Parshas Ki Seitzei: How to Beat the Yetzer Hara (AKA How to Overcome Our Desires)

If there is one thing we have learned in our travels, it is that all people are fundamentally the same.  Of course, each of us is unique in our own special way, but at the core, we have more in common than we often realize.  We feel the same emotions, have the same range of character traits, and have the same strengths and weaknesses, to varying degrees.

As Jews, we are not immune to the same faults we see in others who are not Jewish.  Even Rabbis and Rebbetzins make some mistakes! (Except for us, of course! Just kidding!)  Sadly, we often see a Jew in a position of power or leadership make a mistake and, whether he is a wealthy businessman, a politician, or a rabbi, we are tempted to say, “But he is religious, he is Jewish – he should know and act better!”

Yet, how many of us are perfect?  Certainly not I!  And while we may each make different mistakes, we do all make mistakes.  Some people do not follow the commandments to keep kosher; others do not pay employees on time.  Some engage in forbidden sexual activities; others steal things.  Some speak badly of other people; others violate the Sabbath.  We really do not have room to judge because we are none of us perfect.   And yet, we can try to be.

This week’s parsha offers a compelling tip on how to overcome your forbidden desires.  A soldier who goes to war and sees a woman he wants to take for himself is told that he can take her home and… shave her head, let her nails grow jagged, and then wait 30 days.  It is funny how if the woman is forbidden, the Torah does not come out and right away tell the soldier he cannot have her.  Instead, he is told he can have her… later.

We can apply this principle to every temptation in life.  If we want to eat something not kosher, we can tell ourselves, “Yes, I will have it… later.”  If we get angry and want to yell, we can tell ourselves, “Yes, I will scream and shout… later.”  If we want to watch the footy instead of spending time with our kids, we can tell ourselves, “I’ll watch the second half of the game… later.”  Usually by the time later comes around you’ll find you don’t want it anymore… or you will have forgotten it completely.

You see, our evil inclination and our desire to do the wrong thing is challenged when we tell ourselves we can’t have something.  It’s why we crave chocolates on a diet and cheeseburgers when we try to keep kosher.  If we tell ourselves “NO!” we want it even more.  But if we tell ourselves yes, then that voice becomes quiet.  The trick is to tell ourselves yes… but later.

Hopefully this trick will help us all in our quest to become better people!

Shabbat shalom!

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Parshas Shoftim: Jewish Justice Means No Bribery

Earlier this week, a friend asked a question: “Why is it so hard for women to cover their hair once they are married?”  Cynically, another mutual friend responded to her: “Well, you can get permission from the rabbis to do anything – even uncover your hair – if you only have enough money!”

Rosh Hashanah and Sukkot Are Soon: Try Cooking Ahead!

The chagim are coming up and by my calculations, there will be 18 meals this year, during which we will entertain guests.  That means I need approximately 36 loaves of challah, plus all the other trappings of meals.  I know that if I wait until the last minute I’ll be in big trouble, so I want to make everything I can ahead of time, leaving only last-minute or fresh salads to make during the holidays.

The best thing to do is just to cook ahead.  The general rule of thumb is that if it has some form of fat in it, it should freeze up pretty well.  Here are some ideas of what I’ve got on the menu:

I’ve got a few soups frozen already. We eat hot soup year round, although you could do a cold soup (like gazpacho or vichyssoise) if you will be in a hot climate. Most soups freeze well, although chunks of potatoes don’t do so well & Mark Bittman advises to leave out any dairy ingredients (or faux dairy ingredients) until you thaw it. Right now I have a minestrone, broccoli/cauliflower, potato spinach, and some tomato basil soup in the freezer… parsnip soup on the stove to be frozen tonight. And by the way, French onion soup freezes beautifully.

I also freeze things like casseroles and kugels. I have creamy tuna pasta bake in the freezer right now, as well as potato kugel. Planning to freeze carrot kugel as well. But other kugels, like broccoli kugel or spinach kugel, will freeze up nicely.  So will quiches, frittatas, or Spanish style omelets. We usually have some of those in the freezer at all times just as backup for a hungry visitor (or husband!).

You can also freeze desserts. I have cheesecake, chocolate cake, and banana cake in the freezer. I’m planning on doing some apple cake as well… I’ll probably leave the honeycake my hubby requested until the very end. You can also do cold fruit compote for desserts and freeze them ahead – I have pear compote & apple compote frozen & ready to go, and I might make more apple compote soon, too. I’ve got too many apples!

I hope this little guide will give you a good idea of some things to start cooking.  Work on it now and hopefully the holidays will be no problem at all!

