Menachem Bluming Muses: How Long Would You Like to Live?


If G-d appeared to you and asked you how long you would like to live, what would you say? 100 years? 130 years? Would you make any conditions like: but they need to be healthy years?

The Alter Rebbe, Rabbi Schneur Zalman of Liadi, chose to bless one of his greatest followers Rabbi Yekusiel Liepler, with long life. The Chassid qualified the blessing and said that he was only willing to accept it if it would be infused with spiritual vitality for without that the years were empty and meaningless to him

In Genesis Adam died at age 930, Noah was almost 500 when he started building the ark (not bad!) and Methuselah lived a world record of 969 years!

Are you jealous? Would you like to live 900 years? What would you do with that time?

We study and marvel at centenarians. We ask them for their secrets and diets, lifestyles and habits.

I find it very intriguing that some of the greatest in our history like Amadeus Mozart or Rabbi Isaac Luria, the greatest Kabbalist of all time, or Rabbi Nachman of Breslov, died in their 30s.

So how much life do we need to in order to make a big impact?

Maybe what is most important is to know that the time to act is now.

None of us know how much time we have, but we do know that we don't have centuries. We don't have the luxury to start building our ark when we are 500. Better start now.

Menachem Mendel Bluming

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