The passage of time can be described in different ways. One way is to use standard units such as hours that demarcate consistent, regular intervals. Another way is to use more general, ambiguous terms.
The Tanakh uses both styles. When Yitzhak is affectionate with his wife in the jurisdiction of Avimelekh, the Torah prefaces that detail with “And it was, when his days there were lengthy” (Genesis 26:8). When Yaakov toils seven years for Rachel, the text states that “it was like a few days in his eyes because of his love for her” (29:20). In our parasha, Tamar waits for Shelah to come of age and marry her in accordance with the levirate marriage obligation: “She dwelt in her father’s house, and the days became many…” (38:11-12). Yaakov mourns for Yosef “for many days” (37:34).
The fact that the terms “lengthy days” and “many days” occasionally appear along with a unit of time that has a specific quantity reinforces the sense that these terms are different (and express a different message) from that of the “ticking clock.”
The Midrash Tanhuma has contains an interwoven collection of the various sources in which “many days” appears. The midrash is long and exhaustive, as this term appears many times throughout the Torah, Prophets, and Writings. The main point of the midrash, as it will be presented here, is that the use of ambiguous terms to describe time conveys the timespan’s duration as the protagonist experiences it:
“A woman who experiences a flow, for whom blood flows for many days…” – but the separation period is [specified as] seven days! And why [did the Torah] refer to them as “many days” –rather, because she separates from her husband, and these are days of grief—therefore, [the Torah] referred to them as “many days… Similarly: “For many days Joshua waged war” (Joshua 11). (Midrash Tanhuma, Metzora 6:6).
The Midrash distinguishes between objective time and subjective time; between the physical and the metaphysical. Time expands or contracts according to the experiences and emotions of the moment. Fridays are always short, and weddings that people anticipate for a long time end up flying by. The last few hours of a fast day are the longest hours of the fast; the final weeks of pregnancy crawl along slowly. When the endpoint of a time period is unknown – waiting for an important test score or medical results, the waiting period seems much longer than it is in reality.
These subjective units of time find expression, for example, in the concept of a “Halakhic hour” (sha’ah zemanit). The innovative idea of the Halakhic hour is that the number of hours in a day is constant, but the hours can be longer or shorter than the “standard hour” (depending on the time of year). The scientific formula expressing distance as a function of speed and time can be rearranged to describe time as a function of distance and speed.
The possibility of stretching or condensing time in proportion to experiences of grief and mourning, or of happiness and joy, is the potential for “length of days” or, God forbid, shortened days. For better or for worse, there is a dimension of the triumph of the spirit over the physical, and man’s victory over death.
Rabbi Zadok HaCohen of Lublin (in Kometz Haminha 82:63) refers to “And it was, when his days there were lengthy” (Genesis 26:8) to describe resisting temptation as key to fear of God, which is synonymous with “length of days” – the opposite of death. The distancing from sin, suggested by Rabbi Zadok as a way of overcoming death, is a symbol for the various situations wherein man elevates himself, surmounting his regular existence, distancing himself from the physical survival impulses and sees himself as a part of more elevated, wider spaces; when he succeeds in building himself palaces on transient foundations, like “mountains held up by a hair.”
There is a discussion in Masekhat Kiddushin (39b) about the interpretation of a Torah verse that promises length of days for those who fulfill certain mitzvot: honoring parents, fulfilling the commandment of “shiluah ha-ken” (sending the mother bird away before collecting the eggs from her nest), and being scrupulous about keeping accurate weights and conducting honest business dealings. For all these commandments the Torah adds “so that your days will be lengthened” or “so that it will be good for you, and your days will be lengthened.” These three commandments can be connected to Rabbi Zadok’s principle: they all relate to maximizing life’s potential by broadening horizons: thinking about the past, and about tradition and heritage (honoring parents), and taking care to focus not only on survival but on maintaining ethical values and fairness. Transcending the pull of the present to consider one’s heritage and history, or placing ethical values at the forefront, expands life’s dimensions to be much more than the current moment – it stretches life to encompass the past and the future.
In light of the above, it is possible to understand the verse “length of days at the right, and wealth and honor on the left.” Someone who spends life involved in the study of Torah succeeds in transcending the dimension of time, and joins with eternity. So too, the blessing of the new month which asks for a long life is not relating to the duration of life, but to its quality – “a life of peace, a life of goodness, and a life of blessing.”