I Don't Have Time To Learn

What do you do when you feel like you don't have time to learn?

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome back to To Revation. This week's topic is I don't have time to learn. What do you do when you feel like you don't have any time to learn? You know what separates the goods from the great, the people that are truly great from the people that are just average? It's free time. And I don't mean that average people have free time and great people don't have free time, but I mean what they do with their free time. You see, it's not that great people utilize their free time. It's people that utilize their free time become great. You know, it's ironic, we always say that time is the most precious commodity we have. You can't buy more of it, you can't replenish it, you can't save time for later. Yet there's this idea of free time. Time is not free. There are some people that will say, you know what time is? Time is money. And there's an element of truth to that, but you know what time really is? Time is Torah. Time is Tarah. Time is an opportunity to be elevated. There's an idea of being kavay item la tarah, of setting aside time each day for Tarah. The Schlaq Kadesh and Shivuis he says that you know why it says kvey item in the Lushan Rabbim in the plural, as opposed to kave ace in the lush yachar in the singular? It's because it's referring to all those times throughout the day. The two minutes here, the two minutes there, the two minutes in between business meetings or whatever it is, waiting for the doctor in the car in traffic. Kave item, that all those times throughout the day, you're supposed to be kove them for learning. You're supposed to set them aside for learning. Ribnachman, Lakuti Muran, he says very interesting. He brings down a Pasik in Mishlay. The Pasak says, Vikava es kveyim nafesh. That over there in Mishli, the lushan of kaveah means it's in it means stealing or to rob. That sometimes we don't have the time. And we have to literally steal time away from our day for learning. We have to steal time from our busy day in order to be able to learn. You know, the Mishnah in Pergy Aviv says, Don't say that when I have the time, that's when I'm gonna learn. Maybe you're not gonna have the time, maybe you're gonna run out of time. But there's another way to explain the Mishnah as well. A chassid once came to the Rebbe Rabbinim, and the Chasid said, I don't have time to learn. My job does not give me time to learn. And he was asking the Rebbe Rabbinim that maybe he thought, maybe you should try to switch professions, try to find a different job, a job that'll give him more time to learn. And the Rebbe Rabbinim told him, Al Taima, Laksi Panah, Asha, don't say that when I have the time, I'm gonna learn. Don't say that I need to have a job that's gonna give me the time, that that's what I'm gonna learn. Why? Shem Allah. Maybe you're not supposed to have the time. Maybe a Qadish Barakh doesn't want you to have the time. What does that mean? Why doesn't Hashem want me to have the time? What Rabbi Rabin was saying is that maybe your two minutes is more valuable than somebody else's hour. That your Avaida, your specific Avaidah is not to learn his hour, but to learn your two minutes, to take those two minutes that you have. That's your Avaidah. That's so beloved, so precious that Khadish Barakh, that you don't have the time. Yeah, you take the two minutes here, you take the five minutes here, you get up early in the morning, you're tired at night, whatever it is you take those few minutes to learn. That is so precious. And this is such an important idea because so often the Itzahara tries to convince us to get stuck in the smallest trap. That what's two minutes worth? What's the point of opening up a Mishnah? What's the point of saying a capital to what's the point of learning two lines of Gemara? It's nothing. It's so insignificant. This guy's learning an hour, this guy's going to his stuff, Yemishi and Khazri, whatever it is. What's my two minutes worth? But what the Reb Rubinem is telling us that maybe your Avoid is those two minutes, those two minutes of hopping around, of stealing time out of your day, of learning and giving that to Hashem. How precious that could be to Hashem. We say in Davening, kiheim chayenuchemeinu, because it is they are our lives and it lengthens our days, is referring to the Tara, that the Torah is our life and it lengthens our days. What does it mean va'yur chimenu and it lengthens our days? Perhaps what it means to say is that a Tarah gives us the opportunity to maximize our time, to live our life to the fullest, to live to our full potential. That you could have two people. You have one person that goes through the day, and you have another person that goes through the day. They both have the same 24 hours. But one person maximizes his day, he maxes out, he takes every opportunity he has to use that for learning, for taira, for avida. He lengthens his days because he's living his life to the fullest. He's taking everything out of his day that he possibly could. When we live our life to the fullest, we could appreciate what we have. We appreciate the day. We feel energized, we feel revitalized because of how it is. When we go to sleep at night at the end of the day, we look back to the day, we go, wow, look what I accomplished in those couple of minutes, as opposed to the other person that goes, What did I do? I played Candy Crush, what'd I do with my day? I didn't do anything. You know, in 1982 and 1983, at the Yud Al-F Nizafrink of the Babuchereba, which was Labab Chi Reba's birthday, he said that when a person, he's talking about the idea, the Indian of a birthday, he said that when a person has a birthday and a person gets older, it's not a time to start slowing down. That's not why Khadj Baruch gave you another year, but it's a time to increase. In fact, Khajush Baruch gave you another year, said the Babuchareb, that means there's something demanded of you this year. You have to max out this year. This year has to surpass the previous year. That's why Hashem gave you another year. But you know what? It's not only for years, it's for days as well. If you wake up today, why do you get up today? That means that you have an Avaida today. You have a job today. Today has to surpass yesterday. However, yesterday was, today has got to be better, and tomorrow has got to be better than that. That every day that we're given is a day that we're given to max out. You know, I once heard from Rush Al Katz, I believe I've said this before. He said that we're also concerned, we're gonna come to Shemaya and Khajusan asks us, my son, did you believe in me? But he says this is a much deeper question we have to think about. And that question is that Qadraj Barzan asks us, did you believe in how much I believed in you? Especially in the time of Hester Panim, especially in a time where we don't see Hashem's face and we're just so busy rushing from job, family, and we don't have those few minutes. And we think that what's it worth? What are we doing? But that a Qadrish Baruch is rooting for us. Do we believe in how much a Qadraj Baruch believes in us? That we could take those two minutes, that we can max out, that we can maximize our days. And remember, the greats are great because of how they choose to utilize their free time.