100 years ago in 1921, Albert Einstein won the Nobel Prize in Physics in recognition for the great contributions he made to science. Einstein not only changed the way we think of space and gravity, but of time itself. No longer could we assume that time in one part of the galaxy was the same as in another part. Now, we all understood that time was relative.
In this week’s Torah portion, Miketz, time stops and starts depending on which relative is in the room. When Joseph is finally reunited with his brothers, he cannot be rid of them quickly enough. Later when he is reunited with his baby brother Benjamin, he would have spent an eternity with him.
Einstein, it turns out, was right – time is relative. Not just in outer space, but right here on earth. Our life is made up of moments, some that fly by so fast we hardly realize they happened at all. While others, stay with us our entire lives.
I experience this when I officiate at a wedding, knowing that, while the ceremony is no more than fifteen, twenty minutes, for the couple it is infinitely longer and richer. Perhaps, instead of thinking about experiences as long or short, we should think of them as full or empty. As Joseph taught us thousands of years ago, the secret to a full life is to spend as much time as possible with the people you love and as little as possible with those you don’t.
Happy Hanukkah and Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi Alex