It’s Past Time to Wake Up. It’s Time to Be Fully Alive.

Yom Kippur is over. The shofar has already sounded. The tefillos have been said. We stood before Hashem and thought about life and death, about ourselves, our families, our communities, and Klal Yisrael. So now what?

I was thinking about a fascinating connection between a pasuk in Ha’azinu and one of the most famous Rambams we read at this time of year. In Ha’azinu, Devarim 32:21 says: “הם קנאוני בלא אל, כעסוני בהבליהם”. They angered Hashem with their vanities. That word caught my attention: בהבליהם. Their vanities. Their emptiness.

Then look at the famous Rambam in Hilchos Teshuvah, Chapter 3, Halacha 4. The Rambam explains that although blowing the shofar is a Torah decree, there is also a remez in it: “עורו ישנים משנתכם ונרדמים הקיצו מתרדמתכם”. Wake up, sleepers, from your sleep. Examine your actions. Do teshuvah. Remember your Creator. But there is a part immediately afterward that I think we sometimes overlook. The Rambam describes people who forget the truth “בהבלי הזמן”, in the vanities of time, and spend their year absorbed in emptiness.

בהבליהם. בהבלי הזמן

I don’t think that connection should be lost on u.

The Rambam lived more than 800 years ago. He didn’t have WhatsApp, social media, Netflix, YouTube, endless news feeds, or a smartphone buzzing in his pocket. And yet he was already warning us about הבלי הזמן. Apparently, wasting our lives is not a technology problem. It is a human problem. And perhaps the Rambam is warning us about something even deeper than wasting time. He starts with sleeping.

A person can be awake physically and still sleepwalk through life. We can daven and not think about Who we are talking to. We can learn and forget why we are learning. We can perform hundreds or thousands of mitzvos and become so accustomed to them that we forget what every mitzvah is ultimately supposed to accomplish: to connect us to the Ribbono Shel Olam and to bring more kedushah and kavod Shamayim into this world. You can be extremely busy and still be asleep.

The Rambam then makes this even more powerful. He tells us that a person should view himself, and the entire world, as balanced between merit and guilt. One mitzvah can tip himself and the world toward merit. That is incredible. Your actions are individual, but they are never only individual.

That idea has been on my mind since learning Maseches Rosh Hashanah. There is such a powerful connection between the yachid and the tzibur. We have an obligation to work on ourselves, but we are part of something much larger than ourselves. When you sit and learn Torah with real focus, that does not only affect you. When you daven to HaShem uninterrupted and completely focused, that matters beyond you. When you deliver food to someone who needs it, call a relative you haven’t spoken to, encourage an old friend, smile at somebody, hold a door, or ask someone “How are you?” and actually stop long enough to hear the answer, you are putting something different into the world.

The question after Yom Kippur is: How do we make sure this doesn’t disappear? Everyone says to take something on after the Yamim Noraim, and I think there is tremendous wisdom in that. Our time will be occupied by something. Our minds will be occupied by something. Our bodies will be occupied by something. The question is what are we going to fill them with?

So here is my suggestion: start with 12 minutes a day. Take 12 minutes that might otherwise disappear into hevel and intentionally turn them into something meaningful. Learn a sefer. Say Tehillim. Call someone who could use some chizuk. Call a relative you haven’t spoken to in months. Volunteer. Work on a middah. Put your phone down and talk to HaShem. Post something meaningful that may cause someone else to think about the Ribbono Shel Olam. And yes, take care of your body. Exercise. Eat better. Get stronger. Our health gives us the ability and energy to learn, daven, help our families, perform chesed, and serve Hashem.

Start with 12 minutes. Next week, maybe it becomes 13. Then 15. Then 20. Imagine slowly filling more and more of your schedule with things that matter. Someone recently sent me his schedule to explain why he doesn’t have time to exercise. I looked at it, and I was almost jealous. His day was packed, literally morning to night, with kedushah. I still think he can find some time to exercise, don’t get me wrong! But looking at that schedule made me ask myself: Does my schedule look like that? How much of my day is intentional, and how much simply disappears?

We just went through Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. We thought about the year ahead. We thought about who will live and who will die. We thought about our families and Klal Yisrael. Will we have shalom? Will we be protected from our enemies? What will happen in Eretz Yisrael and throughout the Jewish world? Those thoughts cannot end when the fast ends. The shofar already told us to wake up. Now we have to stay awake.

We are a tiny people with an enormous responsibility. HaShem gave us His Torah and showed us how to bring kedushah into a confused world. He does not want us sleepwalking through that responsibility. And perhaps that responsibility sounds overwhelming, but one of the things I felt strongly this Yom Kippur is just how attainable it really is. HaShem gives us the tools. He gives us opportunities every single day. He wants us to succeed.

We don’t have to transform every minute tomorrow. Start with 12. Twelve fewer minutes of hevel. Twelve more minutes of kedushah. Twelve minutes more fully alive. Then build from there.

Yom Kippur is over. It’s past time to wake up. It’s time to be fully alive.