The Jewish Story, From Centuries to Seconds

Jews love to think in centuries and millennia. These exceptionally long stretches of time, after all, have shaped the Jewish identity. We waited 19 centuries to return home to Zion; we received our holy Torah 3,300 years ago at Sinai; this coming Rosh Hashanah, while the world will still be in 2025, we’ll be celebrating the year 5786.

Here in Los Angeles, it’s a big deal when a new restaurant stays open for five years. Jews have stayed open for five thousand years and counting.

So yes, it’s inherent to the Jewish experience to see our stories through the historical lens of centuries.

There are some Jews, however, who see life through the lens of the humble, measly second– the smallest time frame of our daily lives.

I heard one of those Jews speak at a private home the other night. It was Eli Beer, founder of United Hatzalah of Israel, an emergency response operation that has little patience for anything that takes more than a few minutes.

Although Beer spoke sweetly and casually, every story he told was infused with a mad sense of urgency.

His stories invariably came down to seconds— a few seconds later and it would have been too late, we must get to any emergency within 90 seconds, we can’t afford to waste any time, and so on.

One his earliest experiences at an accident site was seeing a man bleed out through a major wound in his neck. Beer took his yarmulke, folded it up and pressed as hard as he could on the wound until the medics arrived. The man’s life was saved—with a few seconds to spare.

By now, United Hatzalah has become a household name in the Jewish world. Most people know what they do. They have chapters around the world. They’re known for their ambucycles that can speed through traffic and cut down the time to reach emergencies. They treat every life the same—Jewish or non-Jewish. Their galas attract major names and donors.

But I’m not writing to describe their operation.

I’m writing because the way Beer spoke the other night made me reflect on the very idea of the lowly second, and how that tiniest of time frames may connect to our lives and our Jewish tradition.

Beer’s view of the second was clearly and concretely connected to his life mission– which is saving lives.

But how else does the second play itself out? It struck me that just as one second can save a life, it can also destroy one. One second is all it takes to take your eyes off the road or to slip in a bathroom.

One second is all it takes to say something hurtful to someone you love and forever poison a relationship. A stage performer can be thrown off by the tiniest distraction.

Indeed we underestimate the power of a second because it’s so tiny. But what is life if not the accumulation of seconds?

When I’m in the company of someone wise, someone I admire, I usually feel this continuous flow to their presence. They’re not performing for the occasion; this is who they are, second after second.

I wonder if my ancestors in Morocco were the same way. They had no smart phones grafted to their hands or Instagram posts interrupting their days. I wonder if they lived lives where every little moment counts because they were so keenly aware of these little moments.

I wonder also if our affinity to think in terms of centuries and millennia connects somehow to an appreciation for these smallest of moments.

If the Jewish tradition is so concerned with the precise application of God’s commandments, and if our Talmudic sages were so careful with the smallest details and the smallest of gestures, doesn’t that suggest recognizing the value of the smallest individual moment? Isn’t a sacred view of time part of our miraculous ability to keep the Jewish flame alive?

When a Hatzalah volunteer jumps on an ambucycle and races to an emergency, he or she knows instinctively that every second counts.

But hearing Eli Beer speak the other night, I wondered if the same idea also holds true in our lives, and whether it has held true for our people for centuries.

Shabbat shalom.