Rabbi's Blog

After three years of mouth discomfort, brace tightenings, and not being able to bite into apples, my son's braces were finally removed. He immediately felt freedom for his teeth and tongue. This was short lived, however, as the orthodontist requires that a retainer be worn all day for at least a year. The importance of the retainer cannot be under estimated, and my son (and I) was warned that if he did not wear the retainer he would run the risk of his teeth shifting, therefore losing all that he had gained during the three years of wearing braces. It takes a few years for something that was forcibly changed to stay in its new place permanently. We find this to be true in many other areas of life.

In today's world there is an ever increasing focus on immediate weight loss, but unfortunately not on permanent weight loss. Millions of dollars are spent annually on dieting, exercising and monitoring food consumption, but the results are most often lost, and the dieter reverts back to his previous weight. Sadly, it's not uncommon for the dieter to regain all of the previously lost weight, and to gain even more weight than had been lost.

A report in the New England Journal of Medicine, dated October 27, 2011, examined why people typically gained back all of the weight that they lost. The article, entitled "Long-Term Persistence of Hormonal Adaptations to Weight Loss",focused on changes which occur in hormones involved in the regulation of body weight. It was found that there was a significant increase in subjective appetite - and hunger. The conclusion of the study stated: "One year after initial weight reduction, levels of the circulating mediators of appetite that encourage weight regain after diet-induced weight loss do not revert to the levels recorded before weight loss. Long-term strategies to counteract this change may be needed to prevent obesity relapse'. Dr. Stephen Bloom, an obesity researcher at Hammersmith Hospital in London, said the study needed to be repeated under more rigorous conditions, but added, "It is showing something I believe in deeply — it is very hard to lose weight." And the reason, he said, is that "...your hormones work against you."

Spiritual hormones are the work of the Yetzer Hora, the Satan. Anyone who makes a commitment to change his way of religious life needs to do so over a long period of time. A commitment of this depth and complexity requires long-term, consistent focus and determination. When a person takes on a commitment to do a particular Mitzva or act ,he must do it continuously for a few years in order to affect permanent change. Most often individuals will state that they are going to change and actually do manage to accomplish this adaptation for a while, but for the change to be deep and permanent, the conscientious act of creating this change must take place over a period of at least three years in order to make it an intrinsic part of the individual's new spiritual, core makeup.

In this week's Parshas Noach we learn a similar concept - permanent change takes a long time. In Breishis 8:7 the Torah states "Vayishalach es HaOreiv, Vayeitzay Haloch Vashov ad Yevoshes Hamyim Me'Al Haaretz". After forty days Noach opened up the window and he sent out the raven, and it flew out around the ark and came back. Later, Noach sends out the dove to see if the waters had receded from the earth. Reb Yehuda Mintz 1415-1508 in his drashos writes that God showed other great miracles during the Mabul/Flood. For an entire year the constellations, stars, moon and sun stopped functioning. This was a miracle for the people in the Teivah because the existence of mankind on Earth is dependent solely on the revolving solar system. Because the solar system stopped, all living organisms died with the exception of those inside the ark. Rav Mintz explains the constant movement of the solar system cleans and purifies the air on Earth. The ark, however, insulated the people and animals from the stale air and were able to survive.

When Noach sent out the raven, it immediately returned. This was due to the fact that the air was not yet moving outside so the raven quickly returned. By the time the dove was sent out, the weather was better but was not yet one hundred percent. Due to the imperfect air quality, the dove had to be brought back to the ark by Noach, but it didn't need to come in right away. Finally, the dove was sent out again and returned with an olive branch, so Noach understood that it would now be safe to leave the ark.

Rav Mintz asks how come the raven needed to come back right away while the dove needed to be brought back in by Noach? He explains the difference is between a raven, a non-kosher, impure bird versus the dove, which is tahor/pure and kosher. The raven could not tolerate the stale air as the solar system had not yet returned to full "power". The dove, on the other hand, was pure and kosher, so Hashem performed a miracle, allowing the dove to sustain itself despite the lack of good air movement and quality. The dove was able to exist outside of the ark just as it had existed the entire period of the mabul inside the ark. In fact, the Torah goes out of its way to tell us that the Yonah - the dove - couldn't find a place to rest its foot and therefore returned to the teivah. The doverereturned to the ark specifically because the water was still on the ground, NOT because the dove couldn't tolerate the air quality, that it returned.

I derive from this teaching the lesson of the miracle of the constant movement of our solar system, our galaxy and the entire universe.......it never stops. In order for our world to exist and maintain itself, Hashem required it to be in a constant state of movement three hundred sixty five days a year. The moment this movement stopped the entire ecology broke down, creating havoc and devastation on the world.

The true servants of God are those who work round the clock, never stopping. If we want to become good servants to Hashem, then we need to be consistent in what we do. It is not enough just to try something a few times and hope that this may become intrinsic to our beings. We need to make a long-term commitment to whatever religious or mundane matter we want to tackle. The key to success is doing it for a long time. Three years is about the right amount of time to try something out. After doing something for three years, our metabolism will finally take on this new commitment of the body and soul.

Ah Gut Shabbos

Rabbi Avram Bogopulsky