CHAZAQ's Torah Talks #26 Dr. Shmuel Shields - Living the Best Life

welcome welcome to yet another Tuesday's timely tour talks tonight we have with us a very dear friend of ours Dr shmuela Shields welcome how you doing terrific glad to be here oh it's great to have you on the program Dr Shields is a very good friend of kazak he's been by our programs and chairman lectures for many many years Richard Martin Gardner Halls we've had this series and it's really really inspiring and we're really excited to have the doctor on the program tonight on the topic of living the best life there's Dr Hashem with God's help we're going to have this edition of the best life and before we delve into tonight's topic Dr Shields can you just tell our audience a little bit about yourself yeah sure I'm actually a native of Kew Garden Hills spent most of my life here and some ways away Along The Journey Hashem put a mark shovel in my head to go into this field and all I could say is I want to express my accuracy Tov because being in the field working as a nutritionist has given me an opportunity to help people and there's really nothing more rewarding than that and over the years I've worked with hundreds probably even thousands of people counseling as a nutritionist and I've also done a lot of Outreach in the community in terms of working with a great program like hazak and also teaching at some of the local colleges over the years and the continuing Edge programs and also doing work at the New York City senior centers doing nutrition seminars and programs for them so I'm happy to be here today and I'm happy to continue doing the thing that I love best I'm also the author of a book called the hayam 18 chapters to live by which is basically a Torah based book that gives hashkafa an information on how to live a healthy life amazing okay amazing Dr Shields is an accomplished doctor as you just heard the author of the kind which I got a copy of the book doctor thank you very much for that okay and uh I remember one time I was going through it the fact that it's health and Torah combined is a very very unique and very special thing and like was mentioned tonight's topping living the best life we know that if you want to get the best out of a product you have an instruction manual and if you want to have the best life we have to follow the instruction manual called the Torah as we know the word Torah is from the word which is guidance which is instructions which is uh which is lessons and uh and uh can you please explain Dr the Taurus instructions in the area of Health okay great question and I think in the introduction Yaniv already gave us the answer we have a Mitzvah in the Torah called the marsh terminology that we should God it is actually translated that we should guard our souls carefully very carefully but the Torah tamima learns that this verse also teaches the importance of guarding our health similarly observes that there's a synthesis between body and soul and he notes that the body together with the soul have been sent on a specific mission to this world and it is therefore of the utmost importance to care for our body so we know we have to uh how do we nourish the soul the soul is nourished through learning Torah and doing Mitzvahs if Casper Shalom somebody eats trafe something that's not Kosher it harms the nashama it dulls the spiritual connection to Hashem and by the body if we don't feed the body what's going to happen the soul will leave so we want to keep Body and Soul together in a healthy way we know that good foods promote health and bad foods promote disease um so basically what we're trying to accomplish here with the Torah the instructions of the Torah here is that we have to do his shadowless we have an obligation we have a Mitzvah to try to take care of our health to read in a reasonable way to make an effort to take care of our health it doesn't mean we have to go overboard or be extreme but we have to try to do things that promote Health unfortunately what happens is uh we tend to lose our appreciation for things even our health we can lose our appreciation for us so we somehow have to find ways to appreciate our health and by valuing our health I think will come to follow the torah's instructions and take better care of it okay amazing Dr Shields everyone is searching for the secrets and how to live a healthy lifestyle can you please maybe Enlighten Us in some judaism's wisdom on this subject okay great question uh so I think in order to do that I'd like to maybe start with a rambam first of all I want to just backtrack a little bit and I want to just tell you that the gemara has many sources of hazal suggesting ways to achieve Health and Longevity and many of the postcam who codified Jewish law the rambam rabbi gansfried the author of the kids all had chapters on health care and how to promote health so this isn't the New Concept or a new idea in Judaism this is a very basic fundamental concept and if we go back in history a little bit and we see what Hashem has done for us first of all he gave us a land and listen to what's in the land a land of wheat barley grapes figs pomegranate a land of oil olives date honey so if we think about it look at the foods that are in the land Whole Foods Whole Foods so I would say one of the best ways to start beginning to promote Health the Tara was telling us right there consume a whole food diet try to stay away from the processed foods we don't see here the turtle doesn't say it's a land of french fries and coke and you know cake and cookies and pastries and danishes it's a land of whole beautiful foods that Hashem gave us that are bursting with with good nutrition so I I think the first step is really to try to move