What a kick in the head.
It’s taken me almost five decades to figure out the hardest thing in day-to-day life to do.
Day-to-day life.
I’d always thought it was the big challenges that offered the biggest challenges. After all, that’s kind of how our life is structured when we first set out. First day in kindergarten. Bar/bat mitzvah. Elementary school graduation. Driver’s license. First date. High school graduation. College graduation. Getting married. First job. First kid.
We get used to focusing on, getting ready for milestone after milestone. And so we figure that’s pretty much what life is made up of. The finals test, the important speech, the key meeting, the significant move, the tough decision, the first step.
Those, I always thought, were the real measure of a life — the times and situations in which you are called on to be all you can be.
I must admit I’m kind of shocked to see it ain’t so. Indeed, in many ways the tough tests are the easiest thing about life. For starters, they don’t come very often and you often know they’re coming. And so you can often muster the resources to meet them head on.
Beyond that, when it’s something that’s short-term, one time, you often can call on parts of yourself for one big burst to make it through.
You can’t do that with life. With day-to-day life. With all the millions of little things, small things, tiny decisions that are the real test, the real challenge, the real measure of a life.
This time of the Jewish year, Rosh Hashanah time, always reminds me of that anew. And I don’t know if it’s getting older or what, but it seems to have hit me in a different and deeper way this year.
Perhaps I’m showing my immaturity by saying it, but I never realized how much life is made up of small things, of just trying to make it from day to day to day, of going through the same cycles, the same routine. And doing it all in the way God would have us do it, in the way a mensch should do it.
It’s about getting up each day, thankful to God for being alive another day and being resolved to make the most of this day, recognizing the day is one you never get back.
And so the question then becomes, how do you act at each small juncture? How do you show your love for your spouse on a day that isn’t your anniversary or birthday or a legal holiday or a Jewish holiday or some sort of special occasion? It’s just a day.
How do you talk to your kids, what do you do to make them feel loved, feel special, when it’s just another day? How do you talk to and talk about your neighbors, your friends, others in the community, your co-workers?
Do you try to reach out to those in need, show caring to those who are hurting? How do you act when you go to the store, drive on the streets, make a business deal?
Do you watch what you eat and take care of your body? Do you try to learn something new every day? Do you try to feel what it is God wants from you, what small things you can do that only you and God will know about, so as to take care of your soul?
Told you it’s hard.
Hard to do all that on any one day. Even harder to do all that every day of our lives, 365 days of the year, for the 70 or 80 or 90 years that God blesses us with.
Are you grateful for every minute of that, no matter how much things don’t seem to be going your way, no matter how much you wish things would be different, no matter if you are suffering from illness or a difficult relationship or financial need?
Do you behave as you should each moment of each day, day after day? Or do you do it only on Rosh Hashanah, when the stakes are high, the choices clear, the finish line in sight?
That is the key question, for the essence of Rosh Hashanah isn’t about doing good, being good on Rosh Hashanah. It’s about how you do, how you are, who you are, the other 363 days of the year. And then doing more of the good and less of the bad every minute of every hour of every day between now and next Rosh Hashanah.
Do you lose your patience when your kid doesn’t understand his homework assignment? Do you scream at your spouse when she or he simply sees things differently? Do you resent it when you are asked to contribute to a Jewish cause? Do you look the other way when a friend down on his luck looks to you for help?
Do you take 10 minutes out of every day to do some kind of Jewish learning, do you take an hour out every week to do some kind of community service, do you take a week out every year to focus solely on your family, with no interruptions of any kind?
Do you really care about those who are hurting, or do you just see them as someone to do your ration of chesed (loving kindness) on?
Are you grateful each day for the food you eat, the clothes you wear, the family you are blessed with, the livelihood you are given, the country you live in?
Are you grateful each day to be living at a time when there is a state of Israel, a state open to and welcoming to all Jews? Are you grateful each day to be living at a time when all Jews all over the world are living in freedom and able to live as Jews?
Do you feel responsible for doing your part to improve Jewish life, strengthen the Jewish community, make full use of the creative period in which we live?
Do you leave work in time to have dinner with your family? Do you try to set aside a little time to connect meaningfully each day with your spouse? Do you say good night to each other with love and gratitude for having each other, for being together?
Do you make being Jewish important to your life, however you define that, believe it, practice it, express it?
Do you, just before going to sleep each night, look back at the day and do an inventory of how you’ve acted, feeling good about what you did right, feeling guilty about what you need to do better and being resolved to fix it?
Lots of questions. Tough questions. Questions that seem like too much, that are too hard, that are not realistic. C’mon, no one can be like that every day.
Maybe not. But everyone can try. And yes, it’s hard, real hard. The hardest thing about life is living life, small moment by small moment, day to day, over and over.
Big things mean something, sure. But it’s the little things that mean everything.
May you and your families have a year of happiness, contentment, blessing, health, prosperity, harmony, peace and joy.
Joseph Aaron is editor and publisher of the Chicago Jewish News.