Ra’anana Community Kollel
Y6K and Those Hectic Friday Afternoons
Elana Horwitz
I can’t believe it - just five and a half hours to go until Shabbos! Guess I’d better start cooking. Now where did I put my largest pot? It’s probably buried in the sink - I’d better wash the dishes. Open the refrigerator and ponder bits of leftovers. I’d better empty this quickly into the garbage bin. But there’s no room. I have to take out the garbage first…
Despite its unfailing predictability, the imminent arrival of Shabbos always seems to take us by surprise. Perhaps much of the stress is due to time pressure. With so little time to go, we are jolted into a need for action.
Aside from its time limit, Erev Shabbos presents many of us with another issue. Every week we expend effort in preparation, all in honor of Shabbos Kodesh. But a relentless nagging voice asks, What for? Chances are that my efforts won’t really be appreciated. The kids will behave rambunctiously during the meals. My family and guests will not even be hungry because they will have eaten at a kiddush in shul. By the end of Shabbos, my home will appear just as untidy as it was before I began cleaning. Why do I do this?
We grapple with these unnerving thoughts weekly. But recently, as I stood cooking for Shabbos late on a Thursday night, wondering at the likelihood of my efforts proving successful, I accessed a liberating thought.
It doesn’t matter.
It doesn’t matter if my efforts will or won’t be appreciated. It makes no difference whether or not the children sit quietly, the guests eat large portions or our home stays tidy. I’m preparing for Shabbos with all my abilities because it’s a meaningful thing for me to do right now. As a Jewish wife, mother and hostess, as a Jew who wants to grow close to my Creator through observing the mitzvos, which give our lives purpose. Late Thursday night alone in my kitchen contains as much possibility as any other time to be all that I can be.
Rather than allowing doubts about the future to paralyze me into anxiety or inaction, I can do my best now and leave the results up to Hashem.
When I became aware of the possibility of succeeding at any given moment, I realized something else. Erev Shabbos is about more than Erev Shabbos. It’s about the millennium, but not the year 2000. It’s about the year 6000.
The Talmud teaches us that the world as we know it will exist for 6000 years. The first 2000 years, before Avraham Avinu discovered and spread the truth of monotheism, were defined as chaos. The years 2000 to 4000 were the years of Torah, including the giving of the Torah at Har Sinai. During these years we Jews experienced the events recorded in the Tanach. This era culminated in the compilation of the Mishnah. The years 4000 to 6000 will include the arrival of the Mashiach.
But before this world-altering event takes place, we are to devote our lives to “mastering the meaning of the Torah”. This will give us the merit to become worthy of the gift of Mashiach, whose time will usher in world peace, closeness with Hashem and blessing.
Tradition tells us that every thousand years corresponds to one day of Creation. Sunday represents the first 1000 years, Monday the years 1001-2000, and so on. Consider six years ago, the year 5760. We are living a Friday existence. And it’s no longer bright and early Friday morning, with the entire day ahead of us to prepare. No, actually we have only 5 hours and 36 minutes left until Shabbat! (1000 years is to 24 hours as 760 years is to X. X = 18 hours and 24 minutes that have passed already.)
No wonder life is so stressful. It’s five-and-a-half hours before Shabbos. And there’s so much to do! How well can we use the time we have, in the era in which we are living, to “master the meaning of the Torah”? The answer we create to this question has direct bearing on how soon we will be ready to appreciate the age of Mashiach, and consequently, when it will arrive. For the Navi tells us that if we are worthy, this age will be accelerated and come prior to the year 6000.
There is so little time to go. Small-but-sincere efforts count! An advertisement for a popular brand of peanut butter portrays its consumers as “never having a minute…but always making a moment”.
So many unique moments are waiting for us to make them count.
Making a moment can mean committing to one Torah class. It can mean really listening to a friend. We can remind ourselves that we are eating in order to be healthy to do mitzvos. We can take vitamins, herbs or medicine with the thought that it is Hashem who has the power to heal through these means. It takes just a moment to ask Hashem to help us find our lost glasses or start the car. We make a moment count when we hang up the telephone or abandon the computer when someone important wants attention - like one’s spouse or child.
It’s up to us to bring each day our best. Then Hashem will finish our work for us, by bringing on the era of Mashiach, sometime in this millenium, hopefully very soon, in our days of spiritual accomplishment.
* Information about the 6000 years of Jewish history was taken from an article by Benjamin Blech.