ourselves into eating more of a whole food meal plan and we see throughout the Jewish history the the foods that we've eaten traditionally over the years before the foods became processed they've always been basically Whole Foods so One important principle I think probably the most important principle that I want to give you from the rambam He suggests the following he says that overeating and bad foods are the cause of most illnesses and it's been shown today interesting there's been a there's been some recent studies today that show they took animals and one group of animals were overfed and kept sedentary and the other group of animals were underfed not starved but underfed and exercised and at the end of the day the group that was underfed and exercised lived almost twice as long as the group that was overfed and kept sedentary so we could see the MS to the rambam in coming forth through Modern Day science so it's it's a very important guideline as a matter of fact the the rom-bomb was so um determined to express the the problems with overeating that he said it's probably better to eat a little bit of a bad food than too much of a good food so even a good food over eaten could be maybe more harmful than a small amount of a bad food so so that's a very important lesson other things that we learned from the rambam and again all the rambam's wisdom and everything is from from Torah so he also gives us a couple of other guidelines I'd like to share with you so he says accustom yourself to eating healthy foods avoid foods that can harm your body okay this is all in hilcus deos eat only when hungry drink when thirsty get enough sleep he talks about getting like eight hours of sleep and then he says over here don't eat fine meal in other words flour where all the bran has been sifted out of it in other words today we consider that white flower once you take all the bran and the good parts out of the flour you're left with a white flower so he says avoid these kind of processed foods he talks about not overeating and he talks about exercising regularly and even in the gemara there are there are stories of hazal you know pushing heavy objects to try to you know get some physical activity and exercise in so these things are all part of Torah and these are some of the some of the guidelines on how I think the Torah is representing us to improve our health and so on okay amazing wow very very very interesting Concepts uh Dr Shields there's a condom called onig Shabbat which is basically to enjoy the best foods and have the best drinks and the the they always say that on on Shabbat you don't gain weight so you can eat as much as you want I don't know how accurate this is but uh how do we balance owning Shabbat while still having your mind and towards obligation to guard your house so what's the balance what's your opinion okay great make all this work so I'm going to uh I'm gonna quote Rabbi heimloff I heard uh I listened to a video or actually a tape of his number of years ago and he gave something very insightful so first of all even on Shabbat we have to have some element of self-control and restraint and here's an example that Rabbi heimov get gave he says you come home from shul and it's not a rush to the table and start eating first there's shalom alecum foreign the children are benched we give a bracket to the children and then we first make Kiddush and then finally mozi hamotsi so we could see there's a delay and one of the messages that I think we get from from the Torah from Judaism is that we have to sort of train ourselves to delay our gratification a little bit and then on the other on the flip side is we don't want to deprive ourselves on Shabbos we want to have things that we like things that we enjoy and we should we should I mean we're not going to sit down and you know eat a peanut butter and jelly sandwich on Shabbos but we want to have what I would suggest is build in some foods if you like you know plan meals and things that you like but just don't go overboard and let's say for example I'll give you a la mesa practical example we have three meals on Shabbos on Shabbos there's no need to really have a rich dessert after each meal but on the other hand you may not want to deprive yourself of dessert so maybe pick one special dessert that you're gonna have after one meal and this way you have something to look forward to you know you're going to get that dessert in and the other couple of meals you'll go without the dessert but you still have the Onyx Shabbos by uh by doing it that way so that would be maybe a suggestion okay very good doctor so the road to living the best life is through living uh healthy you know eating healthy but that might be a long journey that one might not want to embark on you know how do we gain the streams to go down this Voyage towards living the best life it's difficult it's hard you know to have putting all the junk food away and all the sodas and all the all the the candies and all the cookies and cakes what do you suggest okay great great question great question a big challenge for us in today's world with all the processed food and all the junk that's around and all the sugar that's around today and and all the addictive qualities to these Foods it's unbelievable you know you know unfortunately once a a young child child gets the Tom he gets the taste of french fries and the Coke and the uh you know and the hot dogs it's very hard to get these kids to eat fruit and vegetables you know and to eat better food so so it's it's like sometimes I think it's like an uphill battle but uh we have to do the best we can speaking of an uphill battle if we think about the Torah the Torah was given on harcinai it wasn't given