* Translated by Janine Muller Sherr
How can we tell if something is truly important to us? It’s not enough to talk about it or want it. The question is: Do we make time for it? Do we set aside time for it in our daily schedule?
This basic but profound principle appears in this week’s parasha, Emor, which describes Jewish holidays in detail: Shabbat, Pesach, Sefirat HaOmer, Shavuot, Sukkot, Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. The Torah is literally recording these special times in our yearly planner and thus establishing these holy days as the anchors of our year, our lives, and our souls.
It is deeply moving to read this parasha and realize that thousands of years after these words first appeared in the Torah, the Jewish people are still marking these holy days in our common yearly planner.
There is much discussion today about time management, but our parasha urges us, in essence, to be diligent in our “values management”—to ensure that the values we cherish become the basis for the daily rhythm of our lives.
May we merit to make time in our daily schedule for those things that are holy and precious to us.
