Making It Count

Imagine leaving school for the last time. The doors close behind you and the future is waiting. What should you study? What career should you pursue? What kind of person do you want to become?

Now add one difference: you can expect to live for the best part of a thousand years.

Suddenly, none of those questions feels urgent. Why rush into university when you could put it off for fifty years and still have centuries ahead of you?

For humanity’s first generations, something close to that world existed. Adam lived 930 years, Shet 912, Metushelach 969; a century was not a lifetime but a fraction of one.

We might expect such longevity to produce generations of exceptional wisdom. Yet by the time the Torah reaches Noach, it describes what the world had become:

וַתִּשָּׁחֵת הָאָרֶץ לִפְנֵי הָאֱלֹהִים וַתִּמָּלֵא הָאָרֶץ חָמָס
The earth had become corrupt before G-d, and the earth was filled with violence.
Bereishit 6:11

After the Mabul, human lifespans gradually diminish, until the psalm attributed to Moshe describes life very differently:

יְמֵי־שְׁנוֹתֵינוּ בָהֶם שִׁבְעִים שָׁנָה וְאִם בִּגְבוּרֹת שְׁמוֹנִים שָׁנָה
The days of our years are seventy years, or with strength, eighty years.
Tehillim 90:10

Two verses later, Moshe makes a different request:

לִמְנוֹת יָמֵינוּ כֵּן הוֹדַע וְנָבִא לְבַב חָכְמָה
Teach us to number our days, that we may attain a heart of wisdom.
Tehillim 90:12

Moshe does not seek more days. He seeks the wisdom to understand the days we have.

Counting and numbering are not quite the same thing. We can count the years we have lived without ever considering what those years have contained. To number our days is to recognise their value.

Rabbi Tarfon gives that thought a sense of urgency:

הַיּוֹם קָצָר וְהַמְּלָאכָה מְרֻבָּה
The day is short, and the work is great.
Pirkei Avot 2:15

There is always a call we put off, someone we meant to visit, or a kindness we could have shown.

But Rabbi Tarfon does not demand that we finish everything. He continues:

לֹא עָלֶיךָ הַמְּלָאכָה לִגְמֹר וְלֹא אַתָּה בֶן־חוֹרִין לִבָּטֵל מִמֶּנָּה
It is not upon you to finish the work, but neither are you free to withdraw from it.
Pirkei Avot 2:16

The first generations of humanity were given centuries.

We are given today.

Make it count.

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