Lazy Days?

Table Talk from the desk of Rabbi Alexander Seinfeld

December 22-23, 2023 • 11 Teves 5784 • Vayigash (Gen 44-47). 

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Lazy Days?

Opening question for your table: Who knows what major event occurred last night at 10:30 pm EST?

Give up? Here's a hint: it was celestial...

Before we reveal the answer, here's a story.

This past Sunday, I received a surprise and very brief phone call from a certain rabbi. It went like this:

— I just want to thank you!
— You're welcome! For what?
— Thanks to you, for the first time in many decades, I didn't eat a single donut on Chanukah — and I didn't miss it at all!

Wow, I kvell.

You see, outreach to rabbis is a part of our strategy to correct the course of the great ship of Jewish food culture. Here in Baltimore, a generous donor sponsored gifting copies to 50 local rabbis and school principals. 

(If you would like to foster a similar program in your community, send me an email.)

So last Friday, after faithfully sending your Table Talk email (about not letting Chanukah end - remember?), your Faithful Correspondent hopped in the car and delivered copies of Body & Soul to local rabbis and principals with a humble request: please consider choosing at least one way to publicly and consistently be a role model for this mitzvah.

Now, I know that a few rabbis are on this weekly email list, but to those who are not Jewish leaders, what's your role and responsibility?

Let's circle back to the first question above – what momentous celestial event occurred last night?

The answer is winter solstice - when the sun finally stops retreating to the south and starts migrating north again. Which means we're currently at the shortest day of the year up here and the longest day Down Under.

And in six months, we'll be at summer solstice - the longest day of the year.

The solstice inspires me to ask you this question, designed to stimulate your thoughts about your own response and responsibility.

Which of those two solstice days would you say is lazier? Do you feel lazier during the colder, longer nights, or during the warmer, longer days? 

I know at least one person's answer: also on Sunday this week, I asked someone I know to be an avid cyclist  what he does for exercise during the winter? Answer: nothing. He'll go literally months without exercise, until it warms up again. 

As I've said in a recent Instagram and video, sometimes slowing down is anti-lazy. But at other times (longer version) we perhaps need to push ourselves.

Final question for your table - what's the right balance?

Shabbat Shalom,

Alexander Seinfeld

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