Where Does the Time Go? Adar I, Week 2

We all have our own relationships with time. We attend to it as we do, sometimes feeling rushed or burdened, sometimes encouraged, held or guided by time.

Sometimes it feels as if time is stretching or disappearing. We blink and ten years have gone by. An experience that happened 20 years ago feels as if it was yesterday.

Adar Rishon, the first Adar, is an extra month—additional time. Added only 7 times every 19 years, its presence calls us to wonder about and explore our relationship to time.

How do we engage with this precious gift?

Exercise: Reflection on How We Spend our Time
Choose three days during the week and notice how you spend your time. If it helps, keep a chart.

Notice what activities are receiving your energy and attention.
Make a note of how much time you spend interacting with others, engaging with a screen, how much time you spend eating, sleeping, working, doing errands, relaxing, doing things you enjoy.

Be aware of the tendency to be busy.
Notice how and when you pause and rest.
Notice how much time you spend doing just one thing at a time and how much time you spend multi-tasking.

Let this be an exercise that brings awareness and guidance.

If and when judgment or pain arises, do your best to surround these responses with compassion.

Being aware of where our time goes can help us make changes and do what we can do to realign our time and our values.

Practice: Gratitude
Taking time each day to pause in gratitude and wonder can help time feel spacious.
Set an intention this week to pause three times a day—stop whatever it is you are doing and give thanks for something you are seeing, experiencing or receiving. Then, thank yourself for taking the time to do this.

—Rabbi Yael Levy 

7 Adar I 5779

To guide you mindfully through the two months of Adar, A Way In presents a series of original teachings from Rabbi Yael Levy. These will take you week by week through both months, offering intentions, exercises, practices and meditations to help your ride the waves of these times.

These will appear on the website at beginning of each week of Adar I and Adar II, and will come to the inbox of our newsletter subscribers (sign up below) but if you would like to read ahead or engage with them at your own rhythm, we are also very excited to offer an eBook The Two Months of Adar: Time to Align for purchase containing the full two month's worth of Rabbi Yael's Adar teachings. Learn more and purchase the eBook.

We have also prepared a schedule, available on our website, to help you line up the weekly 5779 Adar teachings with 2019 dates.