Rabbi Freedman’s Shabbat Message

It ain’t much I’m asking, if you want the truth
Here’s to the future, for the dreams of youth
I want it all, I want it all, I want it all, and I want it now
Queen

There is a certain irony in these words. Although written by Brian May, the member of the group for whom these words most aptly applied was undoubtedly the lead singer, Freddie Mercury. The song was released in 1989, but by 1991 Mercury was dead at the young age of 45. In his case, with such a short future ahead of him, we can appreciate the words above – I want it all and I want it now – because in his case – later, would have been too late. But for most of us thankfully that is patently not true, we are living longer lives and generally speaking healthier lives – so if we don’t receive what we ‘want’ today, there is a good chance that we may get it tomorrow or the day after. Nonetheless, the words of this song back in 1989 seemed to herald a new age where everyone simply expected or demanded instant gratification.

Instant Gratification has become a part of our everyday lives. We order on online and it arrives the next day, we want a meal so we visit a fast food outlet – or even better have it delivered – so we don’t even have to step outside the door. Is anyone immune? For example, when we feel the need to speak to someone nowadays there is hardly any time lag between having the idea and carrying out the action. In earlier days before the telephone was invented we were forced to wait until we saw the person and only then could we have a face to face conversation. When Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone, it came wired in at home or in a public phone box – either way we had to wait until we had access to such a phone before being able to make the call. It could be minutes, but more often than not, it was hours. But with the growing popularity and availability of the mobile phone, we now expect to be able to fulfil our desire to speak to someone within seconds.

Imagine my frustration when I found that there was some sort of glitch in the Apple Car Play system in my car – I could call people, but they couldn’t hear my voice properly. It was so frustrating and I drove everyone crazy trying to find a solution – but the truth was that most of my car journeys in an and around the city are no longer than 45 minutes – so why couldn’t I just be patient and wait till I exited the car to call them – the answer is in the lines of the song – because somehow we all feel that we have a divine right “to have it all and to have it now.”
The story of Esau and Jacob in this week’s sidra of Toldot is one of the earliest moral explorations of instant gratification. Esau, returning famished from the field, demands from his brother:
הַלְעִיטֵ֤נִי נָא֙ מִן־הָֽאָדֹ֤ם הָֽאָדֹם֙ הַזֶּ֔ה כִּ֥י עָיֵ֖ף אָנֹ֑כִי
Pour into me now some of that red stew, for I am weary. (Gen 25:30).

Jacob offers the lentil stew, but at a price – Esau’s birthright – the intangible inheritance of spiritual and familial responsibility.
So, in a moment of hunger, Esau declares,
הִנֵּ֛ה אָֽנֹכִ֥י הוֹלֵ֖ךְ לָמ֑וּת וְלָֽמָּה־זֶּ֥ה לִ֖י בְּכֹרָֽה
Behold, I am at the point of death; what good is the birthright for me? (Gen 25:32).
Understandably, the Torah concludes this interchange between Jacob and Esau starkly:
וַיִּ֥בֶז עֵשָׂ֖ו אֶת־הַבְּכֹרָֽה
So it happened that Esau despised his birthright (Gen 25:34).

This brief exchange captures a timeless truth: the tension between the immediate and the eternal, between appetite and aspiration. Rashi, commenting on Esau’s rejection of the birthright, writes הֵעִיד הַכָּתוּב עַל רִשְׁעוֹ שֶׁבִּזָּה עֲבוֹדָתוֹ שֶׁל מָקוֹם – that Esau’s disdain for his inheritance was symptomatic of his disrespect for God and his disinterest in his long-term spiritual obligations.

Maimonides, in his Eight Chapters, suggests that human beings have within them multiple souls – or perhaps one soul with many parts. One of those souls, according to Maimonides, would be Godly in nature and unselfish in practice. But at times such a soul is overpowered by its counterpart known as the נֶפֶשׁ חִיוֹנִית one’s vital inclination.

In Kabbalistic literature this is also known as נֶפֶשׁ הַבְּהֵמִית or one’s animalistic impulses. These instincts tend to be more self-centred. They motivate humans in their most natural instincts such as survival, procreation, avoidance of pain, and the seeking of pleasure. As such, wrote physicist Alexander Poltorak, while such basic human urges and appetites are not intrinsically “bad,” they are predictably narcissistic and egocentric, rather than self-effacing and altruistic. Esau therefore became the archetype in rabbinic literature for a person enslaved by his own senses, acting selfishly and often impulsively, unlike Jacob who is described as אִ֣ישׁ תָּ֔ם ישֵׁ֖ב אֹֽהָלִֽים a man of integrity who acts unhurriedly and deliberately, to achieve the best possible long-term outcome. Jacob is heralded therefore, as the type of individual who, rather than being controlled by his nature, achieves spiritual growth through immense self-discipline and infinite patience.

Fast forward to the modern world, and the story of Esau seems to be startlingly contemporary. The drive for instant gratification has become a defining feature of modern society. Social media platforms train us to crave the dopamine rush of likes and notifications.

Online shopping offers one-click satisfaction. Fast-food outlets, as their name suggests, removes the delay in receiving one’s lunch or dinner. Food delivery, binge-watching, and rapid-fire news consumption compress time and reduce waiting to an inconvenience; where once patience was a virtue, now immediacy is an expectation.
Psychologists, such as Daniel Goleman, have long warned that the inability to delay gratification predicts broader challenges in self-regulation and life satisfaction.

