Time Isn't Holding Us, Time Isn't After Us

This month's new practices.

Step 15 on Rav Breiter’s list: Every day recite a portion of the collected prayers of Rabbi Natan, Likutey Tefilot.

I do not currently own a copy of this work, so I will have to delay taking action on this one until October when I usually make most of my annual sefer purchases.

Step 16: Make fixed times each day for Torah study.

When I began to formulate what I was going to write on this post my original idea was to tally up the time that I spent davening and learning each day and then post that figure. A sort of, pat myself on the back, look and see what a good Jew I am, I spend X amount of time each day doing Jewish stuff. The more that I thought about it, the more uncomfortable that idea became. It seemed to impose a dichotomy, these hours of the day are my Jewish hours, and the other hours are my regular person hours. Did I really feel that during part of the day I was just like everyone else, and at other times I took on my “secret Jew identity”?
I decided to look more carefully at what I was considering “Jewish time”. Obviously the three prayer services were in this category, as was any time in my current learning schedule. What about the time spent saying grace after meals, or any of the various brachas before and after eating? What about other brachas said during the course of the day?
Was there an amount of time that was too small to be significant? Did the second it took to kiss the mezuzah when going out the door matter? Did that action influence the time immediately following it to make it somehow “Jewish”? If I started humming a niggunim while washing the dishes did the dishwashing become sanctified time?
Was there a minimum Halachic content in a conversation that made it more Jewish?:
Little Rebbetzin: Daddy, what do people taste like?
Me: I don’t know, I’ve never eaten anyone.
L.R.: Oh that’s right people aren’t kosher.

I realized that although sometimes I felt like “I’m not an actual Jew, I just play one on TV,” really there was no point in the day that was “regular time,” it was all “Jewish time” if that was what I made of it.