Measuring Cups

You don't need to be a Culinary expert or a Chef de Cuisine to know that in order to cook or bake you need the right equipment.Measuring cups and measuring spoons are an important part of that equipment.
When cooking, baking, roasting, creating - you have to measure the ingredients. Every recipe in every cookbook gives you measurements. Half-a-cup of onions. A teaspoon of salt. A half kilo of chopped carrots. Two hundred fifty milliliters of basmati rice. Three cups of water. Four tablespoons of olive oil. And so on.
If you don't measure the ingredients, the proportions are all wrong. And then the cake won't bake. Or the roast will be too salty. Or the kugel will be too watery. Or the pasta too spicy. (Just half-a-teaspoon of cayenne pepper, please!)
In a spiritual sense, we're constantly cooking. We have different ingredients, of course, because we're not baking bread, cooking soups, broiling steaks, roasting potatoes or steaming vegetables.
What we're cooking, baking, broiling, making is a transformed world, a world of goodness and kindness, of holiness and awareness of G-d. Each of us is "cooking" a different specialty, a different item on the menu, so to speak. That is, each of us is transforming ourselves, our families and friends - those within our sphere of influence.
The ingredients are our thoughts, speech and action. These ingredients combine to make the mitzvot (commandments). So in a sense you could also say we're cooking up mitzvot. The "ingredients" for tzedeka (charity), for example, might be a willing hand, a generous heart, a coin in a pocket, and a "charity box" in the kitchen.
What then are our measuring cups? The hours, the minutes, the seconds of our day. The days and weeks of our years. Or, time itself is our measuring cup, with lines of demarcation imbedded in its clear surface.
How do we measure our time? With what do we fill it? Too many "spices"? The "peels" instead of the "potatoes"? Even the mundane moments can be meaningful. Waiting in traffic? Instead of leftover news or half-baked opinions, put in a CD and listen to an inspirational Jewish song, or an educational lecture. On hold or waiting in a line? Say a chapter of Psalms or read a daily Jewish thought. Jogging? Smile at the other park athletes.
Sometimes we have to use our time in small measures - a minute for an act of kindness, 15 minutes for the afternoon prayer. Ten minutes a day to stay on top of the weekly Torah portion, a half-an-hour to visit a sick friend.
Sometimes we measure our time in larger units - life-cycle events, parenting time, Chanuka, Passover and other holidays, Shabbat.
But whatever we're doing, whether an obvious mitzva, or the things required to build a life of goodness and holiness, we need to measure our time, properly and use it accordingly.
Now, about that soup and souffle.