7 at 7
In an effort to capture the inspiration from a Shabbaton Ruchi and I led this past Shabbos, I stood up at the end of Shabbos and invited everyone to join me for a daily 7-minute challenge. The idea popped into my head because of the amazing success of a daily 7-minute Torah study conference call that I've been privileged to participate in for the past 2 1/2 years. I'm part of a special group of men who traveled together to Israel in the summer of 2016, and ever since then, every evening at 5:30 pm, we get on the phone for 7 minutes to learn Torah.
This challenge is simply to stop what you’re doing every evening at 7:00 pm, and focus on making the next 7 minutes as meaningful as possible. Why 7 minutes? I don’t know. It seems like a well-balanced and manageable amount of time. Long enough to accomplish something meaningful, but short enough to be manageable even for us ADD men. Plus, it’s only half of 1% of the total of minutes in a day: 60×24=1440. 1440 divided by 200 equals 7.2.
We go through most of our life, and most of our day, on auto-pilot. It is not easy to be mindful of infusing the routines and tasks that we perform with meaning.
I was recently inspired by a short message that I heard from renowned speaker Charlie Harary. He brought up a concept called T.I.N.T. which stands for: There Is No Tomorrow. We often push things off, rationalizing that we’ll get to them “one day.” That one day, tomorrow, we’ll calm down, live meaningfully, and achieve our goals. But what if there were no tomorrow? What if today were all we had? Live life for today, and infuse meaning into every day.
So, if you’re able to stop what you’re doing at 7:00 pm and spend 7 minutes in the spiritual pursuit of Torah study or prayer, that is amazing. But if you're like most people, 7:00 might very likely be Happy Hour in your house. Kids, dinner, homework, bath, bed and beyond. Honestly, to participate in this 7-minute challenge, simply imagine that these 7 minutes, beginning every night at 7:00, are THE 7 minutes of your life. Whether you're talking to your spouse, helping a kid with homework, or cleaning the dishes - drop the cell phone, and do it with your full kavanah, focus. Concentrate exclusively on doing it in your best, most focused way, full of empathy and vibrancy.
So how did I do this week? Well, it all depends upon perspective. I missed Sunday, forgot all about it on Tuesday, but had a solid run on Monday, Wednesday and Thursday. That's only 21 minutes out of the entire week, but it made a huge difference in my life, adding a renewed focus and sense of purpose that positively affected the remaining 10,069 minutes of the week.
I extend an invitation to everyone to join me. Together, let's start a renaissance of positivity, 7 minutes at a time!
Shabbat shalom,
Rabbi Koval