in a valley it was given on a mountain and I heard somebody say this over I'm trying to remember the name it will come to me uh but basically how do we climb a mountain we don't run up a mountain and when we're climb in the ladder we don't run up a ladder it's one step at a time so whether we're going up a mountain it's one step at a time up a ladder one step at a time so in that long challenging journey to to Better Health it's one step at a time the slow way is the fast way so I would suggest that um you make little improvements each week you know you pick maybe one area you want to Target maybe you know I don't eat any vegetables maybe I'll try to get some vegetable on the plate at one meal this week you know that would be the goal and then you build on your successes I think that would be a sensible approach and and whatever you could do to educate yourself on the value of being healthy and feeling healthy and someone will will also help you in that in that Journey amazing appreciating that I like to add that the doctor said taking you one step at a time you know when you read a book you read one chapter at a time and we have the book over here the time 18 chapters to live by so it's one chapter at a time slowly but surely you know add some fruit to add some vegetables I want to take that upon myself to add a little bit more Health into my diet and very very very very amazing insights by Dr Shields we really really appreciate everything but before we let you go doctor would like to ask you one last final message if you believe for our audience I brought our audience all over the world about living the best life about eating healthy about health and about the the whole topic we spoke about okay great so I'm going to finish off by saying this really living the best life what does it really mean to to to the Jewish people to the Jewish people living the best life means developing a connection with Hashem in a relationship with Hashem in Olam we want to build that relationship in this world and in order to be able to do that we have the Mitzvahs we have and and the bridge the Mitzvahs are the bridge that connect us to Hashem and the body is the vehicle that allows the nashama to accomplish its goal in this world and that's the primary reason why we want to safeguard our health because without our health the soul can't express itself and we can't really develop that relationship with Hashem we need our health to do the Mitzvahs the Mitzvahs require you know energy and we have to exert ourselves we have to we have to do do things we're an active people so that's the importance of guiding our health I want to conclude with the following idea that may help us in this area I want to tell a little story about two men who sat next to each other every day in davening for 30 years and they put on to fill in next to each other for 30 years and the olama MS in the next world the two men were there and when they were giving out the rewards for the Mitzvahs for the midst of to fill in one guy got a tremendous haloc a tremendous portion of the next World unbelievable and the other guy got up a portion for putting on to fill in but not as great a very small portion so there was a malach that was going by an Angel and he called him over and said excuse me I got to ask you a question Mala came over he said what's up he said I was putting on to film for 30 years just like my friend and he got a tremendous haloc a tremendous portion look at the reward he got and I got something very small so here's what the malach said Malik said when your friend was putting on to filling he was doing it with joy with ahava with love he was doing it with yira with with fear of Hashem and and when you were putting on to fill in you were wrapping him on but you were thinking about things you got to do at work today the upcoming vacation you didn't have the right cavanas and that's the difference so chevisi Hashem Lane we should always Place Hashem before us so we have an opportunity if we have the right kavanas we can turn mundane activities into mitzvahs when we sleep why are we sleeping so we should have the energy to be able to serve Hashem when we're exercising why are we exercising we want a healthy body to be able to serve Hashem better when we're eating we're selecting foods and we're trying to eat in a way that's going to promote Health again everything is putting Hashem before us so we'll be better able to serve Hashem if we need to relax ourselves it's in order to be able to come back and re invigorate ourselves in learning Torah and so on so what I'm going to suggest is this keep these things in mind let's turn these everyday activities we do into Mitzvahs and that's how I want to conclude today it's a pleasure being here and I hope everybody got a lot out of this amazing thank you very very much Dr Shields for those inspiring words that's all take these messages hard to live a healthy life a happy life a good life the best life better understand what God that we should visit America is amen Batman I like your mind everyone every single Tuesday Tuesdays timely Tara talks amazing guest speakers coming inspiring all of us on various different topics and we want to thank Dr Shields once again Dr Shields can you tell our audience how we can get a copy of the crying 18 chapters yeah I am 18 chapters which has been uh I have a lot of nice haskamas from Rabbi Obama from kamenetsky from ABBA goldwassa it's available through our office you can contact us at 718-544-4036 if you want to email us it's ours and Robert Amazon Michael Shields s-h-i-e-l-d-s-62 gmail.com we'd be happy to autograph a copy for you thank you for listening okay thank you thank you thank you and all of us have a great day