Shabbat 27 Shevat 5783 (18.02.23)
מְעַ֥ט מְעַ֛ט אֲגָרְשֶׁ֖נּוּ מִפָּנֶ֑יךָ עַ֚ד אֲשֶׁ֣ר תִּפְרֶ֔ה וְנָחַלְתָּ֖ אֶת־הָאָֽרֶץ׃
Rather, little by little will I drive them out before you, until you increase and are able to occupy the whole land.
My Fight Against Coffee Misuse
HaShem here applies the "strategy" of gradualness. It is not always possible to defeat enemies right away in their entirety. One of the reasons the verse gives for this is that the land would be overrun by wild animals. From human enemies you might still be able to predict how they react, but wild animals are completely unpredictable.
So is it sometimes with certain bad habits that your animal soul makes you perform. Take, for example, the bad habit of overeating or just plain unhealthy eating. You consider one day that enough is enough and it is time to live healthy and especially eat healthy. You tackle it thoroughly. All the unhealthy food goes in the trash and you get yourself all healthy things. For a few days it goes well, but then. You go to visit someone and, well, you can't say no and you eat what you don't want. When you get home you think, oh, 1 unhealthy thing a day, that one cookie, that one piece of candy, should be fine. Before you know it, your whole plan of healthy living has fallen apart and you are eating exactly what you did before.
This is a good place to apply the strategy of gradualism. Substitute 1 small thing for something healthy. Not a cookie by the cookie, but a healthy multigrain bar. When that habit is ingrained, you can move on to not the next thing to replace. This way, your new lifestyle becomes a habit and then you don't fall back. The moment you do fall back, you may have sent away an enemy, but a wild animal comes in return. Namely, the disappointment that you have not succeeded in what you set out to do. This wild animal is even harder to defeat than the original enemy.
What applies to food can apply to anything, to any need or desire that your animal soul puts within you that you want to change. Such is the method of attack in all battles of the mind; by moving forward little by little, we can indeed "conquer the land."
I am going to apply this strategy to my coffee abuse. I resolve to replace every "second" cup of coffee with a fruit juice or water. Because all the times I completely quit in one sitting, I didn't even last a week.
Sources: Kehot Chumash Mispatim
Angelique Sijbolts is one of the main writers for the NoahideAcademy.org website. She contributes for the admin of the website in English and Dutch. She teaches Hebrew to beginners and intermediate students at the Academy.
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