God of Time or Dog Eating Its Own Vomit? (a "The Stoic Jew Podcast" Crossover Post)

I wrote this in lieu of a parashah article because I needed to write it for myself. If I don't write for myself, who will write for me? And if not now, when? (parashah article can be found at the end)

Nov 17, 2023

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Click here for a printer-friendly version of this article. And click here for a printer-friendly version of last year’s article on the parashah linked at the end of this post.

Artwork: Adobe Firefly 2.0’s response to the prompt, “dog eating a puddle of gruel next to a broken clock“ (it didn’t allow me to generate an image of a dog eating vomit; I guess the AI was repulsed by the very notion of Mishleic foolishness)

God of Time or Dog Eating Its Own Vomit?

Perhaps the most disgusting imagery in all of Sefer Mishlei (The Book of Proverbs) is Chapter 26: Verse 11: “כְּכֶלֶב שָׁב עַל קֵאוֹ כְּסִיל שׁוֹנֶה בְאִוַּלְתּוֹ“ “Like a dog that returns [to eat] its own vomit, so is a [Mishleic] fool who repeats his folly.” Ralbag (R’ Levi ben Gershon, 1288-1344 C.E., ibid.) provides a straightforward explanation:

Just as a dog returns to eat the food he vomited up without sensing that [the food] is what harmed him [in the first place], so is the characteristic of the ksil (Mishleic fool) who repeats his folly [even] after it is clear to him that [his folly is what] harmed him.

The ksil is even worse than the dog: whereas the dog is just an animal that operates by instinct and doesn’t know any better, the ksil has a mind and is capable of understanding his folly, but nevertheless repeats his mistake.

Why does the ksil fall into this trap? There are a number of possible reasons, based on the profile of the ksil as presented in Mishlei:

the ksil is addicted to the pursuit of immediate pleasure, and that addiction compels him to repeat his foolish mistakes because he simply can’t help himself
the ksil has an egocentric orientation towards reality and is primed to assume that things will go his way even when he engages in bad decision-making and experiences the consequences of that bad decision-making
the ksil’s egocentricity blinds him to his faults and mistakes, so even if something bad happens him (e.g. he vomits), he won’t realize that he was the cause

But I didn’t decide to write about this because I wanted to expound on this proverb. I was compelled to write this out of my realization that I am this dog.

I’m not a full-blown ksil, but as is the case with all Mishleic archetypes, I periodically fall into the same patterns of decision making that characterize the ksil, and suffer the same consequences. And that’s what happened this week.

Let’s take a few steps back. I recently had a time-management epiphany which I recorded in an episode of The Stoic Jew Podcast entitled Matt Schneeweiss: the God of Time. Two weeks ago, the last week of October, I made my monthly trip to Connecticut to teach and spend time with my high school students in person. I drove up on Sunday, taught on Monday and Tuesday, then returned to Far Rockaway on Tuesday evening. On Wednesday morning, I found myself stressed out by the self-imposed pressure to keep up my teaching and writing schedule.

That’s when I had the epiphany: it is absolutely insane to take 14-15 hours out of my regular schedule in the first half of the week — traveling to and from CT and taking care of all my responsibilities there — and still expect myself to maintain the same Torah content schedule for the second half of the week! In my podcast episode I reflected on how this unrealistic expectation stemmed from an unconscious god-fantasy: an underlying belief that I, like God, exist outside of time, and am unbound by temporal limitations.

To my credit, I made a practical change as a result of this epiphany: I announced that during the weeks in which I travel to CT, I would cancel my Friday morning women’s class. This would allow me a little bit of breathing space by eliminating 4-5 hours of preparation and teaching time from my schedule.

That was two weeks ago. Last week, the first week of November, was fantastic! Because I remained in Far Rockaway for the entire week, I was able to keep all my habits and routines (my morning reading time, my daily exercise, my 20 minutes of daily meditation) and nearly all of my teaching, writing, and podcasting went as planned. Yay for progress!

But this week, the second week of November, I had to go back to Connecticut for parent teacher conferences. Once again, I took 14-15 hours out of my week and once again, I found myself stressed out on Wednesday because I felt like I needed to be as productive as I would be on a regular non-commute week. Even though I followed through by canceling my Friday morning class, I somehow convinced myself that I needed write TWO articles AND make another episode of The Stoic Jew Podcast AND keep up with all my other classes and tutoring.

