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GOOD MORNING! Many years ago I went to the hospital to visit a Haitian friend of mine who was very ill. Unfortunately, my friend was more or less indigent and his only option for medical care was the public hospital. Thankfully, this hospital never turned people away or refused to provide service to those who lacked the funds to pay them.

The downside, of course, was that the quality of care was on a significantly lower level than typical hospital care. At that time, most of the indigent patients were kept in a very large room lined with rows of hospital beds and there was a much lower ratio of doctors and nurses to patients than one would find in a typical hospital setting. After half an hour, I noticed that the nurses were beginning to pay a lot more attention to my friend and he remarked that they were attending to him more frequently.

I then realized that a rabbi coming to visit a black patient, and showing significant interest in him, had actually helped humanize the situation – somebody cared about this person. I started to ask the nurses questions and I spoke to the doctor who was on the floor at the time. My friend was so appreciative of my care and concern, and the resulting increased medical attention, that tears of gratitude welled in his eyes. I had visited people in the hospital countless times, but this was the first time I felt that I had made a substantive contribution through my visit.

The Torah obligation of visiting the sick, known as bikur cholim, falls under the category gemilut hasadim – doing acts of loving-kindness. Fulfilling this mitzvah involves tending to both the physical and spiritual needs of those who are ill, and doing what one can to assuage their ailments. But there are different types of bikur cholim and in this week’s column I want to explore some of them.

One of the greatest tragedies of the coronavirus wasn’t just the fact that millions died, but what compounded the misery, particularly in the first year of the virus, was that hundreds of thousands of people died alone. Who can forget the images of the brave nurses and medical teams, dressed in full PPE gear holding phones or iPads for families to tearfully say good-bye to their loved ones? It was heart wrenching.

On a lighter note, I’m of course reminded of a joke. A man feels very ill upon returning to the U.S. from a trip abroad. He goes to see his doctor and is immediately rushed to the hospital to undergo a barrage of extensive tests. The man wakes up after the tests in a private room at the hospital, and the phone by his bed rings. “This is your doctor. We’ve got the results back from your tests, and we’ve found you have an exceptionally dangerous virus that is extremely contagious!” “Oh my gosh,” cries the man in a panic, “What are you going to do?!”

“Well, we’re going to put you on a diet of pizzas, pancakes, and quesadillas.” “Will that cure me?” asked the man hopefully. The doctor replied, “No…but it’s the only food we can get under the door.”

This week’s Torah portion is named Korach after Moses’ cousin who, according to our sages, was annoyed at being passed over for the position of high priest. Korach’s contention was that Moses had appointed his brother Aaron as high priest on his own, and that he hadn’t been told by God to do so. Korach actually succeeded in convincing a few hundred people that Aaron should not be the only one to serve as the high priest and instigated a mutinous insurrection.

Needless to say, Moses was greatly distressed by this claim of inappropriate bias and the subsequent mutiny. He devised a test as only the worthy could bring an incense offering. Moses demanded a public sign from the Almighty to prove that he was in the right and that Korach and his men were wrong. Long story short: good guys won, bad guys lost (i.e. Korach and his mutinous cronies die a gruesome death and Aaron retained the title). This is part of Moses’ pleading to the Almighty:

“If these die like the death of all men, and the destiny of all men is visited upon them, then it is not God that has sent me” (Numbers 16:30).

Moses meant that if the mutinous group that challenged his authority should die a natural death (i.e. die on their deathbeds in a natural manner) then they are right and he is wrong; but, if they should die in an unusual manner (e.g. the earth swallows them up – which it did) then he is right and they are wrong.

A little-known fact about this week’s Torah reading is that the Talmud (Nedarim 39b) uses the above statement by Moses (“and the destiny of all men is visited upon them”) as a source for the obligation of bikur cholim – visiting the ill.

In other words, Moses was adding to the test of their “natural death” whether or not people would come to visit them while they lay on their deathbeds. This teaching, extrapolated from the text, is difficult to understand; what possible reason could Moses have to add this concept of bikur cholim as a critical component of what constitutes a natural death? What does visiting the sick have to do with this conflict?

We also find a different passage in the Talmud (Sotah 14a), one that is far more well-known, that derives the obligation of bikur cholim from the fact that God visited Abraham on the third day after his circumcision. The Talmud explains that we are obligated to follow in the path that God has laid out for us; just as He visited the sick so must we. Why do we need to add yet another source for bikur cholim?

