Inspired Eating - A Lesson From Shmittah - R Chaim Eisenstein

here in arsenal in the holy land of eretz israel we're celebrating the year of shemitah it's a celebration and it's also an expression of tremendous sacrifice of the farmers here in israel to lay their fields fallow but how is it relevant to the average person the average person in eretz israel and certainly those in the diaspora and huslars in the next couple of minutes let's see if there is a practical very very practical lesson that we could take away from the mitsubishi now there's a very interesting halacha that the gemara tells us in brock lesnar says that when it comes to food a person is not supposed to eat prior to his animals also adam called himself a person has to feed his animals first and this is brought down in short we say it in the second passage of krishna we're supposed to remember says the italian that our eating is not that much better than the animals eating and we are supposed to remind ourselves to have compassion for animals but also on a deeper hasidic level to remember that our eating itself is not that different from an animal and therefore we give the animal first yet at the same time the giteve points out that when it comes to shemitah there the torah has a different order impartial the torah tells us that the eating of during the year of shemitah is first vacay the farmer could eat first and then only afterwards does he have to feed his animals makes a very very powerful argument an individual who has internalized really really internalized what the gift of food is and what the gift of god's plenty is their eating is a elevated eating and then their eating can precede an animal a farmer who truly has let his field lay fallow and has made his entire field ownerless to everyone is an individual who recognizes and when they makes a blessing when he says where he says when he makes those blessings he truly internalizes what the blessing of food is and what its role is encounters the individual who's been focused and entirely consumed with getting more and more and more then is often no better than the lesson of shmita the practical lesson for us is to ask ourselves how do we internalize the blessing of food that we have how do we eat do we eat in a mindful way in a thoughtful way or ultimately is it one in which our eating as the ita flav warns us could be no better than that eating of an animal shemitah allows us and encourages us to raise ourselves up and to take our achilles and to make it more sublime heavenly and more transcendental to the sanctity of the seventh you