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.
Friday, April 18, 2014
Tuesday, April 1, 2014
Wednesday, January 1, 2014
January 2014 New Health Care Law Leads to a Healthier You
My daughter reminds me that today is the first day the Affordable Care Act and millions of people who have not been able to get health insurance can now go see a doctor. Yay! Can we have a moment to acknowledge this victory before the complainers from all corners come out to rehash their trouble with the law. I have a relative who waited four years and suffers, with now most likely irreparable nerve damage, because she could not get the treatment she needed before this law was enacted.
Millions of others have similar stories that, unfortunately, just do not matter to the those who never have to worry about health insurance coverage. Until they lose their job or get divorced or come down with a catastrophic illness and then the shoe is on the other foot. The "them versus us" thought process is very much alive when thinking about providing health care for all. Even when "us becomes them" we are not a very generous group. I have been reading a book entitled "Less than Human" written by David Livingstone Smith (2012 St Martin's Press) and in this book he looks into the fine details of how the alienation of peoples began. It is a topic broad and deep and Smith discusses the overall history and philosophy of justifying dehumanization. Smith also talks about the concept of genocide during war and sites examples past and present. It is a fascinating book and sad, but for me and this blog, puts into perspective the idea of the "great chain of being". That being the concept philosophical and religious thinkers thought of which link in ranking order essence of beings from the lowliest form of being all the way up to God. It helped me place into a modern way of thinking all the hate I have been hearing surrounding the discussion of this new health care law we celebrate today.
Where do people fit in along this chain and is it possible that some groups (tribes) have decided that they are higher up on the chain than others (perhaps the poor, women, people of color or homosexuals) which justifies to them bad or vicious behavior. I think about this and it reminds me of the story in the Bible of the Tower of Babel. Babel is Hebrew for the English word "confusion". In this story, which takes place between the stories of Noah's Ark and the flood and the Story of Abraham, the people of Babel all speak the same language and all believe that that they are as good as God and want to build a tower for themselves to be as high as God. God sees this and changes the people so they cannot speak the same language and since they cannot speak to one another they disperse through out the world and the tower cannot be built.
I understand that God was protecting his turf but in the confusion of not being able to communicate the people spend their energy competing with each other rather than competing with God. Maybe that was God's purpose but it sure did not help his people learn to accept one another. On the other hand if we accept one another unconditionally, then there may be no need for God and that might have been the plan, as well. This theory does not work for those who do not believe in a higher power. To them I suggest that if we all got along peacefully we would have nothing to complain about. That may not be such a bad thing, either. Whatever your belief system is I hope you stay healthy and enjoy your new freedom of health. And if you can try to be nicer to your neighbor that wouldn't hurt either. Happy New Year 2014!
Millions of others have similar stories that, unfortunately, just do not matter to the those who never have to worry about health insurance coverage. Until they lose their job or get divorced or come down with a catastrophic illness and then the shoe is on the other foot. The "them versus us" thought process is very much alive when thinking about providing health care for all. Even when "us becomes them" we are not a very generous group. I have been reading a book entitled "Less than Human" written by David Livingstone Smith (2012 St Martin's Press) and in this book he looks into the fine details of how the alienation of peoples began. It is a topic broad and deep and Smith discusses the overall history and philosophy of justifying dehumanization. Smith also talks about the concept of genocide during war and sites examples past and present. It is a fascinating book and sad, but for me and this blog, puts into perspective the idea of the "great chain of being". That being the concept philosophical and religious thinkers thought of which link in ranking order essence of beings from the lowliest form of being all the way up to God. It helped me place into a modern way of thinking all the hate I have been hearing surrounding the discussion of this new health care law we celebrate today.
Where do people fit in along this chain and is it possible that some groups (tribes) have decided that they are higher up on the chain than others (perhaps the poor, women, people of color or homosexuals) which justifies to them bad or vicious behavior. I think about this and it reminds me of the story in the Bible of the Tower of Babel. Babel is Hebrew for the English word "confusion". In this story, which takes place between the stories of Noah's Ark and the flood and the Story of Abraham, the people of Babel all speak the same language and all believe that that they are as good as God and want to build a tower for themselves to be as high as God. God sees this and changes the people so they cannot speak the same language and since they cannot speak to one another they disperse through out the world and the tower cannot be built.
I understand that God was protecting his turf but in the confusion of not being able to communicate the people spend their energy competing with each other rather than competing with God. Maybe that was God's purpose but it sure did not help his people learn to accept one another. On the other hand if we accept one another unconditionally, then there may be no need for God and that might have been the plan, as well. This theory does not work for those who do not believe in a higher power. To them I suggest that if we all got along peacefully we would have nothing to complain about. That may not be such a bad thing, either. Whatever your belief system is I hope you stay healthy and enjoy your new freedom of health. And if you can try to be nicer to your neighbor that wouldn't hurt either. Happy New Year 2014!
Friday, November 1, 2013
Stress is the #1 Health Problem- 5000 year old advice still works today!
