Last week’s post shined a spotlight on one of my heroes, Rabbi Benjamin Goldschmidt of New York’s Alt Neu Synagogue. I wrote of the importance of learning from failure and converting it into a pathway to success. When mistakes happen, let it go. In today’s post, I shift from “Let it Go” to “Let My People Go,” sharing more wisdom from Rabbi Goldschmidt as we start the celebration of Passover, the holiday of freedom.
In his sermon, the rabbi explored an element of Passover I hadn’t considered, the concept of time. The theme of “time” runs throughout the Jewish exodus from slavery. Famously, the Israelites didn’t have time to let the dough rise, resulting in the unleavened matzah we eat instead of bread. The urgency signaled it was time to escape Egypt. The time was right—it was now or never. Leave before Pharaoh changed his mind.
The rabbi expressed an aspect of time I hadn’t considered. “While in slavery, the Hebrews had no need for a watch.” Time was irrelevant to them. All they did was toil away, building pyramids from dawn to dusk. Ironically, freedom brought with it the need to address time. What do you want to do with your time? How can you fill your time in the most fulfilling way? Time is precious, don’t waste it.
The Jews had plenty of time to think about it—40 years to be exact. Wandering in the desert for 40 years provided time to create a new generation, entering the Holy Land free from the shackles of the past.
Rabbi Goldschmidt expanded on the theme of time to urge his young congregants to carry out the commandment “be fruitful and multiply.” We are still trying to restore the Jewish population to our pre-Holocaust numbers, when one-third of our people were murdered. The rabbi admonished: “Don’t wait until ‘the time is right’ to get married. Don’t wait until ‘the time is right’ to have a baby. The time is never right. There’s always some excuse. Just do it!”
At that point, my son-in-law Ira Savetsky jabbed me in the ribs. He and I exchanged a wink and a smile. Ira has heard me say that same thing a thousand times. It’s one of my mottos when advising young people. Ira knows that I add one more to it: “If you wait until the time is right to start a business, you’ll never do it. The time is never right.”
I’m grateful that I didn’t wait until the time was right to marry Laurie, have Adam and Lizzy, and start The Blum Firm. In spite of all the reasons not to, I took the plunge. Somehow it all worked out. I suppose the time actually was right!
Marvin E. Blum
Marvin Blum’s family learning from the Passover story at last year’s seder, including the lesson that if you wait until the ‘time is right,’ it may be too late.