Years later – Tol’dot
The Jacob story illustrates the principle that what you do today will affect you tomorrow.
Neither Judaism nor human experience endorses the saying, “Give no thought to the morrow”. So many irresponsible things done today will exact their price in time to come.
Everyone thinks of drug taking in this connection. But how about binge drinking, which has become so common among young adults and does such harm to one’s body calcium?
And even some kinds of so-called sport such as jumping off and onto skate boards, with all the damage it can cause in both the immediate and long-term future?
To say, “Let tomorrow look after itself,” is all very well, but when tomorrow comes – if a person actually lives so long – it so often happens that people say, “If only I had known then what I know now!”
True, there is a fear among the young of being called chicken if one does not cast caution to the proverbial winds and do the often silly things that are the fashion of the moment.
But it would be a mitzvah to have more serious discussion in schools and youth clubs about whether today really is more important than tomorrow.
