Fudge

I want fudge.

I want to make fudge.

I want to create this beautiful thing called fudge.

All I can think about is getting that delicious chocolaty peanut butter sweet bite in my mouth, and every second that I am away from it, it feels like I am dying.

Okay, snap out of it, I tell myself. It's just a little craving. It will pass.

But in my mind I am already planning to buy the ingredients tomorrow and make the fudge. Even though I know it is a really bad idea. I tell myself, it's cool, I'll just eat one piece and bring the rest to work. They'll love me.

One piece. Ha.

My brain is screaming, stop! Don't do it! Don't go any further. Drop the fudge, and no one will get hurt.

I wish it were that simple. I wish I could turn cravings off as quickly as they start.

On the cover of one of my textbooks stands a tiny little man at a crossroads. There are many arrows in front of him, each pointing in different directions. The subject is ethics, and the arrows must represent the many decisions one can make in life. To be moral, or to be immoral. The choice is up to you.

But it is not a choice, really. We, who got the Torah. We, who were told not to lie, told to be honest and just and good. Do we need a textbook to teach us to be ethical? It is laughable. And yet I sit in a classroom once a week, listening to these people discuss right and wrong like it is really a choice. It is torture.

We always have a choice. We can choose to be honest, or greedy. Ethical, or immoral.

I can choose to have the fudge, or resist temptation and let it go.

What will it be?