This Shabbat:

Friday Candle Lighting: 4:34 pm
Shabbat Ends: 5:21 pm

Torah Message:

Wasted on the Young

“The years of the life of Sarah” (23:1)

Those of us who are old enough to have trouble recalling large areas of our youth will at least have no trouble remembering some standout moments of total irresponsibility: Like speeding down a German autobahn at 100 miles an hour on the back of a BMW 900 in the dead of night in driving rain on a htichhike.

“Youth is wasted on the young” runs the old adage. As our hair thins and our waistlines thicken we try to shed the immaturity of youth and improve our characters and our actions.

It comes out then that what we really can call our “life” — our arriving at some kind of perfection in this world — happens pretty close to our departure from this world. Viewed in this way, our “lives” are even shorter than we thought, even without the help of lunatic escapades and motorcycle madness.

All the above is true of the average person. However, there are those special people whose entire lives are unspoiled. Such were “the years of the life of Sarah.“As Rashi says, “all of them were equal in their goodness.” None of them were wasted or misspent. And even though, of course, Sarah’s stature grew in old age, this was the dividend of a holy life spent in doing mitzvot and good deeds, rather than the necessity to forsake the foolishness of youth for “all of them were equal in their goodness”.

• Source: based on the Sfat Emet