My husband just came back from a medical lecture where a nationally recognized speaker mentioned that if medical research knew in the 1980's what they know now about the negative effects of stress on the body, stress reduction would have been chosen over smoking cessation as a top priority risk factor for Heart Disease, Stroke and Obesity. You don't say! My father was a 2 pack a day smoker, no thanks to the tobacco companies, who included cigarettes in the supplies handed to soldiers during WWII. So when he had the big heart attack that eventually killed him, my aunt, a nurse, told me she believed it was stress that really killed him and not necessarily the smoking. This was back in 1984. I was a confused and upset twenty-something at the time, had she been right all this time? I never smoked thanks to him. My brothers quit immediately. Talk about stressful situations, burying a parent too soon has got to be at least on the top ten list of stresses in life.
This brings to mind what to do to prevent harm to the body after a high stress event occurs. Meditation and finding quiet time is one way to help calm a person. Think happy thoughts sounds trite, but it may be a clue to begin a positive path that helps slow down the poisonous chemical activity your body begins when stress occurs. Attending religious services is a simple way to bring your mind into a meditative state even if you do not actually pay attention to the service. Making time to take a walk and contemplate nature twice a day for 15 minutes works as well. I recently listened to a National Geographic special where a researcher pointed out that laughing produces endorphin's which may heal and repair brain cells to keep us healthy and alive.
Many years ago I studied the story of the death of the Hebrew Matriarch Sarah, which is read around this time of year, it is called Chaya Sarah and in Hebrew means actually "the life of Sarah". It is quite an important story in the Torah for two reasons 1) because Sarah is Abraham's wife, and 2) Sarah got away with laughing at God. In fact, she is only one of the handful women who are even mentioned in the Bible. Well, in this particular story, Isaac, the child so hard to conceive and who played sidekick to Abraham, Jacob and Rebecca in other major stories, finally has a big decision to make. To bury and remember his beloved mother and let his father off the hook to live with his other wives and family, most famous, Hagar and Ishmael. Isaac has plenty of stress in the sadness of losing his mother, his family breaking apart, and to learn to let go and start anew, which he does. The stress Issac feels is very real even today. Loss of a family member, a job, or your home creates feelings of abandonment and questions your sense of purpose.
In the reading of Chaya Sarah, Issac does the right thing, he allows his father to move on with his life and Isaac gives himself permission to move on as well. Not bad advice for 5000 years. Pay attention to the details and the small stresses that add up big in your life. Take the hint when family says "enough already" it's time to move on.
This brings to mind what to do to prevent harm to the body after a high stress event occurs. Meditation and finding quiet time is one way to help calm a person. Think happy thoughts sounds trite, but it may be a clue to begin a positive path that helps slow down the poisonous chemical activity your body begins when stress occurs. Attending religious services is a simple way to bring your mind into a meditative state even if you do not actually pay attention to the service. Making time to take a walk and contemplate nature twice a day for 15 minutes works as well. I recently listened to a National Geographic special where a researcher pointed out that laughing produces endorphin's which may heal and repair brain cells to keep us healthy and alive.
Many years ago I studied the story of the death of the Hebrew Matriarch Sarah, which is read around this time of year, it is called Chaya Sarah and in Hebrew means actually "the life of Sarah". It is quite an important story in the Torah for two reasons 1) because Sarah is Abraham's wife, and 2) Sarah got away with laughing at God. In fact, she is only one of the handful women who are even mentioned in the Bible. Well, in this particular story, Isaac, the child so hard to conceive and who played sidekick to Abraham, Jacob and Rebecca in other major stories, finally has a big decision to make. To bury and remember his beloved mother and let his father off the hook to live with his other wives and family, most famous, Hagar and Ishmael. Isaac has plenty of stress in the sadness of losing his mother, his family breaking apart, and to learn to let go and start anew, which he does. The stress Issac feels is very real even today. Loss of a family member, a job, or your home creates feelings of abandonment and questions your sense of purpose.
In the reading of Chaya Sarah, Issac does the right thing, he allows his father to move on with his life and Isaac gives himself permission to move on as well. Not bad advice for 5000 years. Pay attention to the details and the small stresses that add up big in your life. Take the hint when family says "enough already" it's time to move on.
Wednesday, September 18, 2013
Saturday, August 24, 2013
Next Time You Travel Take A Jewcation
My children are all geniuses. No really, I know all parents think that their kids are bright but mine are so smart that they wear smarty pants. What I mean really is that they are smart-allacks and by that I mean they make fun of my love for searching for Jewish life in the past when we travel. I know this post seems like one big kvell, and maybe it is, but I have been doing both for years, kvelling about my kids and looking for Jewish life from the past.
We traveled to Paris, France one year for Spring break when the girls were in grade school and there we celebrated Passover. Since they could sing all the verses of the Manesh Tanah, or the 4 Questions traditionally asked by the youngest at the table, my girls volunteered to chant them in Hebrew in front of hundreds of families from various countries who were traveling that year, along with the Jewish community of Paris. I don't know if they remember this but I know I will never forget it. We traveled again last year and had Passover in Dublin, Ireland. Since they were now young twenty somethings, my daughter did the 4 Questions in sign language, after a game our host played called "How many different languages can we chant the 4 Question in" and then proceeded to go around the room and sing them in about twenty different languages. These are life experiences that make you a Jew of the world not just of your home community.
