As a registered dietitian for thirty years I have had plenty of conversations about what is the proper food to eat to stay alive in a healthy way. I have studied and read scientific papers and heard from notable experts about their opinion on what is exactly the specific things we should and should not be eating. It occurs to me, however, that there is no answer that satisfies everyone. Most likely, there probably never was a good answer. After a personal illness that landed me in the intensive care unit twenty two years ago, I began to look for answers from a spiritual nature. I studied the Bible via the Jewish religion, the Torah, and learned about the Ancient Tribes and what motivated them to pursue their cultural traditions. I am no rabbinical scholar but I see the word of God discussed in Genesis and other chapters in a different light based on my experiences with food, nutrition and the behavior of people.
God distinguishes Adam and Eve from the other animals and plants as mentioned in the early passages of Genesis. I got a chance to explore this in more detail, recently, when a visiting scholar came to our local college and offered a discussion on the origins of Kosher and Halal,, the set of laws determined by God to educate the tribal populations on how to decide what to eat, with respect to the other things being made during Creation. It was pointed out that Adam and Eve were vegetarians in the Garden of Eden. It was only until after the flood was man able to eat other animals and then never the blood. In fact the first food restriction ever is blood. My fellow classmates were professionals of all types including Rabbis and Imams who offered their own interpretations based on their own experiences. I also enjoyed seeing a few friends from the Muslim community with whom I had shared other classes and they offered wonderful interpretations of Halal and how many similarities there are between Halal and Kashrut (Kosher).
This was a really wonderful discussion and an observation I thought of afterward about blood is that medically blood is life. Its purpose in the body is to circulate oxygen, nutrients and proteins and bring back toxins, urine and refuse which keeps the body healthy. If we could just celebrate the good in life it would be easy, but historically and spiritually, there is evil to balance the good. In the case of blood throughout history, particularly evident in the 11th Century during the First Crusade, there were Blood Libels or accusations of a horrible nature that caused much death and destruction to Jews of that time. Throughout history these unproven accusations were added to such that by the 1930's and 1940's a Holocaust, also known as Shoah, claimed the lives of 6 million Jews and other citizens across the European continent. Even today as we remember the twentieth anniversary of Rwanda, the evil side of blood still raises its ugly, uneducated head in places like Eastern Ukraine and parts of Africa.
I heard three pieces of bad news yesterday from unrelated sources. Some affecting friends and others listening to the news. I felt helpless to ease the pain except to try to do good in my own small way locally in my community to balance with good thoughts or action against the negative news. I personally believe in the concept of Mitzvot, doing good deeds, to help sway the world to a better place.
