מ'דאַרף הִיטעֶן דעֶם זְמַן, מ'דאַרף מְקַבֵּל זַיין עוּלָּהּ שֶׁל תּוֹרָה. יעֶדעֶר זְמַן, יעֶדעֶר טאָג וואָס גֵייט אַוועֶק, אִיז דאָס נִיט נאָר אַ טאָג נאָר אַ עִנְיָן אִין לעֶבּעֶן, דִי טעֶג גֵייעֶן כְּמַאֲמַר (יְרוּשַׁלְמִי בְּרָכוֹת פֶּרֶק א' הֲלָכָה א') יוֹם נִכְנָס וְיוֹם יוֹצֵא שַׁבָּת נִכְנָס כו' חֹדֶשׁ כו' שָׁנָה כו'. דעֶר טאַטעֶ האָט געֶזאָגט בְּשֵׁם רַבֵּנוּ הַזָּקֵן: אַזוּמעֶרדִיגעֶר טאָג אוּן אַוִוינטעֶרדִיגעֶ נאַכט אִיז אַ יאָהר.

We must carefully watch our time. We have to accept the yoke of the Torah. Every moment and every day that passes is not only a day, but a chunk of life. The days pass by, as our Sages say (Talmud Yerushalmi, Berachos 1:1): “A day arrives and a day departs; a week arrives…, a month…, a year….”

My father, [the Rebbe Rashab,] used to say in the name of the Alter Rebbe: “A summer day and a winter night is an entire year.”1

Living in This World

Everyone today is time conscious: we want to squeeze the most out of our minutes. This necessitates a sense of direction and priority — firstly, so that we will know what to use our minutes for. As the Rebbe Rayatz spells this out, “Accepting the yoke of Torah means that every gesture must be significant and thought out according to [the standards of] the Torah.” Moreover, a clear sense of direction and priority compels one to maximize those minutes.

The pioneering instance of this is Avraham Avinu. When the time came for him to return his soul to his Maker at the close of his 175 years, the Torah describes him2 as ba bayamim — literally, “coming with his days,” implying that he was able to account for every one of his many days: he had filled them all.3