At first blush the new Tikker watch would seem to be the perfect gift idea for the Novardoker who has everything.
It’s a timepiece designed to count down to a person’s death calculated based on the watch owner’s age and gender and an algorithm the federal government uses to calculate life expectancies. The watch’s creator a 37-year-old former gravedigger (what else?) named Fredrik Colting says his grandfather’s passing made him “think about death and the transience of life and [he] realized that nothing matters when you are dead. Instead what matters is what we do when we are alive.”
That gave him the idea for what he calls a “happiness watch ” because “if we are aware of death and our own expiration… we will have a greater appreciation for life.” If nothing else it will bring Mr. Colting himself much happiness considering the thousands of pre-orders already submitted ahead of its expected arrival from the factory in April of this year.
Watchmakers of course are not in charge any more than doctors are of deciding when a person’s time in this world will be up. And in any event the Tikker cannot possibly provide an accurate estimation of a person’s expected life span in the absence of information about things like personal health and lifestyle family history and environment. One can be sure no one’s heirs will be getting a refund for his heart having stopped ticking before his watch did. Ultimately then its purpose is only to inspire and motivate or as one person put it “the numbers are but tools in the pursuit of a particular kind of mindfulness; a particular urgency of life.”
It all seems so Jewishly consonant so full of mussar in fact — but then again maybe not. The Gemara (Berachos 5a) sets forth four strategies for overcoming one’s yetzer hara each successive approach to be implemented if the one preceding it fails. First it counsels waging war on the evil inclination next is the study of Torah third comes the recitation of Krias Shema and when all else fails one is advised to remember the day of death.
The Chofetz Chaim (Zechor L’Miriam chapter 8) asks why the Gemara didn’t suggest that this last and presumably most effective tactic be our first resort. He answers that the optimal way to serve Hashem is through joy and feeling privileged to stand before the Master of the Universe. Recalling our inexorably approaching mortality however isn’t conducive for nurturing such positive emotions and thus should be regarded as a last resort.
It’s also worth pondering whether constant mindfulness of the countdown to one’s demise is even an effective way at all to bring out the best in us. Rav Elya Lopian observes that despite the teaching in the aforementioned gemara we find contrarily that Eisav invoked his mortality as a reason to spurn the spiritual life exclaiming to Yaakov: “I am on my way to dying so why would I want the birthright?” Similarly the navi Yeshayahu speaks of those whom the fleetingness of life propels toward hedonistic indulgence as they proclaim “Eat and drink for tomorrow we die.”
But Rav Elya explained there is no contradiction. An acute awareness that we’re moving steadily toward life’s end is indeed a powerful motivational tool but a value-neutral one whose effects can move man in diametrically opposite directions. It will spur the spiritually inclined person to become even more focused on performing mitzvos and bettering himself in his remaining time on earth. But someone who has no conception of this world as an antechamber in which to develop one’s character and ennoble one’s soul in preparation for an eternal existence will see the ticking of the Tikker as nothing but an urgent reminder to grab whatever earthly pleasures he possibly can while he still can.
Indeed according to a piece about the mortality watch on National Public Radio’s website a heightened awareness of one’s mortality has been found to have widely divergent psychological effects:
A 2009 study showed that thinking about death makes you savor life more. And a 2011 study has shown that thinking about death makes you more generous more likely to donate your blood.
But that’s not the whole story. A whole dark underbelly of research suggests that thinking about our own mortality can bring out the worst in us. The work of Jeff Greenberg Sheldon Solomon and Tom Pyszczynski — grandfathers of an idea in social psychology called terror management theory — has shown that thinking about death makes us well pretty xenophobic. When confronted with our mortality we cling to those like us and disparage those who are different.
The writer concludes by asking “why do you get both positive and negative effects? Well that’s an open question in science right now.” It’s interesting to consider whether Rav Elya’s words might help shed light on those differing research results which perhaps reflect differences in the approach to life of the respondents in the various studies.
One thing that emerges from all this is that spiritual inspiration is a delicate thing. What we might tend to view as a natural source of uplift such as a keen awareness of life’s brevity won’t necessarily have the expected effect and might even be counterproductive.
A similar lesson is to be found in Chazal’s teaching that one who witnesses the degradation of the sotah in the Beis Hamikdash is advised to take the vow of a nazir. This seems so counterintuitive: One would think the person least likely to need additional spiritual safeguards against excessive drinking and the frivolity and promiscuity to which it can lead is someone who has just seen firsthand in the horrible spectacle that is this woman’s disintegration and death how involvement in sin ends. Yet he of all people is urged to swear off wine?
But apparently there is alongside the natural recoil that such a scene engenders also a potential fascination even if only in the recesses of the subconscious with this strangely defiant sotah and her apparent death wish (for she can readily avert her fate with a simple admission of guilt). True a radically self-destructive lifestyle such as hers can be a great inspiration for spiritual betterment; and yet at the same time it can exert a perverse attraction to that very lifestyle for which this rebellious sinner seems to have been willing to forfeit life itself to die so to speak al chillul Hashem.
Inspiration is a delicate thing to be employed with caution and forethought. And it takes our Chazal with their piercing wisdom to reveal that to us to teach us what makes us tick.