Person in the Parshah: BEREISHIT

By RABBI TZVI HERSH WEINREB

“SELF-CONTROL, MARSHMALLOWS AND HUMAN DESTINY“

It didn’t take very long after Man was created for the history of the world to change its course. It seems clear that the Almighty had a very different narrative in mind for the story of the human race. For one thing, death was not part of the narrative. Nor was the need to earn our bread by the sweat of our brow.

We were originally designed to be immortal, and to reside in a paradise which required very little of us. Our immortality and our idyllic abode were assured to us with but one caveat:

“The Lord God took the man and placed him in the Garden of Eden, to till it and tend it. And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, ‘Of every tree of the garden you are free to eat; but as for the tree of knowledge of good and bad, you must not eat of it; for as soon as you eat of it, you shall die.’” (Genesis 2:15-17)

As an additional blessing, one designed to remove from man the sad state of loneliness, God created woman.

The Almighty, who is as benevolent as he is omnipotent, clearly expected man and woman to live up to this single expectation. We can even assume that He was rooting for them to come through this simple challenge successfully. The course of human history was at stake. Would it be a story of a perfect existence, or would be a tale ridden with misery and woe?

Man and woman failed the test:

“When the woman saw that the tree was good for eating and a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was desirable as a source of wisdom, she took of its fruit and ate. She also gave some to her husband, and he ate.” (Genesis 3:6)

This type of failure has been repeated innumerable times in human history. It is certainly is a failure with which we are all personally familiar. But we don’t tell our stories in the sublime language of the Bible. In fact, we recently have found a much more mundane way to refer to our moral shortcomings. We now say, “We failed the marshmallow test.”

This new term has become part of our parlance because of the many years of research on the subject of self-control by a professor at Columba University, Dr. Walter Mischel. His book, The Marshmallow Test: Mastering Self-Control, describes the extensive research he conducted over the course of his long professional career.

It all began with a simple experiment in which he observed how a group of five year olds reacted when he placed some tempting marshmallows before them. They were given the choice between consuming one marshmallow immediately, or being allowed two marshmallows if they waited fifteen minutes.

Some ate the one marshmallow right away, while others engaged in range of hilarious attempts to overcome temptation.

Some averted their gaze from the marshmallows. Others squirmed in their seats or sang to themselves. Others counted to one hundred repetitively until the fifteen minutes passed by. Some fantasized that the marshmallows were poisoned, or that they weren’t marshmallows at all but insects or sugar coated cardboard.

The point, of course, is that one can use one’s mental skills to divert one’s attention from the forbidden object. In psychological terms there is such a thing as will power, and it is possible to succeed at the vitally important task of self-control.

Mischel followed the original group of children forty years later and found that the five year olds who passed the marshmallow test developed into adults who were much more successful in life than their counterparts who failed the test.

More importantly, Mischel used the results of his research to develop a system of guidelines for gaining the ability to delay the pressures of immediate gratification and to exert self-control in wide range of real life situations.

How different would the course of history be if Adam and Eve would have had the benefit of Dr. Mischel’s instructions for mastering self-control!

It has occurred to me more than once that the Jewish religion requires a great deal of self-control, perhaps more than any other religion. There are numerous foods which we are forbidden to eat. There are days of the year when we must forego all sorts of otherwise important and often pleasurable activities. There are times of each day when we must interrupt our activities in order to pray. There are urges and passions which we are forbidden to satisfy. We must inhibit tendencies to speak maliciously of others, and it is essential that we deny our very human temptation not to tell the truth.

Of course, from time to time we fail, and just a few short weeks ago we experienced the day of Yom Kippur which is designed to gain us atonement for those failures of self-control.

But by and large we succeed in controlling ourselves, and avoid those behaviors which others in our social environment, not bound by the restrictions of our faith, performed without the slightest hesitation. What is the secret of our success?

To some extent, it is the secret that Mischel’s five year olds knew intuitively. We do go through internal mental processes, either telling ourselves, for example, “This is not kosher,” or, “This is a great mitzvah.” We may even control ourselves to the extent that we physically avoid situations which might confront us with irresistible temptations and compel us to compromise our religious standards.

But I think that the secret of the successful observant Jew lies deeper within us than these exertions of will power. Dr. Mischel provides us with a clue when he distinguishes between the “hot” and “cool” systems of the brain. The former is designed to deal with immediate rewards and threats, while the latter is designed to deal with long-term consequences.

Although the “hot” system is necessary in certain situations, the practicing Jew learns the importance of the “cool” system. For those born into Jewish observance it is learned in the earliest formative years, from parents and grandparents, from stories and songs. For who come to Jewish observance later in life it is learned intentionally, through study, reflection, and discussion. One way or the other, we internalize a world view which looks beyond the immediate present to an ultimate future.

As we embark upon a new year, and read the parsha of Bereishit, which is all about beginnings, we have the opportunity to begin to be more conscious of our decisions, and to appreciate how different and more rewarding our spiritual lives can be if we learn the lessons of self-control.

More so, we can ponder how different the world would be if many more of us would learn to pass the marshmallow test.