RABBI’S JOURNAL DAY 576: Setting Our Priorities

January 27, 2014
By bethmordecai
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RABBI’S JOURNAL DAY 576: Setting Our Priorities

Dear Hevreh,

I am blessed with the opportunity in my role as your rabbi to make my own schedule, a blessing I treasure especially because I know how many of us are forced to conform to other people’s schedules. Yet, no matter how much each one of us is able to choose our schedules, inevitably we are faced with decisions on how to spend our time in which we feel like we our schedule runs our lives as opposed to us running our schedules. 
 
At the beginning of each week, I try to plan how I’m going to spend my time during that week, determining which projects will receive attention and which ones will be put on the back burner. Each week I have to decide what are the most necessary items to accomplish, and what are the items that are important but not as critical. 
 
You might think that as a rabbi I would try to prioritize learning of Jewish texts and daily prayer as “necessary” and critical items of my week. Yet, too often I don’t make enough time to spend on these elements that are not only essential to my role as a rabbi, but to my life as a Jew. I know that praying and learning are important, but ironically enough they don’t seem central to performing my job as a rabbi.
 
Yet, that’s no excuse. If I truly feel like prayer and learning needs to be an important part of my life, then I need to make it happen. That goes for all of us — each of us probably has something that we know is important to do or work on, but isn’t “essential” to our day to day life and thus we don’t make it a priority. Yet, if we never make it a priority, then it will never be a priority, and sometimes we need help from others to remind us what our priorities should be. So feel free to check in with me tp ask how I’m doing with learning and praying because when I prioritize learning and praying, I truly feel blessed.
 
Kol Tuv,
 
Rabbi Ari Saks

 

Category : Rabbi Rabbi's Journal
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