Some people are energetic by nature, while others tend toward indolence. A rich person may pay to have services rendered, but there is no such bypass of laziness in spiritual matters. If you paid someone to meditate, or pray for you, then the benefit would be theirs because the effort and the experience are theirs as well. In the end, only enthusiasm for your own growth will fuel your transformation.
Hillel would also say: If I am not for myself, who is for me? And if I am only for myself, what am I? And if not now, when?
— Pirkei Avot 1:14
PHRASE If not now, when?
PRACTICE Every day, tackle one of the things that has been languishing at the bottom of your to-do list.
Day 1
Enthusiasm depends on the state of a person's heart. When someone frees his heart of all other thoughts that reside in it and seizes upon one thought, then he will without doubt be enthusiastic in its execution.
— Orchot Tzaddikim (1540)
PHRASE If not now, when?
PRACTICE Every day, tackle one of the things that has been languishing at the bottom of your to-do list.
Day 2
Abraham rushed to Sarah's tent and said, "Hurry! Three measures of the finest flour! Knead it and make rolls." Abraham ran to the cattle and chose a tender, choice calf. He gave it to a young man who rushed to prepare it.
— Genesis 18:6-7
PHRASE If not now, when?
PRACTICE Every day, tackle one of the things that has been languishing at the bottom of your to-do list.
Day 3
Just as zeal can result from an inner burning, so can it create one. That is, one who perceives a quickening of his outer movements in the performance of a commandment conditions himself to experience a flaming inner movement, through which longing and desire will continually grow. If, however, he is sluggish in the movement of his limbs, the movement of his spirit will die down and be extinguished. Experience testifies to this.
— Rabbi Moshe Chaim Luzzatto (1707–1746)
PHRASE If not now, when?
PRACTICE Every day, tackle one of the things that has been languishing at the bottom of your to-do list.
Day 4
It is reported that when Rabbi Simcha Zissel Ziv (1824–1898), the founder of Kelm Mussar, awoke in the morning, he would immediately spring out of his bed in great haste, as if a highwayman was standing behind him threatening to kill him — in order to overcome laziness and implant in himself the trait of enthusiasm.
PHRASE If not now, when?
PRACTICE Every day, tackle one of the things that has been languishing at the bottom of your to-do list.
Day 5
Lazybones, go to the ant; study its ways and learn. Without leaders, officers, or rulers, it lays up its stores during the summer, gathers in its food at the harvest. How long will you lie there, lazybones? When will you wake from your sleep? A bit more sleep, a bit more slumber, a bit more hugging yourself in bed, and poverty will come calling upon you, and want, like an armed soldier.
— Proverbs 6:6-11
PHRASE If not now, when?
PRACTICE Every day, tackle one of the things that has been languishing at the bottom of your to-do list.
Day 6
Man is by nature very 'weighed down' by an earthiness and coarse materiality. That is why he does not want to exert or burden himself. But if you want to merit to divine service, you have to fight this nature and be self-motivated and enthusiastic. For if you abandon yourself to this heaviness, you will not succeed in your quest.
— Rabbi Moshe Chaim Luzzatto (1707–1746)
PHRASE If not now, when?
PRACTICE Every day, tackle one of the things that has been languishing at the bottom of your to-do list.
— Alan Morinis in Every Day, Holy Day