BS"D

A Rav once told his talmidim (students) what is the worst thing that we have inherreted from the Goyim? And the students replied, I don't know Rebbe sin, impurity...? And he answered, No ! The western concept of time. The idea that we can kill time. He explained with a mashal (parable) you see he said in the factory of time jews and goyim are at work. In the asembly line there are boxes of time goign along in the belts; each box represents a certain amount of time as the boxes comes by some one opens it uses it and waits for the next box. This is the same for the Goy and the Jew. However the difference between the two is that, in the goyish concept of time there is a mechanism called killing time where the box that he doesnt use goes back around the belt and comes back to him at a later time. In the Jewish concept of time, when he decides to kill time the box passes by him and falls into gigantic pit of fire, never to see that time again.

Rabbi chaim Luzzato wrote in his books quoting Rabbi Chaim Vital. "God is good, some one who is good wants to dispense good to others." The purpose of our existence is so God can give us from His goodness. he wants to give us the pleasure of pleasures. What is the ultimate pleasure? Olam Habah (The World To Come), if the the greatest pleasure is Olam Habah? Then what is the purpose of (this world) Olam Hazeh; Our entrance to Olam Habah is the mitzvots we do in Olam Haze. Every single second we are involved doing mitzvot, learning Torah and involved in good deeds we are gaining the proper merrit to be able to live in Olam Habah. To the extent that according to our work we will live in Olam Habah; the more we do in this world the more we will be rewarded in the next.

Therefore every second of our waking moment is an opportunity to invest in eternity.
There are those who spend their entire lives pursuing physical matters like money and riches. The irony is that a ben Torah (Son of Torah) is in the same business except we are investing in something for eternity. Yet everything in this world will remain in this world, all the cars, houses , money are all but an illusion. The reason for it in this world is to use it as a tool to perform mitzvot.

Every second of our time is valuable.

Imagine being givien five minutes in a vault to take as much as you can; every second is valuable and priceless.

The Chofetz Chaim used to say that life is like a postcard you begin to write and before your realize it your out of room and you begin to frantickly  write smaller and smaller; then we turn the card on its side. At first (early in ourlives) we begin writing big using up alot of space and as we grow older we begin to write smaller because we realize that it is impossible to fit it all in to such a tiny amount of space.

The young person lives in the future; in his dreams.The older person lives in his past because his future is eminent.

This is the trap of time, we are constanly involved in trying to save time every piece of technology that comes out supossibly saves time. This is the trap of the Yetzer Ha Rah (the evil inclination) that on a daily basis tries to distract us from our pupose in life; causing us to waste our time in frustration and depression. The lights in Las Vegas are there so that you can be distracted and stop.

What do you kill when you kill time?

If one was able to know that someone had 10 seconds to live; at the last second someone would walkin and kill that person. Is the shooter guilty of murderer? According to Halacha YES even for one second. Is it not suicide when we kill minutes, hours or even days of our lives?

Next time we find ourselves on a bus or at the doctors office wating for something killing time. Lets open up a sefer (book) of Torah and transform suicide in to time invested in Eternity.

by Yosef Juarez