Does Your Summer Pass Too Quickly?

I know I speak for all of us when I say that summers were longer when we were younger. These days, it seems the snow starts falling again before it has even finished melting. I know moving to Canada extended my winter, but not by that much. This shift is in the mind. Time is relative: the older we get, the faster it moves. Today, I want to suggest a method to slow it down. I’m not talking about a genetic resequencing to slow down aging. I’m talking about a mental technique that works for millions: slowing down enough to be mindful of each moment.

The Journeys

The Torah lists all forty-two journeys our ancestors made across the desert (Numbers 33:1–49). If you ask me, the only important journeys were leaving Egypt, arriving at Sinai, and reaching Israel. If you really want to get detailed, fine—include the locations where major events occurred. But every single journey? Why? What for?

If you asked about my day, I’d give you the highlights: I closed a deal, caught up with a friend, or booked a vacation. If I gave you an exhaustive report of every moment, your eyes would glaze over in seconds. I’m sure I can come up with forty-two things that happened today, but they aren’t important enough to share. So, why does G-d share them all?

The Journey of Life

The Baal Shem Tov taught that these forty-two journeys are reflected in our own lives (Degel Machaneh Ephraim, Numbers 33:1). The meaning of each moment is highly personal, but here are possible examples: graduation is our Sinai moment. Marriage is our splitting of the sea. Retirement might be our liberation. The Torah lists the journeys of our ancestors because they are the blueprints for our own.

These forty-two journeys repeat themselves daily at the micro level. Speeding by a police car without getting caught? That’s your exodus. Studying Torah is your Sinai. When a table opens up at your favorite restaurant, that’s your manna moment. When you thought you’d get fired but got a raise instead, the sea just split. A drink at the water fountain is when Moses strikes your rock. Forty-two journeys, all in a day. The Torah lists them all not because each is profound, but because they are all yours.

Making Each Moment Count

Our days are split into “journey moments” and “destination moments.” Journey moments are preparation. To meet a friend, you have to get dressed, grab the keys, drive, and run errands. To eat dinner, you have to shop, cook, and set the table. The preparation is the journey; the goal is the destination. If someone asks how your day was, you share the destinations. Sharing the journeys would bore them. Those moments are secondary; they merely set the stage for what matters. Right?

Wrong. This is precisely the mistake the Torah aims to correct by listing every journey. While it might be inappropriate to list every errand in casual conversation, it is perfectly acceptable in a “teaching moment.” This is G-d teaching us a lesson: the journey moments of our day are not insignificant. On the surface, they appear subsidiary to the destination, but from G-d’s perspective, each moment carries its own weight, its own significance, and its own permanence.

Every Stop Has a Purpose

That’s easy to say, but what does it actually mean? How is the drive just as important as the appointment?

The answer is in the text. When the Torah lists the journeys, it specifies that they were all at G-d’s behest (Numbers 33:2). The timing, distance, and location were meticulously planned. On some occasions, G-d instructed them to stay an evening or a day; on others, a week, a month, or a year (Numbers 9:17–21).

A short stop on the way to a destination is not G-d’s style. Humans might stop at a store on the way to an appointment; G-d doesn’t. If He has us stop somewhere, it is always its own destination, never just part of the journey. If He stopped us somewhere for an evening, it wasn’t just a rest stop. He had a task for us to complete in that destination, and one evening was all the time we needed to complete it. Suppose I ran into the store to pick up some salt. It took forty seconds. On the way, I saw a little boy and flashed him a smile. That may have been the entire purpose of my visit. It had nothing to do with salt—don’t you get it? G-d planned this. He had my son drop the salt the night before, just so I would be short on salt today. I remembered that on my way to the appointment, which brought me to the store precisely when that boy, desperate for a smile, was standing there.

If I believe a task’s purpose is the one I perceive, most of my life is just trivial “journey time.” But if I believe G-d brought me here, every moment is a destination.

G-d’s Timeless Moments

This is the secret formula for making your summer stretch. You know why my summer flashes by? Because the moment school ends, I’m packing kids for camp. When they’re out of the house, I’m planning for school. Before school even begins, the High Holidays are on my mind. I rush through the journey to reach the next destination. If I immersed myself in each task, my days would be fuller. My summer would be longer.

G-d transcends the limitations of time: For G-d, each moment is timeless. If G-d planned my moments, they, too, become timeless. They aren’t fleeting events that disappear before I notice them; they are permanent fixtures. The Talmud observes: “Since G-d told them to travel and G-d told them to make camp, they were permanently fixed in each phase for the duration” (Eruvin 52b).[1]

G-d also transcends the limitations of space. I may have been in that store for forty seconds, but my gift to that child will remain. The child, I, and the connection we formed will be permanently present in that location. This marks that time and space as a timeless, fixed dwelling for us both.[2] Stop rushing to the end of the chapter, and you might find that the book never ends. It is never about the moments of your life; it is always about the life in your moments. Accumulate enough of those, and your summer will last forever.[3]

[1] On 19 Kislev, 1902, the fifth Rebbe of Lubavitch, the Rebbe Rashab (Reb Sholom Ber Schneersohn), was leading a farbrengen with his students. As was his custom, he paused between talks so the students could sing and absorb what they had heard. He noticed that some were cutting the melody short in their eagerness to hear the next talk. Turning to his son, the future Rebbe, who was then the principal of the yeshivah, he said: “They are singing by rote. Each moment is our entire reality. Though it leads to the next, no moment is merely a stepping stone. Each has its own purpose. One must never rush through one moment just to reach the next” (Toras Shalom, pp. 39–40).

During a farbrengen on 11 Shevat, 1970, the Rebbe noticed that some participants were watching the clock because they needed to catch a flight. He explained that the secret to efficiency is to treat each moment as the only one that exists. Even as you prepare for what comes next, live fully in the present. Since G-d creates the world anew each moment, the next moment was not yet created. When it comes into existence, attend to it; for now, only this moment is real (Toras Menachem 5730, vol. 2, pp. 187–189).

[2] Sometimes we are fortunate to see our missions; sometimes they are known only to G-d.

[3] This essay is based on Toras Menachem 5435:4, p. 128–129.