I have witnessed an interesting phenomenon at the weekly Shiur in Jerusalem: People are attending it for the first time, since they know that soon we will be traveling to the United States and that the Shiur is moving to New York. A family who arrives from Kiryat Shemonah (a city in the north of Israel, on the Lebanese border) is something moving and exceptional, but last week I also met a family who arrived for the first time from... the Giloh neighborhood in Jerusalem. The Shiur takes place every week, just a 10-minute drive from their home. They told me that they had intended to attend the Shiur every week anew for the past two years. But only now the time constraint made them do it.
I see it with myself as well. Only now, before the trip to America, have I started to finally go to a speech therapist, something that I should have done long ago. But I didn't, it's a fact, even though I wanted to do it, even though I knew I had to do it. I have examples of other things that I am tending to only now, gladly and with much satisfaction, only because - thank G-d - there is some deadline that binds me and forces me to do it.
Can we live with such consciousness, with such awareness, always - doing what you really want to do and really have to do, here and now, even without an external element which pressures you to do it?
