cover image Time Is Now: Sixty ""Time Pieces"" for Reflection & Action

Time Is Now: Sixty ""Time Pieces"" for Reflection & Action

Daniel Wolk. Overlook Press, $23.95 (288pp) ISBN 978-0-87951-832-5

Rabbi for 30 years of Congregation Emanu-El in Westchester County, N.Y., Wolk (The Dirt from Tripp Street) has produced a collection of essays on the preciousness of our lives and the importance of not wasting time. While Wolk hits many obvious points about spending more time with loved ones, accepting change, seizing opportunities, continuing to grow and appreciating the small joys of life, he succeeds in making his suggestions seem wise and gentle rather than hackneyed. Confessing that ""everything that happens to a rabbi eventually finds its way into a sermon,"" he nonetheless shares many teaching stories that remain refreshingly unpreachy. From a field of sunflowers or a labyrinth on the floor of a medieval cathedral in France to a fishing expedition or a bar mitzvah in suburban New York, Wolk engages readers in his personal experiences and insightful observations. Most provocative of all are the simple questions he poses: ""To whom do you owe ultimate loyalty in the landscape of your own life?"" ""What qualifies as your keystone?"" And then there's the question Wolk asked everyone who would listen to him, ""If you only had a limited time [two years or less] to live but were in good health and could do whatever you want what would you do?"" Wolk shows that such perennial questions can be the basis of a thoughtful, inspirational work. (Mar.)