Man in general, and bnai Yisrael in particular, have a difficult time waiting for things. Our Sages tell us that had Adam, in the Garden of Eden, held off and not eaten from the Tree of Knowledge until Shabbos, the seventh day, the ban on eating from the tree would have been rescinded, and Adam could have lived in Paradise forever.

Bnai Yisrael were supposed to wait until Moshe came down from Mount Sinai. They did wait, for 40 days according to their flawed count, but had they waited a few more hours, Moshe would have come down, and there would have been no Golden Calf.

And the great King Saul was to have waited in Gilgal for seven days, until Samuel came and brought offerings. But the Philistines were massing to fight against bnai Yisrael, so Saul brought the offering himself, only to have Samuel arrive a short time later and tell him that his kingdom would not endure because of this sin.

Waiting is an important part of managing our food intake. We have all been told that it takes 20 minutes for a person to feel full after he eats a meal. Yet there is this little (sometimes big) nudging voice that says, “I want more, and I want it now.” It is not driven by hunger but simply by a desire to eat. As readers of this series know, my biggest obstacle to keeping weight off and not gaining more is an insatiable desire to eat at night. I am getting somewhat better at refraining, but it is still very difficult. If I can hold out until the deadline (when I go to sleep), I am okay, and I can truthfully tell myself that I will be able to eat again when I awaken. So we’re not talking about waiting an eternity to eat, just a short time. Yet it is still very difficult.

More than 20 years ago, I made a resolution that I would try to walk up steps whenever possible, rather than taking the elevator. At that time, I worked on the sixth floor. I told my daughter, “Elevators don’t exist for me.” I have continued this practice. I now work on the fifth floor at GBMC, and have four flights to climb. GBMC, like Yerushalaim, lehavdil, has hills, and in my building, the main entrance is on the third floor, but I park on the side and enter the building from the first floor. My practice is to walk up and down the steps, unless I am carrying something heavy (over and above my laptop and my weighty pocketbook, which also needs a diet!) or there is a social reason – I ’m talking with someone, etc. – to take the elevator. (See below for a technique for walking steps without getting short of breath.)

Well, the unthinkable – though not the unexpected – happened. I have gained some weight.

The last time I started on a serious diet, in January 2013, I told myself that THIS IS IT! I will go through the dieting process one more time, and then maintain my weight, with possible small perturbations. And this is what happened for a while. I lost about 30 pounds on Medifast over the course of a year or so, and gained back only a few pounds, and this was my status until around May of this year. Then, all of a sudden, like a hurricane, I gained more weight, leaving me 15 pounds over the level at which I’d like to stabilize: a weight at which I felt good about myself, though still higher than my “ideal weight.”

This week, I listened to two interesting talks referring to sha’ah, an hour. The first was by Rebbetzin Esther Baila Schwartz. It is on torahanytime.com and is called “The Avoda of Cheshbon Hanefesh.” She speaks about the verse in Pirkei Avos (Ethics of our Fathers) “There is no person (adam) who does not have his hour.” The simple explanation is that each person has his/her own importance, his/her own place in this world and in the “orchestra” Hashem puts together with all of our contributions.

After this, she goes on to give a different interpretation. A person needs time to think and be introspective, to do a cheshbon hanefesh (daily reckoning), as it were. Pharaoh in Egypt reasoned that if he intensified the work that the Jewish slaves had to complete, they would have no time to think about going to serve Hashem, etc.

A few months back, I started my article with the following mishna in Pirkei Avos: Rabbi Elazar haKappar said, “Hakin’a vehata’avah vehakavod motzi’im es ha’adam min ha’olam – Envy, inordinate desire, and [the search for] glory remove a man from the world.” (Pirkei Avos 4:28, translation from Bunim’s Ethics from Sinai) This month I would like to focus on another interpretation of “remove a man from the world.” R. Bunim says, “If they [these passions] remove a man from the world, they obviously do not abate as long as the person lives….they will be ‘faithful to the end’ – the bitter end that they hasten.”A strong appetite or desire does not go away. It may be pacified by feeding it one day, but the next day it is back again, a force to deal with and to accompany us throughout our lives. As Rav Yitzchak says (Kiddushin 30b) “A person’s yetzer renews itself daily”.

Rav Yisrael Salanter was once in a hotel in France. He went into the restaurant and asked for a glass of water. As he was ready to leave, the waiter gave him a bill for 50 francs. Rav Yisrael was surprised, and told the waiter that he had only had water. The waiter explained that the bill included the overhead, the art, the music, the ambiance of the restaurant, etc. Rav Salanter paid the bill and even left a tip. He wrote a letter to his students, saying that now he knew why we recite “…shehakol nihyeh bidvaro,” that everything came to be through His word. We are not making a bracha just on the water; we are making a bracha on everything! (Rabbi Label Lam on parshas Eikev, torahanytime.com)