“RABBI’S MUSINGS (&
AMUSINGS)”
Erev Shabbos Kodesh
Parshas Shoftim
3 Elul 5777/ August 25,
2017 - Avos Perek 1
During the last couple of weeks, our three-and-a-half (and
one quarter) year old son, Dovid, wakes up every morning and asks if it's
Shabbos Kodesh. I wish I could say that he's so drawn to the sanctity of the
day, that he can't stop asking about it. But the truth is, that it's because on
Shabbos morning he gets to eat "his favorite cereal in the whole wide
world" in honor of Shabbos.
I recall from my youth, that breakfast cereals are not just
about the cereal, but also about the boxes. Some time ago, there was a study
(Cornell Food & Brand Lab Researchers) conducted about the influence cereal
boxes have on children. The study revealed that when cereal boxes are stocked
on the shelves of supermarkets, they're placed on the bottom two shelves, and
at an angle. Doing so ensures that the character displayed on the box is making
eye contact with the child walking down the aisle. (Don't ask me why anyone
studied this, I'm just reporting the facts.)
In the Staum home when we were growing up, there was great
competition about who gets to look at the cereal box while eating the cereal.
I'm not really sure what the appeal was to read the nutrition facts, but for
some reason, it became a goal to read the entire box while eating. The greatest
mornings were when we were able to surround ourselves with a few different
boxes, like an impenetrable fort.
One of our greatest deficiencies that all of us suffer from
today, lies in our inability to focus on the present moment. Our
distractibility is out of control. We live in a world which worships
multi-tasking. The price of doing so however, is the forfeiture of living in,
or at least living with, the present moment.
According to a study of 5,000 people by psychologists Mathew
Killingsworth and Daniel Gilbert (Harvard), adults only spend 50% of their time
focused on the present moment. That means that we are mentally checked out half
of the time. The study also showed that people were happiest when they were
fully engaged in whatever they were doing at the present moment. That means,
people were happier when they were engrossed in something they didn't enjoy,
than when they were only half engaged in something they did enjoy.
Chazal say that "now" is an expression of teshuva.
The literal definition of teshuva is to return. In all of our day-to-day
busy-ness we tend to become distracted from our life goals and direction. By
"returning" to Hashem, we are really returning to ourselves as well.
The first step towards that is by turning inwards, deciding whether we are
living up to our own expectations. That comes from living in the moment, and
not becoming weighed down by the past, or hyper-focused on the future.
If we don't stop to fully experience the things we do enjoy -
such as eating - it's no wonder that we have such a hard time living in the
moment. We seem to be so busy reading the boxes that we never fully enjoy their
contents.
So, in a nutshell, the message of Elul is to stop reading the
cereal boxes, and to enjoy the cereal!
Shabbat
Shalom & Good Shabbos,
R’ Dani and Chani Staum