As I read through this week’s selections, I had a hard time figuring out what to highlight in my editor’s note. Each article, essay and piece of advice was better than the next!
And that’s when it hit me that this dilemma is so appropriate for this week, when we read the Torah portion of Chayei Sarah, about Sarah’s death after 127 years.
Rashi comments that each of Sarah’s years was so full and consistently perfect, achieving at every moment exactly what she needed, so that no stage of her life could be said to be better than the next.
And that’s when it also occurred to me that this really is the underlying message of each of the consistently great articles this week. No matter what stage in life we find ourselves, we need to fill each of our moments with meaning and purpose.
. . . Whether we are caught in some waiting room, whiling away the minutes, impatiently awaiting our turn.
. . . Or we’re experiencing a different kind of waiting, hoping that our silent, longed-for prayers will finally be answered through our latest infertility treatment.
. . . Or if we’re sharing the precious last moments of a life’s journey with a beloved mother, as she inhales her last breaths of life.
Our matriarch Sarah was physically and spiritually a beautiful woman. She encapsulated the concept of modesty, and this is what made each moment of her life so full. As Samantha Barnett writes, “modesty gives us a guideline for how to access the unlimited beauty within us. It further challenges others to come and experience the depth of that beauty.”
Wishing you a beautiful week in which you live in the moment.
Each and every one of them.
Chana Weisberg,
Editor, TJW
