Are You Really Hungry?

A few weeks ago on Shabbos afternoon my three year old daughter was playing with her toys. My wife interrupted her and reminded her that it was time to eat. In a cute three year old manner she protested, saying "I not hungry". At that moment, out of the corner of her eye she noticed some delicious pastries that had been prepared for Shabbos. With a twinkle in her eye she turned to my wife and proclaimed: "I a little bit hungry".

We live in confusing times. We are experiencing a recession caused by the credit crunch and an economic crisis. Corruption and financial scandals of huge magnitudes seem to be more common. With all the medical progress, child obesity has reached epidemic proportions, with the governor of New York wanting to create a special tax to deal with the issue.

It is not hard to see that one of the many factors underlying all of this is greed. Greed does two things. It causes us to overindulge way beyond our means and do things detrimental to our health and wellbeing. But even more importantly, it causes us to confuse what we want with what we need. To the greedy person, every luxury becomes essential. It is fine to enjoy ourselves, but to become totally dependant on excessive pleasure is damaging.

For a three year old to confuse the two is cute, but as we mature we need to start differentiating between our needs and our wants.