Machines In The Garage

The garage was calling. We store our succah there and, for some reason, my wife doesn’t rely on my having returned all the parts to their proper place. I have to work my way through the boxes and spider webs and make sure that our succah survived being stored by me.

As I was making my way through the well-organized mess I found two old machines covered in dust and dead bugs. The first is a very early model time machine that was only able to return to a maximum of one year in the past. I would use it before each Rosh Hashana to travel back over the year and try to fix all my mistakes. I would spend hours, if not days, traveling back in time to make the repairs necessary for Rosh Hashana.

All the travel to the past did not help me feel adequately prepared for Rosh Hashana. Perhaps it was the machine’s fault. It wasn’t that reliable and I always feared getting stuck in the past as so many do when preparing for the Day of Judgment, so I bought a different model. The newer machine, the second, traveled into the future, but being the least expensive model (I didn’t earn enough to buy the more expensive model), only traveled a distance of one year in time.

Now, that seemed a great way to prepare for the coming year: Instead of focusing entirely on the past, I planned for the future, and dreamed of what I could accomplish with another year of life. The problem was that I needed to know everything that would happen over the coming year, so I had to live through the year first before planning for everything that would come my way. I was back to the beginning. I stored the newer machine with the first right next to my succah and forgot about them.

I now have the most extraordinary time machine. It doesn’t travel to the past or the future. It is centers me in the present moment. It pushes me to maximize each second as I experience it and to savor every single moment as it happens. I no longer put on my safety goggles before hooking myself into a time machine. I think about the past without getting stuck. I dream of the future without needing to know everything in advance. I dress as I am and live where and when I am.

What’s the machine?

A Shofar.

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Learn & discover the Divine prophecies with Rabbi Simcha Weinberg from the holy Torah, Jewish Law, Mysticism, Kabbalah and Jewish Prophecies. The Foundation Stone is the ultimate resource for Jews, Judaism, Jewish Education, Jewish Spirituality & the holy Torah.