Writer Malcom Gladwell caught our attention several years ago in his book called ‘Outliers’ with the idea that it generally takes about 10,000 hours to achieve mastery in a skill.
Now, a few years after I read his book and thought about his conclusions, it occurs to me that 10,000 hours translates into just over a year. That is, if we practiced a skill 24 hours a day, seven days a week, we’d reach 10,000 hours in just under 14 months.
Let’s look at our fall holidays As I through the 10,000 hour lens. Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur are about teshuvah, about repentance, reflection, an honest appraisal of ourselves on our journey. We have 10 days of penitence, plus 5 days in between Yom Kippur and Sukkot, and 7 days of Sukkot – that’s a total of 22 days until the official teshuvah season ends tomorrow, the 7thday of Sukkot, called Hoshanah Rabbah, when we beat willow branches on the ground to symbolize that this season ends and we shed the vestiges of the past year like the trees that are dropping leaves now.
22 days, that’s 528 hours, only one half of one percent of the 10,000 hours.
If Gladwell’s reporting is correct, then it seems we have little chance of improving our teshuvah.
Today, we read from Kohelet, the megillah for Sukkot, and we find in the material we chanted today a lesson that may help us when we confront the question of what to do now that the official teshuvah season is almost over.
Sow your seed in the morning, and at evening let your hands not be idle,
for you do not know which will succeed, whether this or that, or whether both will do equally well.
for you do not know which will succeed, whether this or that, or whether both will do equally well.
Kohelet teaches us, work hard in the morning, keep working hard in the evening, because we can’t immediately tell success, failure, or some outcome in between.
Kohelet seems to be arguing that any productive effort requires much more than 10,000 hours, but rather a constant effort, a persistent effort over time, an effort that we cannot fit into a number but rather a way of thinking and living that we are constantly striving for, constantly seeking to establish as our lens for seeing and interacting with our world, our community, from the mundane to the transcendent, from the easiest of tasks to the most complicated.
Rabbi Naftali Bachrach, in his commentary Talumot Chochmah, he explains that the morning in our verse is our youth, and the evening is our mature years. Wherever we are on the journey, he says, we plant seeds and do mitzvas. Teshuvah is a constant effort throughout the year.
Rabbi David Altshuler explains our verse to mean we must tend our garden constantly, ve’lo tamtin al ha’ruach, and don’t wait for a fair wind to blow, for conditions to be right. What’s so interesting here is that ru’ach means both wind and spirit, and so he’s also saying don’t wait until you feel it’s the right time to re-think, re-dedicate, and try on a new set of lenses – the right weather and the right spirit may never come along.
It’s tough though, as we all likely will agree, it’s tough to be persistent and consistent. Scientists tell us they know why our brains shut down and we feel tired and distracted after working hard at a project. Self-help writers tell us to work in small increments, break, and think, many businesses now offer rooms for employees to meditate or nap to refresh themselves. Google is famous for their offices designed to maximize interactions and reflection. But our technology and related media push back with an overwhelming amount of available distractions. I recall a few years ago when the City of New York removed pre-installed games like hearts from computers in city offices, we can imagine why…
The message in Kohelet dovetails with the Sukkot holiday and this season. Sukkot asks us to make the Sukkah our permanent residence and our homes our temporary residence. The holidays compels us to re-examine our priorities, habits, and our comfort zone as we move on from the relative comforts of the teshuvah season into the wild jungle that is the rest of the year ahead of us.
If we can adjust our thinking – then we just might be able to start adjusting what we choose to say and to do – until, ideally, we come to a place that Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur are only the beginning of a new calendar year but they become a stop-over, a stop along the road of self-awareness and growth that’s been happening morning and evening, day by day.
This is not a glamorous or mystical type of faith – it’s work! – but this type of work, as I taught this past week, is full of joy, longing for closeness to God, full of creativity, and seeking to build community.
10,000 hours for us is something tough to imagine – tough to imagine in theory and while we’re checking off each hour – but not tough to imagine after the fact looking back. Let’s set a more guarded goal, minimum one minute of teshuvah a day! One full, uninterrupted minute of self-reflection, of asking ourselves tough questions, of leaning on God’s invisible hand for comfort, one full minute of re-dedicating ourselves to being partners with God and with each other in the ongoing creation of the world.
