It’s the lattes that change the equation - a meditation upon the passing of Rabbi Chaim Kanievsky
Summary: Rav Chaim’s learning schedule was virtually inhuman. He did so much with his time. So where is all of my time going?
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There’s something important here. Bear with me.
Netflix and Amazon Prime both raised their rates of late. Add to that Hulu and Disney Plus, plus the already exorbitant rate we pay for internet and cable, and it turns out to be untenable. So I set out to trim our “entertainment” budget. Apple TV is the first to go - worthless until the next season of Ted Lasso. But, it’s only $5/month. No real impact. I start to look deeper - where can we actually save money? You start to make up little formulas in your head, making equivalences, devil’s bargains, justifications for what you keep and what you don’t and why.
And then you realize you’re spending $5.25 three times a week on lattes, and you’re buying gas at the wrong place, and there are magazines you get that you don’t read, and the logic of your budget starts to unravel and is revealed to be not much more than your id plus some guilt minus some maturity over laziness and utter confusion. Forget it. Let’s go watch Euphoria. Wait, do we have HBO Max yet?
Now apply that to time. You look at the 168 hours that most humans are offered in any given week, you subtract sleep, errands, food prep, you look at your office life, your commute, time with kids, exercise, you wonder if any of these could be shortened, or could be lengthened, or could be optimized or combined, if podcasts or audio books should be added, or not, and which ones, and how (Audible - that’s $14.99/month!), and then you start wondering about eating out, because they saves time, but it costs money, and are two meals out per month worth more than Netflix + HBO Max - Netflix + Apple TV - one of those lattes + Prime?
But here’s the thing. A very well-known rabbi - Rav Chaim Kanievsky - died recently. He was the leader of a community with whom many of us don’t feel much overlap. He was not progressive. He wasn’t “modern.” He didn’t have a podcast or write any fun books. But half a million people were at his funeral, and upon his death, word started to get out about his daily learning schedule. It turns out that, every day, he would learn 11 pages of Zohar, 10 chapters of Psalms, 8 Chapters of Tanach, 10 sections of Mishna Berura, 8 Chapters of Rambam, 10 sections of Tur and Shulchan Aruch, 8 pages of Talmud Bavli, 8 pages of Talmud Yerushalmi, 8 chapters of Midrashim, 8 pages of Kisvei HaAri, 8 pages of Kisvei Haramchal, and then he would write. It turns out that, every year, he would finish all of Zohar, Tanach, Mishna Berura, Rambam, Tur, Shulchan Aruch, Shas Bavli, Tosefta, Shas Yerushalmi, Midrashim, Kisvei HaAri, and Kisvei Haramchal. That’s the rough equivalent of your reading every book you’re ever read in your entire life, every year.
So, today, I was about to do the wordle, and I had a thought: my “every day” is quite different from that of Rav Chaim Kanievsky. While he’s learning Mishnah Berurah and Kitvei Ari, I’m doing wordle and checking Facebook and reading the news and etc. (though I am also learned some Zohar, some talmud, etc.). It’s not that I should necessarily drop all those things I do and start learning Torah the way he did (or should I?). It’s really two other, major things: one is that he knew exactly what he was about, all the time. He had such a clear sense of purpose and mission in what he should be doing with his time, and he built up a capacity to do an enormous amount of that, very effectively, every day. I suspect that, for many of us, the willingness to spend our time in wordle and social media and the like is directly related to a basic sense that we don’t have an overriding sense of mission in the world. People who do, and for whom that sense of mission is genuinely compelling, they don’t have time (make time) to do the wordle (as much as they’d perhaps like to) because they cannot afford it.
So, on that point, I suggest, as you settle in to your wordle (and nerdle and lewdle and all the rest) that you offer up something like, “Great Power of the Universe! Please help me figure out what my life is really about so that I am compelled enough and inspired enough to not have time for the wordle. And in the meantime, should I start with a multi-vowel word like ‘ocean’ or start with something that includes both obscure and common consonants, like ‘stick’?”
The second point. Wordle is to time-budget as latte is to money-budget. You think it’s the Netflix and the Prime and the Hulu that are costing you, but, the truth is, for what it’s worth, you probably get a lot of value out of those things. You watch shows with people, you have conversations about them with other people, etc. It’s the lattes, buying gas in the wrong places, not bringing a lunch, and all the other stuff that’s actually ruining your budget.
Similarly, you might look at how you allot those 168 hours and bemoan the commute and the sometimes pointless meetings you have to go to, and that is true, but there are all these other unclaimed hours sitting about, stuck under wordle and FB and the rest, waiting to be claimed and put together and made into something meaningful and purposeful and enjoyable and sustainable.
So, though I cannot tell you a single thing Rav Chaim Kanievsky ever said, I am pleased that his passing has raised the issue, for the moment, of how I use my time, and could use my time, and could make something grand out of this life I live.