Goleman, in his best-selling book, Emotional Intelligence describes the famous Marshmallow Test – a study conducted in the 1960s by Walter Mischel. Goleman writes that in this experiment four-year-olds from the Stanford University pre-school were brought to a room and sat in a chair in front of a juicy marshmallow on a table. Opposite them was an adult, who told them that they could eat the marshmallow now, or get two, if they were willing to wait until the adult returned from running an errand.

Some children could not wait and ate the marshmallow as soon as the adult left the room. Others toyed with the idea of waiting, but were unable to resist the temptation. Others were able to wait and scored two marshmallows when the adult returned.

While this study revealed certain aspects of childhood behaviour, follow-up studies into the behaviour of these children when young adults and graduating from high school revealed that the children who displayed patience developed into young people who in general terms became more popular with their peers, had less trouble delaying gratification, and scored far higher on achievement tests.

A further study, conducted 40 years later, as reported by Sylvia R. Karasu writing for Psychology Today, found that the ability to resist temptation remained fairly stable over the lifecycle, even 40 years later.

In his book, Goleman talks about the important role of parents in supporting children to develop the ability to control impulses and choose behaviour. In this way children learn to internalise and understand the meaning of ‘no’ when spoken by others and in that sense they learn to regulate impulsive behaviour.

Take for example Eloise Goldman who struggled to hold the line. She knew it was ridiculous to spend $250 on a mini iPod for her 9-year-old son Ben. The price tag wasn’t the biggest issue for Goldman, a publicist, and her fund-raiser husband, Jon. It was the idea of buying such an extravagant gadget for a kid who still hasn’t mastered long division. If she gave in, how would Ben ever learn that you can’t always get what you want? Goldman knew there was a good chance the iPod would soon be lost or abandoned, just like Ben’s toy-of-choice from last year, a bright blue drum set that now sits forlornly in the basement of their suburban New York home. But Ben nagged and pestered and insisted that “everyone has one.” Goldman began to weaken. Ben’s a good kid, she reasoned; she wanted him to have what the other kids had. After doing a neighbourhood-mom check and finding that Ben’s peers were indeed wired for sound, Goldman caved–but not without one last attempt to salvage some lesson about limits. She offered her son a deal. We give you an iPod; you forfeit your birthday party. “Done,” he said. Then, without missing a beat: “Now what about getting me my own Apple G4?”

Advertising plays a crucial role in perpetuating this phenomenon. Marketers deliberately exploit psychological triggers, linking happiness, status, and identity to instant consumption. Slogans like “Just Do It” or “Because you’re worth it” encourage impulse over reflection. Digital advertising, through algorithms and targeted content, keeps consumers in a perpetual loop of desire and reward. In effect, advertising transforms Esau’s “red stew” into a global industry—selling satisfaction now, and leaving fulfilment for later.

Nonetheless, I always smile when I read the story of the African-American mother in New York, who was wheeling the shopping trolley around the supermarket, repeatedly telling her toddler daughter: “No, you can’t have that! No we are not buying that! I told you before – it’s not kosher!” When asked by one of the other shoppers if she was Jewish, the woman replied, “No, not at all – but when I hear Jewish mothers saying it and seeing how their children just accept this and never seem to argue – I thought I would try it myself!”

The contrast with past generations is striking. In the pre-digital age, processes demanded endurance—writing letters, growing food, studying for years to master a trade or a text. Jewish tradition, rooted in the rhythm of Shabbat and the cycle of Torah study, teaches that sanctity arises from restraint. The weekly cessation of labour trains us to pause, to remember that fulfilment lies not in endless production but in thoughtful presence.

The Mishna (Avot 4:1) asks, “Who is rich? One who is happy with his portion,” just as it asks “Who is strong? One who is able to control his desires.” This stands as a countercultural rebuke to the Esau impulse of immediate and endless wanting.
Rabbi Jonathan Sacks z”l once observed that “the consumer culture is a civilization of the now,” while Judaism is a “civilization of the journey.” The covenant demands long-term commitment, deferred reward, and faith in unseen outcomes. Jacob, in this sense, is the prototype of the covenantal personality – willing to invest in the future, to sit and study for many years, to labour seven years for a wife, and to trust in promises that unfold slowly.

Today’s challenge, then, is to recover Jacob’s patience in Esau’s world: to choose study over scrolling, conversation over consumption, purpose over pleasure. The story of the red stew warns us that instant gratification costs more than we realize – it trades away inheritance for immediacy, blessing for a bowl of lentils. In a culture obsessed with the now, the Torah calls us to sanctify the later—to rediscover the holiness of waiting, and the wisdom of valuing what endures.

In one study on overindulgence for example, it was found that childhood overindulgence leads to the inability to delay gratification, ungratefulness, an increase in materialistic values, and overall unhappiness in adulthood. Conversely, if individuals are not overindulged as children, they are more likely to delay gratification, feel grateful, have fewer materialistic urges, and be happy. If the results of this study are accurate, then unquestionably, as our grandparents would have known instinctively – “Patience is a virtue.”

Shabbat Shalom
Rabbi David Freedman