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This week's question is, what is the best way to balance the focus on my graduate school studies slash future career and Yiddishkeit? I am finding that my future career is taking over and leaving me less time for learning and developing my Havodas Hashem, even though I know there's a way to intertwine them. It's an excellent question because it goes to the heart of Kodesh and Chol, of that which is sanctified and that which is mundane. Every week in Havdalu we say, We are required to make a separation between that which is sanctified and that which is mundane. And yet, as Jews, we have an opportunity, an obligation, a responsibility to find the Kodesh in the Chol, to sanctify that which is mundane. It's an interesting thing. The Rambam describes the daily schedule of a person. He says a person should work for three hours a day and learn for nine hours a day. It seems that in the times of the Rambam, this was a real possibility. After all, if you were a farmer, how many hours a day could you possibly work? You worked for a couple of hours, you learned for the rest of the time.
If you were a shoemaker in your small shtetl, how many shoes could you possibly make? There weren't that many people to make shoes for. So you worked for a couple of hours and you learned for the rest of the day. And today, it's very different. Hakadosh Baruch Hu has created a world where not only does the husband work, but the wife works, and for many, many, many hours at a time. What's the pshad in this? I believe the pshad is as follows. We're being tasked with a fascinating challenge. Is our life broad and expansive, or is it, chas v'shalom, a dual life? What does a dual life mean? A dual life means a person who has two families. Each one doesn't know about the other. On weekends, he goes to one family. During the week, he's with the other. The reason why that's so tragic is because it's disloyal. The family requires intimacy. It requires oneness. And it's a betrayal to have two families. Same thing when it comes to our Judaism. It would be a betrayal of our Judaism,
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a betrayal of our service to Hakadosh Baruch Hu if we let it do a life. One in the Beis Medrash, and one in graduate school. One in shul, and one in our jobs. It would be an absolute tragedy because Hakadosh Baruch Hu wants us to be one. That's what it means, Shema Yisrael Hashem Alekeinu Hashem Echad. We're obligated to bring the oneness of Hakadosh Baruch Hu everywhere we go. So we're being tasked with leading not just a broad life, but an exceptionally broad life. Because more than in any other generation before, we're literally being pushed out the door. We're not in shtetls anymore. The world has gotten smaller. Our voices are by definition more global. Today our interaction with the Gentile world is more than it has ever been before. And while we have to make sure to maintain the Havdalah, it's also important to understand that we are being given a unique opportunity to be Mechad Hashem Shamayim. So when a person is in work, when a person is in school, whenever a person is out in the world,
we have an opportunity to teach the world what it means to believe in one God. How do we do that? It's the way we hold ourselves. It's the way we speak. I'm often fond of telling the story that when my wife was working as an actuary in AIG when we lived in America, somebody in the office in a meeting swore, used the curse word, while she was in the meeting, and her boss, who wasn't a Jew, came over to her afterwards, apologized profusely, and told her that he would be reporting this person to HR. And she said, I don't want to make a big deal. The person used the curse word, and this person said, no, we don't speak that way around you. It's inappropriate. And the reason I was so taken with this story is because it showed that my wife was such a kid of Hashem. She was such a bright light of godliness where she went in AIG that it was moved on, it was understood we don't speak that way in front of you. That is an awesome opportunity to be Mekadosh Shem Shamayim. That we have every single day when we go out into the world. So how can.
you make sure to focus on your, striving in Avodah Hashem? Make sure you understand that graduate school, the job that you have indeed anywhere you go there are opportunities for Avodah Hashem that are no less meaningful than the opportunities that you had in Yeshiva and in seminary. Make sure you understand it's not a dual life it's a broad life. It's our opportunity to bring Moshiach Tzudkenu by bringing Hakadosh Baruch Hu out into the world wherever we go.
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