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29 Adar 5762 - March 13, 2002 | Mordecai Plaut, director Published Weekly
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Home and Family
Keeping Time
by Rosally Saltsman

Think about it: don't we seem to get an extra three qualitative hours of things done each day?

Let's take women for example: the average woman in the 21st century has a lot on her `plate.' She works, raises children, runs a house and spends time trying to keep herself healthy, reasonably attractive and modestly clothed [shopping and alterations take time!], and self actualized. The truth is that this has always been true but more focus is placed on it now. The religious woman usually has more than the `average' number of children who need care, maintenance, attention in numerous physical and educational areas. She also has Shabbos to prepare for, which entails at least half a day's work, not to mention if she has guests and if they sleep over. Don't mention it.

Most religious women spend a good deal of time praying, saying Tehillim and birkas hamozon. Even if they do some of it while hanging laundry or cooking etc., it still takes time. A good number of women are the prime breadwinners in the family, allowing their husbands to devote themselves to Torah study, often while nursing babies or expecting new additions to the family. Many women attend at least one class per week, either some form of study or in parenting. Certainly time consuming.

Add to this the time required for transportation: commuting, either to work or traveling for thrift or simply necessary shopping. Extremely time consuming.

Secular women are involved in volunteer work, i.e. chessed, too. Religious women not only do chessed but are involved in community life and organized or personal neighborly chessed in a much more intensive way. They may even be running some kind of gemach-loan service from their homes! Clock the time needed to answer the door and even the phone for this outlet of energy and time! Kol hakovod! You don't have to be a math wizard to add up the above hours, subtract them from 24, not even including sleep, and you come up with a minus.

And let's not forget cooking which, for a religious home, takes more time, what with checking for bugs. A fruit cake that I bake once a year for Tu Bishvat used to take me 10 minutes to put together before I became religious. Now it can take more than an hour. So where do we women get that time for our myriad activities? We are actually living longer lives than our counterparts because of all that extra time -- and making that time count qualitatively.

We may be getting up when it's still dark and burning the midnight oil at the other end, but we can be sure that our time is well spent, and like money, ultimately, there's always more where that came from: the Source.

 

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