There are two types of visits to the sick, each with its own distinct purpose and responsibility. The first type is similar to when God went to visit with Abraham and was there to help support him while he was in pain recovering from his circumcision. One element of visiting the ill is to help the person recover, whether it is in easing the burden of their suffering or helping with their care, as in my experience many years ago. This was the type of bikur cholim that the Almighty engaged in when visiting Abraham and that we are obligated to emulate: Helping to relieve an ill person’s pain and easing their recovery.

However, there is another kind of affliction, the kind that one does not recover from. A patient who is terminally ill requires a totally different type of bikur cholim. Their suffering transcends physical pain; they also suffer the pain of nonexistence. One who is terminally ill is painfully aware that he is not going to recover and will shortly leave this world. Most people spend their entire lives actively ignoring the fact that at some point they will no longer be on this earth. A person that is terminally ill begins to confront this reality in a very real way.

The only way to ease this kind of pain is to give meaning to their life. A person who is dying needs to know that their life made a difference. That is, they need to know that their existence made an impact and that there is something of them remaining even after they’re gone. The responsibility of this bikur cholim is to convey to the ailing that your own life has been changed by their existence. The way to do this is to give them a feeling of how much you feel connected to them and appreciate them, and let them know that, even though they will soon pass from this world, their existence mattered in a very real way.

This second type of bikur cholim is what Moses is referring to in this week’s Torah portion. Korach intended to create a division within the Jewish people. In fact, this division, or machlokes, becomes the quintessential example of “a dispute that is not for the sake of heaven” (Avos 5:20).

This is precisely why Moses added the criteria to the test of those collaborating with Korach to not be visited on their deathbeds. If people would go and visit with them and express how connected they felt to them before they passed, then Moses’ position that Korach was creating a terrible rift within the nation was obviously wrong.

Thus, God showed that Moses was in the right; He didn’t allow them to die peacefully at home surrounded by their friends and sympathizers. Rather they died a gruesome death – one that prevented them from being visited or comforted. This indicated that their true purpose was to create division and they were rightfully punished.

Korach, Numbers 16:1 – 18:32

There are two rebellions this week. First, Korach, a Levite, is passed over for the leadership of his tribe and challenges Moses over the position of high priest. No good rebellion can be “sold” as a means for personal gain, so Korach convinces 250 men of renown that they must stand up for a matter of principle – that each and every one of them has the right to the office of high priest (which Moses had announced that God had already designated his brother, Aaron, to serve).

Fascinatingly, all 250 followers of Korach accept Moses’ challenge to bring an offering of incense to see who God will choose to fill the one position. This meant that every man figured he would be the one out of 250 to not only be chosen, but to survive the ordeal. Moses announces that if the earth splits and swallows up the rebels it is a sign that he (Moses) is acting on God’s authority. And thus it happened!

The next day, the entire Israelite community rises in a second rebellion and complains to Moses, “You have killed God’s people!” The Almighty brings a plague that kills 14,700 people and only stops when Aaron offers an incense offering.

To settle the question once and for all, Moses has the head of each tribe bring a staff with his name on it. The next morning only Aaron’s staff had blossomed and brought forth almonds. The people were shown this sign. Aaron’s staff was placed in front of the curtain of the ark as testimony for all time.

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What do you do if you’re in a long-term relationship and don’t know if this is your person? Do you break up, get married, or just to keep dating and wait to see where things go? How do you decide what to do when there is no easy answer?

If you’re in doubt, keep dating. When in doubt, go out. Don’t worry that you may be leading your date on; if you’re on an honest journey towards clarity, you’re doing what’s best for the relationship. Give you and your dating partner the time you need to gain clarity, each your own pace. This way you won’t be missing out on what could be a wonderful and long-lasting relationship.

But what if you’ve already continued dating for extra-long time and still don’t know? We need to explore decision-making from the perspective of your mind, body, and soul.

Your Mind

Sometimes the best way to make sense of your thinking is to talk your thoughts and feelings out with a trusted friend, mentor, family member, professional or a therapist. Talking it out helps you gain clarity and objectivity. Keep your confidants to a minimum; you don’t want to be overwhelmed by too many different opinions.

Make sure your mentor doesn’t try to tell you what to do or control your decisions. Your mentor should be helping you figure out your own thoughts and feelings. A good mentor will listen the majority of the time, and ask some good questions a minority of the time. They’ll help you make sense of what you are experiencing.

For your own personal use, make an honest list or pro-con chart, what you like and what you don’t prefer to have in a partner. Write everything you like and don’t like, even if you think some of your preferences or dislikes might be judged. You are not too picky. You must validate what you think is important in a partner. Validation will help you figure out how you really feel. Sit with it and accept what you are looking for without shame.

