The time of our lives: Long years, long days
This past Sunday, I officiated at the funeral of a woman who lived to 98. At the graveside, the same words kept passing from one mourner to the next. “She lived a long life.” “She had arichus shanim.”
It was true, and it was meant as comfort. But on the drive home, I could not shake a question. What does it really mean to live a long life?
A shiur I heard from Rabbi Larry Rothwachs on Parshas Bereishis helped me think about that question, and much of what follows draws on his insights.
By one measure, we are living longer than ever. In 1900, the average person on earth could expect to live about 32 years. By 1950, that number had climbed to 46. Today, it stands at around 73. In little more than a century, human life expectancy has more than doubled.
And yet, compared to the earliest generations of the Torah, our lives are but the blink of an eye. Adam lived 930 years. Mesushelach lived 969. Noach lived 950. A person in that world could spend a century simply preparing for life and still have most of it ahead of him.
Then, toward the close of the parsha, the Torah introduces a remarkable number, “Vayomer Hashem lo yadon ruchi va’adam l’olam, b’shagam hu vasar, v’hayu yamav me’ah v’esrim shanah.” Hashem said, “My spirit will not contend with man forever, for he too is flesh, and his days shall be 120.” Why would a world in which people once lived nearly a thousand years become a world in which even 120 is an extraordinary lifespan?
The Sforno offers a striking answer. The number 120 is not arbitrary. It is precisely the span Chazal tell us Noach spent building the teivah and warning his generation to do teshuvah. Noach lived 950 years, yet the work that defined him filled just 120 of them. The Sforno suggests that 120 years is enough to live a meaningful life, to make mistakes, and to repair them.
T
he same lesson emerges from some of the greatest figures in Jewish history. Moshe Rabbeinu lived to 120. Aharon HaKohen lived to 123. Shmuel HaNavi lived only 52 years. And yet, every Friday night, we sing the words of Tehillim that place them side by side,“Moshe v’Aharon b’chohanav u’Shmuel b’kor’ei shemo.” Moshe and Aharon among His kohanim, and Shmuel among those who call upon His name.
Shmuel was granted less than half their years, yet his stature earned him a place beside them. The Torah does not measure greatness by the length of a life. It measures greatness by what fills it.
That brings us to a distinction I have not stopped thinking about since Sunday. There is arichus shanim, long years, and there is arichus yamim, long days.
• Arichus shanim is largely beyond our control. We can take care of ourselves, make responsible choices, and daven for health, but we do not determine how many years we will receive.
• Arichus yamim is something different. It is the depth we bring to the days we are given. It is the presence with which we live them, the kindness we extend, the relationships we nurture, the Torah we learn, and the moments we refuse to take for granted. A person can live many years without truly filling them. And a person can be granted far fewer years, yet fill those days with a lifetime of meaning.
• • •
Imagine knowing that you would live 900 years. Why rush? Why make that difficult phone call today? Why repair a broken relationship now? Why begin learning something new? There would always be another century.
A life with no end in sight invites endless procrastination. But when our time is limited, everything changes. Tomorrow is no longer a guarantee. The words we have been meaning to say begin to matter. The people sitting across from us deserve our attention. The mitzvah within reach today cannot be postponed forever. The awareness that life is finite does not diminish its value. It is what makes it precious.
If the measure of a life were simply its length, then those who leave this world young would always seem to have lived less than those who reach old age. But we know that is not true. We have all known people whose impact far exceeded the number of years they were given. Their years may have been short. Their days were anything but.
Standing at that graveside, I thought about the blessing of 98 years. It is an extraordinary gift, and one for which a family can be deeply grateful. But the number alone is not what makes a life worth remembering.
What we remember are the conversations, the sacrifices, the laughter. We remember what a person did with the time Hashem entrusted to her. None of us knows whether we will be granted the years of Moshe Rabbeinu or the years of Shmuel HaNavi. That was never ours to decide. But we can decide whether today will be another day that simply passes, or a day that truly matters.
We cannot choose long years. We can choose long days.
Rabbi Benny Berlin is spiritual leader of BACH in Long Beach. www.bachlongbeach.com.
