Time, Tisha Ba’av and Taking Control
“There has been one constant through the years… baseball”
This famous line from Field of Dreams resonates with many. But if there is one thing even more constant than baseball, it is time, and the struggle we as humans have with it.
Time is the epitome of the Goldilocks problem.
We often want something to end quickly or to last forever. Rarely do we find a relationship with time that feels “just right.”
Three weeks, nine days, twenty-five hours. We are in the home stretch of a period defined by time, culminating in Tisha B’Av this Sunday. During this period, we are commanded to be mournful, to engage in a struggle tied not only to emotion, but to the patterns of historical time and communal suffering. This period, always challenging and thought-provoking for me, rooted in ancient grief that can feel distant, has prompted deeper reflection on the role of time in our lives and in our faith.
Time is central to Judaism. We observe structured periods of mourning, both personal and communal, like the Omer and these three weeks. We set aside time for repentance: ten days between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. We dedicate twenty-five hours each week to Shabbat. Even our daily prayers are scheduled to fall at particular moments. These are just glimpses into the centrality of time in Jewish life.
In his famous book The Sabbath, Abraham Joshua Heschel describes Judaism’s existence as a religion of time and space. ““Indeed, we know what to do with space but do not know what to do about time, except to make it subservient to space. Most of us seem to labor for the sake of things in space… Shrinking, therefore, from facing time, we escape for shelter to things of space… It is impossible for man to shirk the problem of time… We can only master time in time.” Time certainly has the uncanny and often frustrating ability to evade us, which can lead to a strained or negative relationship with it. But when we recognize that time itself is holy, a concept worthy of more reverence than the physical space around us, we can begin to approach it differently.
Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks z”l was a major proponent of the notion that time is a central tenet of Judaism. In a sermon on Parshat Emor in his Covenant and Conversation, he describes the monumental role that time plays in our Jewish tradition. “Time plays an enormous part in Judaism. The first thing God declared holy was a day: Shabbat, after Creation. The first mitzvah given to the Jewish people as a whole, before the Exodus, was the command to sanctify time, by determining and applying the Jewish calendar (Ex. 12:1-2)”. Time, it’s celebration and commemoration, has been a core aspect of Judaism since the very beginning of the Bible. Holiness is not confined to places or things, but is often found in how we mark and inhabit the hours, days, and seasons. It’s no accident that the concept of sacred time appears so early in the story of the Jewish people.
The third chapter of Ecclesiastes (Kohelet) famously declares:
“To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under heaven… a time to be born, and a time to die… a time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance…” (Eccl. 3:1–8). It is currently the time we are constructed to be more mournful and reflect on past communal trauma, something we will do more intensely over the fast of Tisha Ba’av. But from this passage we also glean the importance of understanding the the time for mourning is as important as the time for joy and embracing life.
There is something uniquely humbling about the concept of time. It envelops and consumes us, shaping everything we do, yet we hold almost no control over it. No matter how we try to manage or resist it, sixty seconds will become a minute, sixty minutes an hour, and before we know it, twenty-four hours have passed, without asking our permission, and often in a blur.
A study from psychological scientists University of California, Berkeley found that people who feel powerful perceive themselves as having more control over time, as if they somehow have more of it. But that’s a myth. None of us, regardless of status or ability, can escape time’s unyielding current.
And yet, ironically, it is that very constancy of time that can unite us. Tisha B’Av and this entire mourning period are often framed as opportunities for ahavat chinam, baseless love and unity. There is little that connects us more universally than our shared experience of time’s passage. Wherever we are, we exist within the same hours, the same days. We can look to our neighbors, across the table, across the world, and know they, too, are held by this same clock.
In a moment when division and suffering seem constant, time can serve as both an anchor and a call to action. It reminds us of how little control we have, and how much responsibility we bear. In mourning and in fasting, we are reminded of the preciousness of time and the consequences of ignoring it, both personally and communally.
Time is not simply something to pass through. It’s something we are called to honor, to fill with meaning, and to treat with care.
As Rachel Goldberg and Jon Polin, the inspiring parents of Hersh Goldberg-Polin z”l, have urged, we must wake up each day and ask: What can I do today to make the world better?
Time, especially in this moment, can be a source of deep struggle and grief. But it also serves as a powerful reminder of our responsibility to use the time we’re given with purpose. As we mourn, we also long for a future beyond sorrow—one in which we transform time from a burden into a source of strength, meaning, and collective action.