Your Body

When evaluating your relationship, don’t be afraid to authentically feel your feelings and get in touch with your body. Feelings can trigger you into feeling physical phenomena that can give you extra insight into your feelings about your partner.

What are the physical signs and body language you demonstrate when you are talking with your partner, thinking about them, and physically spending time with them? Ask yourself where the feelings are coming from? If they are negative, are the feelings coming from something they are doing or maybe anxiety or something in your past that you are harboring in your subconscious? Try writing down your feelings in a log that you’ll keep throughout your dating journey. That is a great tool to help you keep tabs on what you are feeling emotionally and physically.

Soul

This is the most intuitive challenge in your evaluation process. Get quiet, meditate and listen to your inner voice. Only you know what you want and what you are experiencing. You are the one that you need to make happy – not the rest of the world trying to tell you what to do. Don’t let other people silence your voice. Listen to yourself.

Sometimes you just need more information and can’t make a decision without having certain experiences with your partner. So take your time, and date until you get the information and experiences you need to be sure of your decision.

When it comes time to make a final decision, weigh in what you think and how you feel about this relationship with your mentors, and your mind, body and soul. And remember, when in doubt, keep going out. Clarity will come eventually.

May you get the clarity you need to make the right decision with confidence.

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In May 1944, the Jewish ghetto in the Hungarian town of Sziget was being liquidated with all the surviving Jews being sent to Auschwitz. One of the thousands of terrified Jews forced into an overcrowded cattle car bound for Auschwitz was Dr. Gisella Perl, a distinguished intellectual who’d grown up there. After studying medicine in Germany, Gisella became one of Europe’s early female doctors, specializing in gynecology, delivering babies and offering medical care to women in Sziget and the surrounding areas.

In Auschwitz, all female doctors in the group were ordered to identify themselves. Gisella recognized the Nazi doctor giving the order. She and her husband had once hosted Dr. Victor Kapezius in their home for dinner in 1943, not realizing he was a member of the SS. Kapezius looked at Gisella with a cold smile before telling her, “You are going to be the camp gynecologist. Don’t worry about instruments… you won’t have any.Your medical kit belongs to me now.”

With that, Gisella was separated from her beloved husband Ephraim and entered the rings of Hell.

Hospital in Auschwitz

Along with four other doctors and four nurses, Gisella was charged with creating a hospital in Auschwitz’s Group C, which was designated for female slave laborers.Gisella had only one knife with which to operate; she had to sharpen it on a stone. Their hospital had no medicine and only the occasional paper bandage. The Nazis insist that it be kept meticulously clean. Each day, Gisella and her colleagues would sweep the floor with their hands. Any evidence of dirt or disarray would result in a beating or death.

Though she was trained as a gynecologist, Gisella found herself busy from dawn till night setting the broken bones of prisoners who’d been beaten by guards, operating on deep lacerations made by Nazi whips which had become infected, and treating prisoners who were sick with typhus, pneumonia, and other diseases.

Gisella was assigned to look after a contingent of 32,000 women who were kept alive for slave labor in Auschwitz.

“Those first weeks at Auschwitz were made unbearably miserable by the various skin eruptions caused by the weather, exposure, deficient food, and lack of water for drinking and washing,” Gisella wrote. “The lice plague made these eruptions more serious. We scratched in our sleep even if we were strong enough to refrain from it while awake and the sores became infected until our whole body was covered with deep, crater-like wounds.”

Gisella was assigned to look after a contingent of 32,000 women who were kept alive for slave labor in Auschwitz. Six months later she witnessed the horrific “liquidation” of this group, to make way for a batch of new slave laborers. The months that these women were kept alive were filled with unbearable misery.

Gisella wrote of one Tisha B’Av in Auschwitz, the Jewish day of mourning, when she and the other prisoners were “ordered to sit in the ashes, which, we were repeatedly told, were the last remnants of our parents, husbands, children. They were going to give us a concert.” (Like much else in Auschwitz, this concert was designed to demoralize the prisoners. Mourning on Tisha B’Av includes refraining from listening to live music.)

“From then on until late at night they (the Auschwitz prisoners orchestra) played gaudy songs…while the four crematories turned living flesh into gray ashes. Ten thousand persons were burned in each of the furnaces that day. The unceasingly dancing flames were brighter and hotter than the sun; heavy smoke filled our nostrils, and thick, black soot settled over the motionless multitude while the expressionless faces of the thirty-two thousand defeated women, whose sorrow was far beyond the comfort of tears, registered nothing but blank despair.”

