The 49 Day Diet

Between the holiday of Passover and the holiday of Shavuot, there are exactly seven weeks. It is a fact we count every year for 49 days. It is exactly seven weeks from the feasting days of eggs, potatoes and meat (a total of at least eight festive meals) to the holiday best known for cheesecake. A foodies delight, a dieters nightmare.

A few weeks before Passover, my youngest child turned two. I can no longer attribute my extra cushioning to him. (He's even thinning out from his yummy baby purge.) On Passover, I therefore tried to be proactive. I challenged my mother that whn we saw each other next, in seven weeks, we would each have shed ten pounds.

Seven weeks in basically two months...no problem. After all, every dieter knows the first ten are usually the easiest.

But the seven weeks from seder to Shavuot are really six weeks between holidays, because the first week is still Passover and we were traveling, and, limited in our food choices, and guests in other people's homes...

And how can anyone diet that first week after Passover? We didn't make our house kosher for Passover, but I also stopped buying food a few weeks before the holiday to use up as much chametz as possible. We were still disorganized and thus "forced" to eat pizza and pasta.

I now face a five week deadline to shed ten pounds. But my eldest child's birthday is in a week, and thus there a celebrations with all different parts of our family, which means cake, cake and more cake.

Reflecting on my great rationalizations skill, I am struck by a real lesson within the mitzvah of counting the omer. Shavuot, the end of the country, is how we mark receiving the Torah from Hashem. The pinnacle of the Jewish exodus from Egypt. But how do I reach my own personal pinnacle.

Just as with my dieting practices, when I look at my spiritual goals, it is easy to find excuses. "I meant to." "I want to." "I'm going to."

But days, and then weeks, and then months, pass quickly. Before I know it, I've been making the same promise of change for years without putting it into effect.

I am certain that I am not alone. The omer reminds us that when we set a time period, the we face a deadline even by which point we must either consider ourselves successful...or not.

This morning, I declared to my family that I was ready to get serious on my diet. There will be no left-over pancakes for me when I return from my Sunday morning French class, where I now sit eating rice cakes and applesauce (on our break). And I almost wrote here one of my secret spiritual goals that has spent years as an empty promises...I almost declared that I would accomplish this too, before Shavuot. But I guess my hesitation proves my point, for already I worry that I will not succeed and therefore rationalize that it is better to avoid sharing it and not embarrassing myself.

And so I bid you "au revoir"... But if you see me between now and Shavuot, please don't offer me any cake, I may find a reason to eat it.