Do you ever feel overwhelmed—like you just have too much on your plate and you cannot keep up? Here at First Fruits of Zion, we are always taking on more projects than we can handle, and we talk about having “too many balls in the air.” When a juggler has too many balls in the air, he’s going to drop a few, or eventually, he may end up dropping all of them.
In the modern world, many of us live under the tyranny of too many activities, too many responsibilities, too many options, and not enough time. We run from stress to stress. Life was not always like this, nor is it supposed to be like this. Our Master teaches us that we are not to run after the things of this world or make ourselves busy with the things of this world. Instead, we are to prioritize the things of the kingdom of heaven. This means putting things like mitzvot, good deeds, prayer, and Torah study ahead of everything else.
A person thinks, “I don’t have time to pray and study. I have to get to work! I have responsibilities.” But the Master teaches us that we should let tomorrow worry about itself and that we should be seeking the things of the kingdom first.
Many of us need to simplify our lives to get things back in order. We need to reorganize and remember which things are truly important. Maybe we need more time face-to-face with God and less time on Facebook!
With those thoughts in mind let me encourage you to prioritize your study time. Don’t try to squeeze your study time in after everything else is done. If you do it that way, you will never have time to study. The great Rabbi Hillel once said, “Do not say that you will study Torah when you have more time; perhaps, you will never have more time.”
If you have “too many balls in the air,” that doesn’t necessarily indicate that you need to become a better juggler, it might mean that you need to drop a few of those extra balls. Sometimes selectively dropping some balls is a good thing … just make sure that the one you drop isn’t your personal time of study. The study of God’s Word is a spiritual act of worship. It is a time of intimacy with the Father when He is able to speak to you through the living words of His Scripture.