Gisella Perl

Surrounded by death, Gisella frequently saw women and young children being brutally murdered, often thrown alive into the raging crematoria. She was determined to give her fellow prisoners a way to feel human again, even if only for a few moments. She began a ritual that soon spread throughout the barracks of Auschwitz. Each night in the barracks, locked in the pitch dark, she would whisper to the women nearest her, fantasizing about the perfect day. Together they would describe how they “went shopping”, “visited a museum”, or “enjoyed a delicious meal” that day. For a few moments, they remembered what life outside of Auschwitz could be.

Pregnant Women in Auschwitz

As the Jewish communities of Hungary were sent to Auschwitz during the Spring and Summer of 1944, women who were pregnant were ordered to make themselves known to the authorities. They were taken to a different camp where, the Nazis told them, they would receive double bread rations. “Group after group of pregnant women left Camp C,” Gisella wrote. “Even I was naive enough, at that time, to believe the Germans, until one day I happened to have an errand near the crematories and saw with my own eyes what was done to these women… They were beaten with clubs and whips, torn by dogs, dragged around by the hair and kicked in the stomach with heavy German boots. Then, when they had collapsed, they were thrown into the crematory – alive.”

Knowing the brutal fate that awaited pregnant Jews there, she would do all she could to make sure no prisoner was pregnant in Auschwitz.

Gisella could scarcely believe what she’d seen. She ran back to the barracks and urgently told her fellow prisoners the horror she’d witnessed. “Never again was anyone to betray their condition,” she urged them. Gisella made a solemn vow to herself: knowing the brutal fate that awaited pregnant Jews there, she would do all she could to make sure no prisoner was pregnant in Auschwitz.

Abortion in Judaism is mandated when it will save the life of an expectant mother. “It was up to me to save the life of the mothers, if there was no other way, than by destroying the life of their unborn children,” Gisella recalled in her memoir I Was A Doctor in Auschwitz, published in 1948. With no disinfectant or water – and in absolute secret – Gisella performed abortions on pregnant prisoners, allowing them to live for at least a little more.

Risking Her Life to Help Others

Being a doctor allowed Gisella to help prisoners in small ways.When Nazis demanded blood samples from hospital patients to see if they harbored infectious diseases, knowing that patients with typhus and other illnesses would be killed, Gisella and her fellow doctors sent samples of their own blood instead. When the SS came to send the sickest patients to the crematoria, Gisella could sometimes smuggle patients out of the building, sending them back to their barracks.

“Without Dr. Perl’s medical knowledge and willingness to risk her life by helping us, it would be impossible to know what would have happened to me and other female prisoners… She was the doctor of the Jews,” explained one survivor, identified only as “Ms. B”, in testimony at the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany. Many inmates called her “Gisi Doctor,” an endearment that reflected their deep love and admiration.

Gisella was forced to work closely with Dr. Josef Mengele, the notorious Auschwitz physician who performed experiments and vivisections on prisoners.

Gisella was forced to work closely with Dr. Josef Mengele, the notorious Auschwitz physician who performed experiments and vivisections on prisoners. His demands were capricious. In one particularly cruel ploy, Dr. Mengele told Gisella that from now on, Jewish women were allowed to have children in Auschwitz. “The children, of course, had to be taken to the crematory by me, personally,” Gisella later wrote, “but the women would be allowed to live. I was jubilant. Women, who delivered in our so-called hospital, in its clean floor, with the help of a few primitive instruments that had been given me to, had a better chance to come out of this death camp not only alive but in a condition to have other children – later.”

There were 292 pregnant women in Gisella’s hospital some time later when Dr. Mengele returned, brandishing a whip and a gun. He had all the patients loaded onto a single truck and driven to the crematoria, where they were thrown alive into the flames.

Delivering a Baby in Bergen Belsen

After serving seven months in Auschwitz, Gisella was transferred to a Nazi labor camp near Hamburg to serve in the hospital there. At the beginning of March 1945, she was transferred to Bergen Belsen. “Bergen Belsen can never be described,” she wrote, “because every language lacks the suitable words to depict its horrors… There were no crematories to burn the bodies. They were left where they had died until someone who had enough strength left to move dragged them out and threw them on the dung heap. Everybody had typhus, everybody was covered with lice, eaten alive by rats, and there was no food, no water, no medicine. The narrow streets between the blocks were full of skeleton-like men and women who crept around in the dirt, searching for a drop of water, a bite of food, until, utterly exhausted, they sat down beside one of the mountains of corpses to die… I arrived there on March 7, 1945, and the next day I found the bodies of my brother and my twenty-year old sister-in-law among the dead….”

