Recipe for Success

One of the things that’s been bothering me for years is this seeming division in the Jewish world between ‘body’ and ‘soul’. People who belong to the world of the body eat sprouts, run marathons, and switched over to ‘eco-friendly’ detergent a long time ago.

People who belong to the world of the soul frequently eat really unhealthy food, have never owned a pair of sneakers, and don’t mind if their six year old sneaks a few cigarettes on Purim.

For a very long time, it seemed to me that you couldn’t really be ‘serious’ about your Judaism and also want to play a game of basketball once a week. Or that you couldn’t be a sincere servant of Hashem, and want to go for long walks in nature (although once I found about hitbodedut, personal prayer, that last one got easier to justify.)

But now, I’m more and more coming to the conclusion that one of the yetzer hara’s favorite ploys is divide and conquer.

I mean, on the one side there are people who have lost all sense of proportion and emuna that G-d is running the world that they live in, and who are freaking out that even the glass of water they’re drinking is going to poison them. And on the other, there are people who really believe that unlimited candies for the kids and unlimited cigarettes for the adults is completely according to G-d’s Divine plan for His Chosen People.

Each side has so much they could learn from the other, and together, they could come up with a powerful ‘truth’, that really could change the world.

Our sages teach us that each of us is a world in miniature, so I’ve been having my own version of ‘divide and conquer’ to deal with in my own life, and eating habits, too. Over the last few months I’ve been finding out more and more that my own personal body and my own personal soul need to work together, for me to really serve Hashem the way He wants me to. Along the way, I’ve learnt some very important lessons, which I want to share with you.

Firstly, natural stuff is clearly better (and cheaper). Do the experiment yourself, and you’ll see that natural foods that don’t have MSG, margarine, E-numbers, preservatives and tons of white flour and white sugar really do give your more energy, and much less of a negative physical ‘backlash’ like spots, excess weight and other health issues.

At the same time, I’ve learnt that if I get fanatical about what I eat, to the point that I start beating myself up, or having a rage fit at my children for sneaking that horrible bright blue candy from shul, or start worrying that that the non-organic lettuce I bought is going to kill me – I’ve completely lost the plot.

All that worry, all that negative thinking, all that judgement and anger and self-righteousness is doing far more damage to me, my body and my environment than the original bar of chocolate could ever have done in a million years.

If I do my best to say my blessings over my food, I’m already elevating the good stuff out of it, and the rest is no longer my problem.

Something else I’ve learnt: there is no one size fits all when it comes to healthy eating. All of us are unique individuals, and just as G-d made each of our souls as a one-off never to be repeated creation, the body that houses that soul is similarly unique, and has unique needs.

Take the hard-core macrobiotic food diet I’ve been on, to help me build up more physical energy and strength. For the first three months, it was great. Then, I noticed that whenever I splashed on the Shoyu, or slurped down the Miso soup, I didn’t feel too good afterwards.

Turns out, I’m intolerant to soy products.

Good food is a very individual thing, and it’s far more than just eating the stuff they tell you to eat, and avoiding they stuff they tell you to avoid. G-d is always in the picture, which means that the food equation has a huge, massive variable that can’t always be accounted for.

Why can’t we feel what’s good for us, any more?

One big reason is that we’ve disconnected our bodies from our souls. The soul is telling the body that G-d is in the world, and that a bit of chocolate once in a while is a great thing, especially if you say a heartfelt, joyful blessing over it. The body is telling the soul that if it has to have one more MSG-laden corn shnitzel for supper, it’s going to run out of steam and collapse.

Dear reader, join me in tearing down these false divides between body and soul, and lets start serving Hashem with everything we’ve got. Now, that really sounds like a recipe for success.

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You’re welcome to visit Rivka Levy’s personal website at www.emunaroma.com