PS – There are other things that freeze well that you wouldn’t necessarily think of. Roasted capsicum (red bell pepper), for instance. Rice also freezes well.

Backpacking or Traveling with a Baby or Infant: Getting Over Jet Lag

No matter which way you slice it, jet lag sucks.  No matter how tired you are, you find yourself awake in the middle of the night… then you find yourself falling asleep at the table when you sit down for lunch.  But when you’re dealing not only with your own jet lag, but with your baby’s jet lag, too… Well, that is a much greater challenge!

Jet lag is never fun, and with a baby it is even less so. But some determination and a few simple tricks will have your baby back on schedule in no time!

Babies under the age of 3 months generally don’t have a problem with jet lag.  Their circadian rhythm is not yet fully developed and they are not on such a fixed schedule.  Usually very young babies adapt quite well to travel changes.  But once your baby hits that developmental mark where he/she has developed a circadian rhythm, you are going to have to deal with their jet lag as well as your own.

The fastest way to acclimatize a baby to a new time zone is to keep their schedule in tact, come hell and high water.  No matter what, try your best not to deviate.  If bubba goes down for a nap at noon and sleeps 3 hours, then put him down for a nap at noon and only let him sleep 3 hours.  Try to keep them awake until their appointed bedtime.  Sometimes this may not be possible (they might just fall asleep where they are sitting and no amount of prodding will wake them) but try your very best, even if it is hard.

The harder part is the middle of the night, when your baby will wake up and cry to come out, thinking it must be daytime.  Older babies may understand an explanation of showing them through the window that the sun is asleep and they should be, too.  With younger babies, you may just have no choice but to spend time trying to put them back to sleep as best you can.

When your baby is awake during the daytime, try to do things outside to get their circadian rhythm back in sync.  Remember, circadian rhythm is determined by sunlight, so if you can keep your baby in the sun their brain will automatically associate it with being daytime and they will (hopefully) reset to the new time zone much more quickly.

If you do these simple tricks, there is a good chance that your baby will adjust even faster than you do!  Usually it only takes a couple of days (it took me a week to get Akiva back on schedule when we went from the US to Australia, but that’s as extreme as it gets – completely reversed sunlight hours!).

Good luck!

Scientific Proof That Keeping Kosher Can Increase Your Happiness

There are a lot of reasons for keeping kosher.  Of course the best reason to keep kosher is because G-d said to, because it’s written in the Torah.  We could do it because it’s a mitzvah (and who doesn’t need to get some extra merit in the world to come?!).  Some people who aren’t even Jewish keep kosher because it’s healthier – yes, even today, with all the FDA regulations (FDA regulations really don’t mean much, to tell you the truth).  But here’s another reason to keep kosher: IT CAN ACTUALLY MAKE YOU HAPPIER.

HAPPIER.

Yes, as in more joyful, more smiley, less depressed.  Happier. Why? How?

Well, in my last post I spoke about the power of choice.  Choice is undeniably a good thing – up to a point.  As with all good things, it is fantastic in moderation, but dangerous in too-high doses.  In fact, too much choice can be paralyzing.  It can cause you not to choose anything at all.

Another side effect of choice is making the wrong choice.  If you only have 3 choices and you’re not thrilled with the one you pick, you can always shrug your shoulders and say, “Well, it was the best of the bunch!”  But if you have 3 dozen or 300 choices, suddenly if the one you choose isn’t the best, you end up blaming yourself. Surely ONE of those choices must have been the perfect choice!

The result is that although we have more choices and we may choose something that is objectively better than what we would have chosen previously, we are LESS HAPPY with our choice.

Here’s where keeping kosher comes in.  When you keep kosher, you inherently have fewer choices.  Even if you live in Israel, where entire supermarkets are kosher, there will always be some things off-limits to you.  You can’t buy pork chops, you can’t have calamari, and even if you can put cheese on a soy burger, it never tastes quite like the real thing.  If you live, as we do, in a community where there are far fewer kosher options than, say, Jerusalem or Monsey, your choice is restricted even further.  I can still buy pickles, but I don’t have to choose among 20 different versions: Instead, I have 3 to choose from. This applies across the board.

And you know what? The same thing can apply to other areas of Judaism as well.  Dressing modestly means mini-skirts and skimpy tank tops are out of the running, but it doesn’t mean there aren’t plenty of other options you can use to express yourself.  But if there are 200 tops in the department store and only 20 are tznius and of these only 2 suit you, then after choosing between them you will be happier than you would if you did not keep tzniut and had to choose one out of 20 tops that suit you.

And there is scientific proof to back this up.  If you don’t believe me, just check out this TED video! Enjoy and happy kosher keeping!