The Failure of The Hippie Movement

A good friend recently lost his father. I meant to call him as soon as I heard, but he was sitting Shivah in Mexico. So, I told myself I would call him after Shivah. A week passed, and I was going to call him that day, but I developed a fever and wasn’t feeling well. So, I told myself I would call him next week.

A week passed, and so did the fever, and I was going to call him. But so much work piled up that I forgot all about it, and besides, I wouldn’t have had time to make the call. So, I told myself I would call him the following week. Another week passed, and I had another excuse, and then another, until finally I told myself, it is embarrassing to call so late.

The other day, the phone rang, and it was my friend on the phone, who was surprised I had not called. What kind of friend doesn’t pick up the phone at a time like this? So, I told myself I should have called last week. If only I had told myself that the first time around . . .

Tomorrow is Too Late
When we have an idea to do something good, the worst thing we can do is push it off for tomorrow. No matter how hard it is today, if you postpone it once, it becomes too easy to postpone it again. Our evil inclination thrives on the word tomorrow. He never heard a better, more lucrative word. By the time enough tomorrows pass us by, we give up altogether because we feel it is too late.

The moment we postpone it for the next day, the evil inclination knows it has won. It will take much more effort to do it tomorrow than it would take to do it today. It will be so much easier for our evil inclination to slow us down and stop us. Besides, it has a full 24 hours (and in my case, a week) to plan its attack.

This is even truer when it comes to something complicated. The more difficult it is to do, the more critical it is to jump on it right away. If you must make a call to apologize for being mean to a friend or to ask a debtor for a deferral, don’t push it off. It will only get harder.

When G-d told Abraham to offer up his son, Isaac, as a sacrifice, it was the hardest thing Abraham was ever asked to do. You would think he would be reluctant and push it off for a few days. Yet, Abraham woke up in the morning and rushed to the mountain with alacrity. Our sages tell us that Abraham is praised more for his alacrity than for his willingness to do G-d’s bidding even at such personal cost.

We can learn from this. Abraham did it with alacrity because He was enthusiastic about fulfilling G-d’s will, no matter how hard it would be for him. We need to do difficult and challenging things with alacrity because if we postpone them, we might never get around to them.

There is an old, but beautiful saying: Yesterday is a bounced check. Tomorrow is a promissory note. Today is the only day you have, so use it and use it wisely. Think of tomorrow as if it were treif. If you saw a ham sandwich and had decided to keep kosher, you would run away so fast you would leave skid marks. When the word tomorrow appears in your lexicon, run away and leave skid marks. Run instead directly to the thing you are trying to postpone and do it with alacrity.

Give The First
In this week’s Torah portion, we read about the Mitzvah to give the priest a portion of our grain, grapes, olives, and fleece. Our sages tell us to provide the priest with approximately two ears of grain out of every hundred ears we harvest and one measure of fleece out of every sixty measures we harvest. (Rashi ad loc.)

The Torah tells us to provide the priest with the first (Deuteronomy 18:4). This means that rather than harvesting all our grain and then giving the priest a portion, we assign to the priest the first ears of grain we harvest in the measure we are required to provide.

(Giving the priest the last ears we harvest is also acceptable, but the best practice is to give the priest the first ears. Shulchan Aruch Yoreh Deiah 333.)

Why is it so important that the priest receive the first portion? We know how much we plan to give; does it matter if we give it from the first or the last?

There are several ways to answer this question: First also means the best, so by giving the priest the best of our harvest, we demonstrate the esteem in which we hold him. The priest eschews conventional work to dedicate his life to sacred duty. Moreover, much of the priest’s duty is to provide for us. The priest brings our offerings and bestows us with blessings. When we came to the Temple, the priest was there to direct and assist us.

Once we understand this, we can return to the assumption that first means first. We are grateful and respect the priest for all he does. Giving him first is a mark of respect.

Another reason: Giving him first is not only for the priest’s sake, but also for ours. The grain and fleece our ancestors harvested were their sole source of income. Of that, they had to give 10% to the Levite, 10% to the poor, and 2% to the priest. There were various other gifts to leave for the poor. By the time they were done, they were left with perhaps 70% of the original crop.

By the Spring harvest, many bills would have accumulated from the Winter. Debtors had to be paid, repairs had to be done, and provisions had to be procured for the coming year. There were many home expenses to cover. It would be so easy to push off the contribution to the priest and provide for the family first. But if they did that, it would be too easy to keep postponing it until there was nothing left to give.

The Torah, therefore, teaches us not to tarry and give the priest first. Take care of the priest before your family. If you take care of your family and then run short, the priest won’t receive anything. If you take care of the priest and then struggle to support your family, you will find a way to earn more money. Your family will not go without.

So, don’t postpone it. Take care of it right away. Tomorrow is often too late.

Modern Application
We read this Torah portion every year during the first week of Elul, the month when we take stock of our behavior in the past year and prepare for the year to come. At times like this, we review the pledges we made to charity and verify that we have paid them. We review the Mitzvah resolutions we made in the past year and check to see if we followed through.

If you find a pledge that has gone unpaid or a resolution we have failed to fulfill, take care of it immediately. Don’t hold off until you finish your audit. Pay the pledge immediately. Fulfill the resolution post haste. There is not much time to waste. Before we turn around, it will be Rosh Hashanah, and we will be standing before G-d in judgment. Then, it will be tomorrow, and tomorrow is too late.

For the future, arrange that your charitable contributions are withdrawn from your salary automatically before it even lands in your account. Make sure you give tzedakah before you provide for your family. Give the first to G-d.

The Lubavitcher Rebbe was once sitting with his chasidim. Many things still had to get done, and time was running out. The Rebbe said, “I won’t say time is short. I will say time is precious.”

Indeed, every moment is precious. Throwing away today in the hope of tomorrow is a fool’s errand because tomorrow will be too late. Today is all we have, but if we use it properly, it is all we need.