Gisella in happier times

Gisella was put in charge of the “hospital” in Block III, where she tried to comfort the dying.On April 15, 1945, a new patient was brought to the hospital – a young non-Jewish member of the Polish resistance named Marusa. She was pregnant and in labor. As Gisella sat with her, delivering her baby, she heard commotion outside: British troops were liberating Bergen Belsen. After the birth, Marusa began to hemorrhage dangerously. With no medicine, instruments, or even running water, Gisella ran outside and begged the newly arrived British troops for help. Finally, she asked a tall officer if he spoke French. When he said yes, she took him to the hospital. The officer was Brigadier General Glyn Hughes, the first Allied physician to enter Bergen Belsen. Within half an hour he’d supplied key medical items and Gisella was able to save the young mother’s life.

Testifying to Nazi Atrocities

After the Holocaust,Gisella wandered through Germany on foot for 19 days, looking for her family. She learned that her husband and son had been murdered. Her husband Ephraim had been beaten to death by Nazi guards just days before liberation. The whereabouts of her daughter, Gabriella, remained unknown for years. It seems that Gisella entrusted her daughter to the care of a non-Jewish couple during the war, then lost touch with them. When she wrote her memoirs shortly after liberation, Gisella didn’t even mention her daughter: perhaps it was too painful to wonder what had become of her child or perhaps she felt guilty about not having been able to find her.

After the Holocaust, Gisella was resolute: she had to tell the world what occurred. She wrote a heart-rending plea to the US Department of Justice: “I read in the papers of the capture of Dr. Mengele, chief physician at the Oswiecim (Auschwitz) Death Camp. I want to offer my services as material witness against this most perverse mass murderer of the 20th Century… I was a prisoner in Auschwitz, forced to act as medical doctor under his command. In this capacity, I had every opportunity to observe Dr. Mengele at his most bestial. I can testify from personal observation that he was responsible for all the atrocities and that he invented most of the perverse forms in which they were committed.”

Instead of facing justice, Mengele was helped to escape Germany by the Red Cross. He lived openly in Buenos Aires until his death in 1979 in a swimming pool accident.

Gisella lectured tirelessly about her experiences and penned her memoir. She called herself an “Ambassador of the Six Million.” An encounter with Eleanor Roosevelt in 1948 changed the trajectory of Gisella’s life. Mrs. Roosevelt had heard something of Gisella’s story and invited her to lunch. Gisella explained that since she kept kosher she couldn’t possibly go to lunch in a restaurant with the First Lady: Mrs. Roosevelt replied that in that case, she would host a kosher lunch. At the meal, Mrs. Roosevelt urged Gisella to return to her practice of medicine, which she had always loved, and to pursue her career once more.

Each time she attended a delivery, she paused to utter a prayer: “God, you owe me a life, a living baby.”

Gisella took this advice and accepted a job in the labor department of Mount Sinai Hospital in New York where she was the only female physician. Later, she opened her own practice dedicated to helping women overcome infertility. Many of her patients were Holocaust survivors she had known in Europe.“I was the poorest doctor on Park Avenue, but I had the greatest practice: all of Auschwitz and Bergen Belsen (survivors) were my patients,” she told the New York Times in 1982.

In 1978, while Gisella was lecturing about her experiences, she encountered someone in the audience who told her that her daughter Gabriella was alive and well and had built a new life for herself in Israel.

Gisella moved to Israel to be with her. She worked as a volunteer in obstetrics clinics run by Jerusalem’s Shaare Tzedek Hospital. Each time she attended a delivery, she paused to utter a prayer: “God, you owe me a life, a living baby.”

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Have you ever seen anyone meditating while eating a sandwich or a salad?

I didn’t think so.

Eating doesn’t seem like a very spiritual act to most people.

However, it’s supposed to be.

Allow me to explain.

Even though eating is usually something we do while we’re talking with friends or scrolling through our phones, Judaism teaches that the moment of eating is actually a very important moment, not just physically for our bodies, but spiritually as well.

In order to really understand this we need to take a quick look at a teaching from the Kabbalah, the teachings of Jewish mysticism, that gives us a peek into the spiritual “behind-the-scenes” of the moment the world was first created.