I was sitting there on Wednesday afternoon stewing in guilt and anxiety at my lack of productivity when I realized that I had just eaten my own vomit. I made the same decision (driving to CT and attempting to keep up my schedule) and suffered the same result (allowing myself to get stressed out by my attempt to do the impossible).

Upon realizing this, I cried out with a great and bitter (internal) cry: “HOW DID I NOT LEARN FROM THE MISTAKE I MADE JUST TWO WEEKS AGO?!” 😩

Much to my delight, this question (read: self-castigation) led me to an insight into the dog-vomit proverb. There is another reason why a ksil (or a person-under-the-influence-of-his-inner-ksil) might repeat his mistake so soon after identifying it: because he believes that he can instantly change his personality simply by recognizing his error. I suspect that certain types of people are more prone to this fallacy than others: Type A personalities, perfectionists, “cerebral” types, those who are drawn to cognitive behavioral psychology, those who are impatient, those who are overly hard on themselves for their perceived failures, and probably some of the other categories I fit into.

I haven’t actually counted, but I’m willing to bet that the passage I quote the most often in my 310 episodes of The Stoic Jew Podcast is the opening paragraph of Epictetus’s Enchiridion (a.k.a. The Handbook):

On the one hand, there are things that are in our power, whereas other things are not in our power. In our power are opinion, impulse, desire, aversion and, in a word, whatever is our own doing. Things not in our power include our body, our possessions, our reputations, our status, and, in a word, whatever is not our own doing. Now, things that are in our power are by nature free, unhindered, unimpeded; but things not in our power are weak, slavish, hindered, and belong to others. Remember, therefore, that whenever you suppose those things that are by nature slavish to be free, or those things that belong to others to be your own, you will be hindered, miserable and distressed, and you will find fault with both God and men. If, however, you suppose to be yours only what is yours, and what belongs to another to belong to another (as indeed it does), no one will ever compel you, no one will hinder you; you will find fault with no one, reproach no one, nor act against your own will, you will have no enemies and no one will harm you, for no harm can touch you.

Strictly speaking, Epictetus is correct: opinion, impulse, desire, and aversion are within our power. Practically speaking, however, it’s not so simple. Habits of body, habits of feeling, and habits of mind are ultimately within our power, but they aren’t necessarily in our power on demand. It takes time to rewire our habits and train our inner ksil-dog to stop eating its own vomit.

Stated differently, Marcus Aurelius was right when he said: “Your life is what your thoughts make it.” However, this doesn’t mean you can instantaneously change your life by changing your thoughts. Rather, to quote the words of one thinker which have been misattributed to an American transcendentalist:

“As a single footstep will not make a path on the earth, so a single thought will not make a pathway in the mind. To make a deep physical path, we walk again and again. To make a deep mental path, we must think over and over the kind of thoughts we wish to dominate our lives.”

Once I realized this, I felt better about my repeated vomit consumption. Just as it was unrealistic for me to think that I can maintain a full week’s load of teaching, writing, and podcasting after losing 14-15 work hours to my monthly job responsibilities, so too, it was unrealistic for me to think I could internalize this very realization after a single epiphany. Sicknesses cannot be cured overnight, and the compulsion to eat one’s own vomit is a sickness.

And so I made the decision to eliminate one more item from this week’s schedule: my Friday article on the weekly parashah. And because I wanted to capture this week’s insight in a concrete form AND because it would be difficult to simply not write anything this week (), I decided to write about this instead. This also had the benefit of counting as a Stoic Jew Podcast episode, which satisfied my productivity part even more.

As always, I wrote this for myself, but I hope others gained from it as well. If you did, please let me know in the comments below! And you’re interested in an article about the parashah, check out the article I wrote last year:

Toldos: Does God Judge Our Prayers Based on Our Parents?

Rabbi Matt Schneeweiss

November 25, 2022

Toldos: Does God Judge Our Prayers Based on Our Parents?

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Have you had similar struggles, either with repeating your mistakes, being frustrated with the speed of personal change, or anything else I mentioned in this article? Please share your insights and tips! Alternatively, if you found this to be beneficial, let me know!

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Toldos: Does God Judge Our Prayers Based on Our Parents?

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