To the Editor,

I had a small experience recently that left me thinking about something much larger.

I grew up in the yeshiva system. I’m not presenting myself as a talmid chacham, but I was fortunate to learn in yeshiva, I know how to learn, and today, although I spend my days in business, I try to remain kove’a itim. I learn, I give a shiur, and Yiddishkeit is very much a part of my life.

But there is something I have struggled with.

When I force myself to wake up very early, I become extremely tired later in the day. My concentration and work suffer. When I allow myself to sleep until I naturally wake up, I am sharper and more focused throughout the day.

The problem is what can happen to the beginning of that day.

Sometimes davening becomes rushed or isn’t what it should be. Occasionally, even making a minyan can become a casualty of the schedule.

I’ve thought about this many times. What is actually right?

Obviously, I want to daven like a mentch and begin my day properly. But am I supposed to compromise the quality of my entire working day in order to do so? Perhaps yes. Perhaps no. I am certainly not qualified to pasken the question.

Recently, though, something happened that made me realize that perhaps I had been asking the wrong question.

I was asked by a community to come for several mornings and give an early-morning shiur. It was an opportunity I valued, so I got up early and went.

And there I watched the people coming in.

Some were older Yidden. Some were learned; some perhaps less so. Many had businesses, jobs and full days waiting for them afterward.

Suddenly I noticed something I had seen hundreds of times before but had never really seen.

These Yidden get up.

Five o’clock. Six o’clock. Whatever their time is, they get up. They come to learn. They come to daven. They begin their day doing what a Yid does.

Some may have slept seven hours, some perhaps five. I’m sure they get tired too.

But if you asked them about their great “sacrifice,” I suspect many wouldn’t even understand the question.

Because to them, it isn’t a sacrifice.

It’s their life.

They don’t first construct the ideal day and then figure out where Yiddishkeit can fit inside it. They begin with what a Yid has to do, and the rest of the day gets built around that.

First I daven. First I learn. First I do what I have to do as a Yid.

Then I go to the office.

That realization hit me.

I had been asking: How can I make my Yiddishkeit work best with my day?

Watching them made me wonder whether the question should be: How do I make my day work around my Yiddishkeit?

That doesn’t mean everyone needs to wake up at 5:00 a.m. Sleep, health, family and responsibilities are real considerations, and everyone has his own circumstances.

For me, though, the observation exposed something deeper.

Perhaps there is a certain trap specifically for those of us who came through the yeshiva system.

We know how to learn. We know what a good davening feels like. We can sometimes sit and learn for several hours. And without arrogance, perhaps without even realizing it, that can give us a subtle feeling of being in control of our Yiddishkeit.

I learned well today. Today’s davening was geshmak. Tomorrow I’ll catch up. I gave an extra hour here, so perhaps I can be more flexible there.

We can begin measuring Yiddishkeit by the quality of the experience and the accomplishment.

And then there is the pashute, ehrliche Yid who teaches you something without ever giving you a mussar shmuess.

He gets up because it is time to get up. He goes to shul because a Yid goes to shul. He has his seder because that is his seder.

Maybe today’s davening was inspiring and maybe it wasn’t. Maybe today’s learning was geshmak and maybe he struggled to keep his eyes open.

Tomorrow morning, he will be back.

There is something extraordinarily powerful about that simplicity.

It says: My Yiddishkeit is not something I negotiate with every morning. It is the framework within which I live my life.

I realized that I sometimes look at the hours I give to Torah and avodah almost as contributions: I learned an extra hour. I gave a shiur. I made time despite being busy.

But maybe an ehrliche Yid approaches it from the opposite direction.

The question isn’t only, How much am I giving Hashem?

The question is, What does Hashem want my life to look like?

What are the non-negotiables around which everything else is arranged?

I am writing this during the Yamim Noraim not because I have figured it out. Quite the opposite. I think I finally understood the question I need to ask myself.

There will always be reasons. I’m tired. I have an important day tomorrow. Work requires my concentration. This week is crazy.

Many of those reasons are real.

But underneath all those calculations, I want to regain something I saw in those Yidden walking into an early-morning shiur:

A Yid first decides who he is. Then he figures out his schedule.

For me, that is a powerful form of chizuk as we approach the Yamim Noraim.

Not necessarily to take on another hour or make dramatic kabbalos. But perhaps simply to ask ourselves:

What in my Yiddishkeit have I been treating as something that needs to fit into my life, when it is really supposed to be one of the things around which my life is built?

I don’t know that the answer will be the same for everyone.

I’m still working on mine.

But I think asking the question honestly is already a beginning.

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