Anybody ever take a course in time management? Large organisations and corporations often
offer the training for their employees. Most
busy people need some help in this area.
It is easy to feel overwhelmed when one has different tasks or projects
to complete. When we have plenty of
time, no tight deadlines looming, we can relax and think deeply about how we
want to accomplish each task. And if
someone comes into our office needing help, or just wanting to chat? Or a certain someone phones and suggests a
quiet lunch somewhere? We need not worry
about everything else. But this idyllic
picture does not describe most of us, most of the time. The rest of us struggle, at least sometimes,
to fulfil all our obligations. It is a
common wish to wonder if one could acquire better time management skills.
One time, in the US Air Force, I did
sign up for a three-day course in time management. Or at least, I thought I was signing
up for such a course. It was The
Seven Habits of Highly Effective People.
Based on the book by that name by Dr Stephen Covey, it was all the
rage back then. Several people I worked
with, had already taken it. Afterward
they always walked around with those big leather binders holding their
calendars and everything else they needed to complete their daily tasks. You know, it’s funny today, when everything I
need to run my life is on the iPhone in my pocket, to remember those Franklin
Planners that everybody bought after taking the Seven Habits course. Before the course, almost everybody used the
free planners one could get by picking it up at the supply centre. But after taking Seven Habits, most
people ran out to buy the Franklin Planners which were relatively expensive but
an important tool for managing one’s life better.
So I took the course, and yes,
afterwards I started walking around with one of the big planners in my hand. But at the end of the day, Seven Habits wasn’t
about time management at all. Rather, it
was about clarifying one’s values, and letting those values determine how one
runs one’s day, or one’s life.
That was a revelation. For many years I, like most people, had felt
myself losing control of my own life. My
days and weeks were full of others’ demands.
I tried to protect an ever-shrinking part of my time, to place a fence
around it. But otherwise I felt more and
more that my time was out of my control.
If you’re worried that I’m winding
up to lecture you on the Seven Habits now, you can rest easy! I actually did base a sermon series on
the Seven Habits once. It
provided fodder to keep me going for the entire High Holy Days. If you’re interested, you can find the
sermons on my blog, posted in September 2013.
All I want to say about the Seven
Habits now, is this. When we have
clarified our values, and prioritised them, we can order our lives according to
those values. And when we do
that, we will see our daily and weekly schedules change. Because few of us, if we are not being
intentional about it, order our lives according to our values. We prioritise by what is easy. Or fun.
And then we wonder where the days, the weeks, the months, and the years
went.
The section of the Torah that we’ve reached,
lays out the organisation and operation of the Holy Cult. Of the sacrifices which were the religion of
Israel from the wanderings in the desert until the destruction of Herod’s
Temple. How exacting the instructions
are! This week we focus on the priests. The priestly vocation was hereditary; the sons
of Aaron, brother of Moses and their offspring were set aside for this function.
But they could fulfil it only if they
were worthy in every respect. This week’s
reading describes the fashioning of the priests’ vestments. And the procedure for the sacrifices for the
ordination ceremony. The point is that,
if these priests are to serve as the conduit between Hashem and Israel, they
must be prepared and worthy and everything must be done according to an
exacting standard. In Judaism today we
do not have that same sense of precision. We understand that our service today is not
ordained directly by G-d but is a substitute that we do because we cannot do
the one described in the Torah.
In Orthodox Judaism, the exacting
instructions in the Talmud take the place of what’s written here in the Torah. But often the service proceeds with little concern
for grandeur and evocation. It follows a
strict order and script. But the
quibbling that often attends the running of the service often robs it of its ability
to uplift. This effort to follow the
script and instructions exactly should make it easy for the individual
Jew to participate in the service wherever he might go in the Jewish world. But there are so many variations of custom as
to make that unlikely.
Since we make no claim to be
Orthodox, we take some liberties with order and procedure. Given this latitude, I can hone it to make it
more evocative. Even so, I try to keep changes
small and gradual. I know that there is comfort
in routine.
My takeaway from this part of the
Torah is not that we must try to recapture the procedures and standards herein,
in the service that we share today. We
can let it evolve, as it has over the centuries to reach the form that we
follow now. Rather, as our
particular practice evolves, we should always keep in mind the values that
motivate it in the first place. And let
it evolve in a way that supports those values.
The first of Stephen Covey’s Seven
Habits is, Be Proactive. Covey
himself coined the term. Some take it as
meaning, anticipate needs before they arise. But Covey wasn’t thinking about time. What he meant is to let one’s values guide one’s
actions and decisions. Not the
emotions. Not some pragmatic
consideration. If we use our values, our
efforts will seem less chaotic. Because
they will be.
Here in shule, of all places it is
important to act according to our values. In our individual actions, and those of the
congregation. If we do, our service will
seem less chaotic and will be. That’s
not to say it will be as rigid as the steps to prepare the sons of Aaron for G-d’s
service. Even without an unchanging
script, it will seem that the needs of the day will yield to timeless
needs. Shabbat shalom.
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