Somebody mentioned to one of the sages that he sees that he spends so much time studying the Torah, that he gives away so much effort studying the Torah. “Maybe you should rest a little bit during the day? Maybe you should go on vacation?”
So the sage said, “ְ יוֹמָ א אֲ נַ ן פּ וֹ עֲ לֵ י ד – We are hired day workers” (Eiruvin 65a). It means we are employed by Hakadosh Baruch Hu and we’re working all day for Him.
Now we might think that’s excessive, to work for Hashem from nine to five is a lot. But the truth is he meant more than that, because in those days they didn't work from nine to five. They worked from the first crack of dawn until it was too dark to do any more work. And ְ יוֹמָ א אֲ נַ ן פּ וֹ עֲ לֵ י ד means even more than that. It doesn't mean at night he stopped, because the business of avodas Hashem is not dependent on daylight. At night too, there’s business to be done. A Jew, even when he gets into his pajamas and climbs into bed, he’s still laboring for Hashem.
Full-Time Loyalty
Now, don’t make a mistake when you hear that word “laborer.” It’s not like the laborers today. Today, let’s say, if you walk into a yeshiva in the afternoon, sometimes you see the teachers in the hallway – they’re talking to each other; on the boss’s time they’re talking in the hallway. Meanwhile, the boys are breaking the windows in the classroom. Sometimes they’re even breaking bones.
No, that’s not a loyal worker. In Torah language, a worker means he has an attitude that it’s his business now; he’s invested in the children and the windows the same as the one who owns the yeshiva. And that’s what this talmid chochom was saying. “I’m a loyal worker and therefore, it’s my business. When it’s your own business, it’s an entirely different story. When it’s your business, you don't take naps and vacations so quickly.”
Now those three words, ְ יוֹמָ א אֲ נַ ן פּ וֹ עֲ לֵ י ד, are a good yardstick for us to use. You know what a yardstick is? It's a way to measure things, a way of knowing if you’re living up to a certain ideal. And since our ideal of making the business of Hakadosh Baruch Hu is our business, we should consider it important to measure ourselves up to this ideal.
This expression is a good way of measuring up. It’s three words, easy to remember: ְ יוֹמָ א אֲ נַ ן פּ וֹ עֲ לֵ י ד – We are day workers. That’s a yardstick of נַ עֲ שָׂ ה וֹרָ תוֹ ת – when you’re devoted to Hakadosh Baruch Hu as much as you are to your own business.
