By Jeff Agron

As the song goes “Summertime, and the living is easy.”  It’s a small step from “easy” to “lazy.” Where I live (in Florida) it is so hot and humid in the summer that it is tempting to slow down and sink into laziness. So, I have been thinking about the middah of laziness, or sloth. As I finished up the school year for both my kids and myself, and began to prepare for the next, it was good to slow down a bit and rejuvenate my soul and body.  However, I was aware that I had better protect myself against becoming lazy and slothful. I could hear the voice inside saying: sleep and don’t work, watch some more television, stay inside, leave the hard work for Fall.

Rabbi Moshe Chayim Luzzato explained it as follows:

We see with our own eyes, on numerous occasions, how a person who is already cognizant of his duty and who already knows what is appropriate for the salvation of his soul and what his obligation is to his Creator, can nonetheless neglect his duty, though not because of a lack of awareness of his obligation or for any other reason. Rather, his lethargic indolence dominates him. And this is what it says (to him): ‘I’ll eat a bit’ or ‘I’ll sleep a bit’ or ‘It’s hard for me to get out of the house . . . ’’ and all such other pretexts and excuses that the mouths of the indolent are filled with. 

At the annual meeting of The Mussar Institute in Seattle in May, the Board started an exciting new visioning process under the skilled guidance of Rabbi David Lapin. We examined where we are now and where we want to go from here. Our discussion assumed that there were no sacred cows and that anything and everything was open to discussion. This is a bold and frightening process. A committee of the board was tasked with coming up with a vision paper. A separate group was charged with taking that vision and determining what we would need in terms of money and people power to implement the vision.  As co-president of the Board, I have to ensure that I don’t fall into laziness in my duty to keep the Board focused on our tasks. It is easy to say that we will deal with the visioning process “later.” My pledge to you, our community, is to keep myself and the Board focused; to keep the visioning process moving forward, so that we can serve you to the fullest of our potential.

My wish for everyone (whether or not it is  summer where you live) is that you take time to relax and re-energize, but at the same time keep from falling into laziness.  May you make productive and refreshing use of all your time.

Jeff Agron
Co-President

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