concept of time, our perception of time is usually negative. We allow it to exercise a tyranny over our lives: “Time to go to bed,” “Time to get up,” “Time to take a shower,” “Time to go to work or to school.” 
We waste time and pursue time without understanding what to do with it when we have these extra moments. No other mechanism is so universal, as ubiquitous as our search for extra time.
Time for us is as a basket, a solid container into which we place our relationships, our goals, our health, and even our hopes for the times to come.  Our purpose in life seems to be to clutch the basket of time with all our might so that nothing might befall it. All the time we have is in it; hence it becomes what we might consider to be our most important possession. But time has its own way with us.
Clutch as we might, in time, relationships which we cherished fall from the basket leaving us bereft of much of the purpose for which we hold on to it. In time also, many of our dreams and fantasies, our goals and hopes, seep through the once presumably seamless container of time.
As the camera preserves a moment in time for us to relive, there is a possibility of creating other means of escaping the tyranny of time. This is what makes summer so special for many of us. It’s the chance to relive our childhood when time seemed to be all we had. 
There is something so childlike about watching an afternoon pass with little fear of the passing time. Since my arrival in the Midwest, I have had the fortune of seeing fireflies for the first time. My children are fascinated as these bugs flicker in the night as the sun sets and they light up their flame only for a moment to remind us of their existence.
This year we have made a major transition as we left our home on the beach in New Jersey and moved to the Midwest on the Mississippi River, and I have been thinking about where my life flows. 
I have been watching my children embrace this change, wondering what new adventures we may experience as we begin our new life in a new land. I recognize the passing of time each year as I see my children grow and I wonder what kind of people they will become.
Before I know it, that time will pass and they will be leaving us beginning their own adventures away from us, but for this special moment, this special summer, time stands still for them as the world embraces everything new and they get to grow into a new life in the Quad Cities.
Make your time special by developing and cultivating positive relationships with those around you.
Let us together take one last moment to bless this summer and all the possibilities that exist within it.
Rabbi Jeffrey Lipschultz is spiritual leader at Tri City Jewish Center in Rock Island, Ill., and formerly of Beth Judah Synagogue, Wildwood. He welcomes comments at dvjewish@rof.net