I like to hunt for Jews of the past. Jews who lived in communities in neighborhoods that do not really exist anymore. My smart-alleck, sign language speaking daughter calls it a Jewcation. For example, we recently came back from a family vacation on a cruise in the Mediterranean, which was lovely. I feel bad that I did not do my research better before I left town. At every port we searched for the local synagogue and sadly most local tourist information personnel are young and not aware that Jews had a vibrant past in their country. Internet, in the form of free WiFi is still intermittent in Europe, except of course, at the local McDonald's, or if you buy something at a cafe thus doing research on the run is difficult.
So we look around for clues to Jewish life in the past in words or building structures such as old churches that did not have a lot of Christian ornamentation on them or back alleys that seemed deserted but you got the aura that seemed comfortable to a Jew. In Sicily we found an odd looking statue that had angels wings and Hebrew letters in a glass case (along with a bullet hole and graffiti in Italian), that looked totally out of place and decided it must be a Holocaust memorial or a symbol for the Archangel Michael. I am doing research to figure out what it represents but so far no luck.
When our ship stopped in Palma de Majorca we found a street named El Temple which was in fact home to a Jewish Ghetto during the times when the Arabians first invaded the island and the entire Iberian Peninsula in 711. Jews lived pretty well under the Muslims and flourished in trades such as gold and silversmiths. By the late Middle Ages, though, the takeover of Spain and Southern Italy by Christian King Ferdinand II of Aragon and his marriage to Isabella I of Castile completely expelled, converted or killed the Moors of Granada along with the Jews prior to 1492 and completely by 1493.
These are just a few of the adventures of our Jewcation and as we go through the photos we will find many more clues to Jewish life in the past. There are nowadays more Jewish tours through old towns throughout Europe east and west. As modern ideas find their way into ancient towns the restrictive mores are going away and a rebirth of the Jewish life that was once there is beginning to show. It is just there to find and as long as my brilliant kids are willing to travel with me we will continue to discover our Jewish past as a family. For after all it isn't just the kvelling that my girls want to travel with me that is important, the real blessing is that we are together.
We traveled to Paris, France one year for Spring break when the girls were in grade school and there we celebrated Passover. Since they could sing all the verses of the Manesh Tanah, or the 4 Questions traditionally asked by the youngest at the table, my girls volunteered to chant them in Hebrew in front of hundreds of families from various countries who were traveling that year, along with the Jewish community of Paris. I don't know if they remember this but I know I will never forget it. We traveled again last year and had Passover in Dublin, Ireland. Since they were now young twenty somethings, my daughter did the 4 Questions in sign language, after a game our host played called "How many different languages can we chant the 4 Question in" and then proceeded to go around the room and sing them in about twenty different languages. These are life experiences that make you a Jew of the world not just of your home community.
I like to hunt for Jews of the past. Jews who lived in communities in neighborhoods that do not really exist anymore. My smart-alleck, sign language speaking daughter calls it a Jewcation. For example, we recently came back from a family vacation on a cruise in the Mediterranean, which was lovely. I feel bad that I did not do my research better before I left town. At every port we searched for the local synagogue and sadly most local tourist information personnel are young and not aware that Jews had a vibrant past in their country. Internet, in the form of free WiFi is still intermittent in Europe, except of course, at the local McDonald's, or if you buy something at a cafe thus doing research on the run is difficult.
So we look around for clues to Jewish life in the past in words or building structures such as old churches that did not have a lot of Christian ornamentation on them or back alleys that seemed deserted but you got the aura that seemed comfortable to a Jew. In Sicily we found an odd looking statue that had angels wings and Hebrew letters in a glass case (along with a bullet hole and graffiti in Italian), that looked totally out of place and decided it must be a Holocaust memorial or a symbol for the Archangel Michael. I am doing research to figure out what it represents but so far no luck.
When our ship stopped in Palma de Majorca we found a street named El Temple which was in fact home to a Jewish Ghetto during the times when the Arabians first invaded the island and the entire Iberian Peninsula in 711. Jews lived pretty well under the Muslims and flourished in trades such as gold and silversmiths. By the late Middle Ages, though, the takeover of Spain and Southern Italy by Christian King Ferdinand II of Aragon and his marriage to Isabella I of Castile completely expelled, converted or killed the Moors of Granada along with the Jews prior to 1492 and completely by 1493.
These are just a few of the adventures of our Jewcation and as we go through the photos we will find many more clues to Jewish life in the past. There are nowadays more Jewish tours through old towns throughout Europe east and west. As modern ideas find their way into ancient towns the restrictive mores are going away and a rebirth of the Jewish life that was once there is beginning to show. It is just there to find and as long as my brilliant kids are willing to travel with me we will continue to discover our Jewish past as a family. For after all it isn't just the kvelling that my girls want to travel with me that is important, the real blessing is that we are together.
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