The Kabbalah explains that, before there was anything, there was only God’s light and when God wanted to create the world God created ten vessels, called sefirot, to receive that light and to be used in the creation of the world.

But then something cosmically tragic happened.

God’s light was too powerful for these vessels and they broke into countless shards, known in Kabbalah as “holy sparks”, and these holy sparks became embedded throughout the newly created world.

According to the Kabbalah, our essential work in this world is to “elevate the sparks”, through the performance of good deeds and other positive actions, and thereby fix the brokenness that is literally part of the world. This is where the well-known Jewish concept of tikkun olam, fixing the world, comes from.

So how does eating fit into all of this mystical talk?

The Kabbalah teaches that the food we eat is “home” to many of these holy sparks and, consequently, each time we eat we have the opportunity to elevate the sparks and thereby participate in fixing the world.

You heard me right. Fixing the world through eating. (Such a Jewish idea, no?)

This idea is illustrated through one of the very first stories of the entire Torah: Adam and Eve eating from the Tree of Knowledge in the Garden of Eden.

Now, the sin of Adam and Eve is traditionally understood to be that they ate what they weren’t permitted to eat.

But Rabbi Tzadok HaKohen (1823-1900), a prominent leader of the Hasidic movement first developed by the Baal Shem Tov in the 18th century, had a different take on this.

He taught that it wasn’t what Adam and Eve ate that was the problem…it was how they ate.

In fact, he believed, in classic Hasidic fashion, that the Tree of Knowledge wasn’t even a tree or a thing at all. Rather it was a way of eating. Their eating was motivated by self-centered seeking of pleasure instead of recognizing the potential that the act of eating has for being a holy and spiritual moment.

And if this was the sin that caused Adam and Eve to be kicked out of the Garden of Eden then, as the teacher Sarah Yehudit Schneider teaches, “the primary fixing of human civilization is to learn to eat in holiness.”

But what does it even mean to eat in holiness? Bringing back our first teaching, what does it mean to eat in a way that “elevates the sparks”?

Bringing together different Jewish teachings and practices, I think we can say that it means the following:

1. First and foremost, to give thanks for the food we have. To recognize that simply having food is a huge gift. That’s why Judaism has a system of blessings both before and after we eat, built-in reminders of the good we have in our lives and the importance of expressing gratitude for it. Giving thanks for one’s food immediately has the potential to transform one’s eating into something more than just ensuring physical survival.

2. To eat with health and wellness in mind. Yes, we can enjoy the foods that we eat, but in proper measure and not at the expense of our bodies. Without bodily health we cannot fully accomplish what we are capable of doing in this world. As Maimonides, the famous rabbi, philosopher and doctor of 12th century Spain writes, “Bodily health and wellbeing are part of the path to God, for it is impossible to understand or have any knowledge of the Creator when one is sick. Therefore one must avoid anything that may harm the body and one must cultivate healthful habits.” When we choose to eat healthy we are making a statement that our eating is not an end in and of itself, but rather a means to help us to become our best selves and live our greatest lives.

3. To focus on the food in front of us and not be involved with other things while we’re eating– like phones, books, or even conversations. Yes, eating is a very social act and sharing food with others is both meaningful and important, but we can’t forget to give attention to what should be the main focus of any meal: the food itself. It is even written in Jewish law that one should not speak while eating, not only to prevent one from choking, but also to help us create that focused experience of eating.

4. Lastly, for those who want to take the act of eating to a deeper level, they can intentionally turn it into a form of meditation. Here’s how: Ideally sit by yourself in a quiet location free of distractions. Before even beginning to eat, look at the food in front of you and think about all of the different ingredients that went into the making of your food. Try to picture the farms where these ingredients came from. Picture the people who were part of the process of getting the food from the farm to your plate. Then take your first bite. Put your fork or spoon down (very important), close your eyes and chew slowly. Chew as many times as you can. You can mentally count the number of times you chew or even go through the alphabet with each chew. When the food is completely gone from your mouth take another bite and repeat. Do this until you have finished eating. At the end of chewing your last bite, keep your eyes closed and think about what you want to do with the energy that this food has just given you. What good do you want to bring into the world? How can you use this energy from the food to help others and make the world a little better?

Judaism is all about infusing the physical world with spiritual awareness. That’s one of the reasons the Jewish star, the main symbol of Judaism, is made up of two triangles, one pointed up and the other pointed down, one pointed towards the heavens (the spiritual) and one pointed towards the earth (the physical). When we choose to approach the very physical act of eating with spiritual attention we literally have the ability, as we have already seen, to change our lives and even the entire world.

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