Ten Minutes of Meaning (Part 82): You are What You Eat - Mesillas Yesharim

good morning Boker Tov thank you so much for being back together with us I want to thank our generous sponsors for the year our dear friends Connie and Lenny grunts teen whom we miss in memory of found his father mr. Tambor Aaron Ben Yitzhak a learning should be Lila knishmas so to elevate his wonderful neshama we are in the 11th chapter miss ELISA Chandra I'm Kara moshe haim Masato has been inspiring us and motivating us and directing us and charging us to be able to live our best lives that everyday we don't at the end of that day live with regret and shame and guilt we don't squander and waste but we look back and reflect on that day and say I set resolutions I made goals I pursued them I was mindful and cautious and conscientious and all that I did I was present and my thought my speech and my actions and I go to sleep each night with a sense of pride and what I accomplished and who I am and what I contributed to the world around me this 11th chapter we've been exploring the quality of what's called Nikias the quality of cleanliness Nikias cleanliness means that I don't simply confront or combat the challenges the qualities the temptations the desires in my way but I've purged them I eliminate them I'm able to in fact live a life of a certain sense of purity that the things that are negative that sabotage my own success our happiness are not even part of my life or lifestyle I've purged them all together I'm not tempted I'm not distracted I don't desire I don't even notice them they're not even Bob Akashvani in my life and we've been going through the areas that they're on pal Dean's or emotional totter says of the universal human struggles so first I began with gazelle with money honesty and integrity our attitude to our interpersonal relationships and to our business dealings to carry ourselves with honesty and with integrity then he moved over to what he called our Aya's promiscuity sexuality in area so many brilliant genius accomplished great men and women nevertheless fall prey and sabotage their own success and their own happiness he talked about that in the form of Nouveau pair of profanity profanity doesn't just mean in the way we dress or even in our actions we can have profanity in our thought and profanity in our speech as well and then we've moved over now to the area of the way that we eat call Ella ham the kiyose pants are dicta girdle it sort of is a PhD I Vasily I miss Alabama column I told him the fats when I kiss the surah at-taubah Sophie Oates a busy cleansing oneself in all these areas requires says that I'm how great meticulousness great firmness discipline in order to deal with the instinctive lust for food and monetary losses incurred as a result of the prohibitions of mixtures in other words in those days you owned the cow and he brought it to the show fee or you checked it yourself in your back yard and if you were to be honest have intellectual honesty admit the sheet to let's say was invalid or no good it could cost you an enormous amount of money in the loss of the profit you counted on from the sale of the animals of that cow or your own enjoyment of a barbecue dinner so there's the there's the relationship we have with food that there could be financial loss just yesterday almost every day I get a Shila about the lid and the spoon and the dishwasher and the milks and the flesh shakes usually begins with my husband or one of my children mixed up or put in the wrong place or cooked with the wrong thing or touch the wrong thing so sometimes the answer is it can't be captured sometimes it has to be thrown out sometimes there's a financial loss but that's our commitment to this process and to its integrity but much bigger and broader than that that I'm Crowley here is touching on something personally I've struggled with my whole life every day is a battle and that is if you're a foodie if you love food if you love food you love the taste and you love the texture and you love the smell and you love the crunch and you love the consume the volume and you find comfort in a relationship with food many people identify with what I'm describing right now and it means that not only do we struggle with a conscious of the food we spoke about this last week meaning I have zero desire to eat meat and milk I don't struggle with eating pork or eating pig the non kosher establishments or offerings they don't tempt me I've kept kosher my whole life I taught two bent or kosher my whole life but eating ingredients that are unhealthy and that are dangerous eating quantities and volume that there's no justification that's something which we struggle with greatly particularly 11:00 12:00 1:00 o'clock in the morning and that bag of potato chips are sitting right there and they've got my name I think I talked about the corn chips recently those trader Joe corn chips kryptonite and mom is like the greatest insight on the greatest to hell of I they should be the greatest test so that I'm Kyle here says that we could live our life and have a lifelong battle and struggle or we can become determined and say that unhealthy unhealthy ingredients unhealthy quantities foods that should be off-limits because they're not kosher they're bad for me objectively they're bad for me subjectively they should be poison I shouldn't be tempted if I look at something which is poisonous no matter how well its flavored no matter how tasty it might be no matter how well it's marketed no matter how much they try to draw me to it if I identify it as poison it will kill me it will harm me will injure me I'm not drawing I'm not tempted to eat it and that's the way it should be to achieve that level of discipline to not only be engaged in a battle but to be able to triumph and defeat it to a certain extent that it doesn't become a lifelong battle for us I should if I said that you're a bass a teraflop on a show hun negatory you put before me a table negatives opposite my adversaries when I sit opposite food I'm in a battle I'm in a fight that's why the word for bread which is the staple of all food lefm comes from the same root as the word milk amma lakum is a milk llama particularly if you're on a carb-free diet they're counting your carbs and you're trying to avoid the gluten left them is a milk humma who doesn't want getting a dozen hot bagels you could eat a two dozen Krispy Kreme Doughnuts coming right off the conveyor belt but it's not good for you even if all the ingredients are kosher but that amount that quantity that volume is not kosher and every time we engage we interact we're tempted withdrawn or hungry we have an appetite for lehem we are in fact waging a war against a Mahama but I make up my kosher laughs my inner elements crystal in a show and a person is lenient when we've been told to be strict strict and being careful for our health and our well-being to the best of our ability is an individual is destroying their own soul in other words not only do you compromise your body when you absorb the wrong things when we are undisciplined in our eating in our health and our wellness not only do we sabotage and compromise our body but we've also forfeited and conceded our soul because the soul sense of discipline and integrity its vigilance its capacity to be in charge who owns you or do you own it the aisles in the supermarket own you does the marketing does the smell does that food own you that you lose control or do you own it do you go in determined do you go in with a sense of a menu and of a schedule and of volumes and then it's not a struggle it's not something you even need to think about the GAO Hammurabi Safra our rabbi said this in the Madras willow tea time moved by him and it may seem bummed I do not make yourself impure with them you'll become the file through them Emmitt Alan Martin bum seok from atomic bomb care Mahalo saucers Marc listen to mom Amish believe of an after-show Adam attract a douche are social are mahkum Barlow mr. Lucas Oh mr. caucus mean Manu when we absorb if we were to eat god forbid non kosher foods we absorb but we are what we eat Judaism Torah believes you literally are what you eat that I'm ban rights are like quoting kazow that the animals the fowl the birds that are off-limits that are deemed non kosher all birds of prey they're birds that are cruel the way that they rip into their their their the other animals that they eat and if we were to eat and we were to absorb the qualities of these birds of prey we would absorb their sense of Cruelty so I don't know that you could test that in a laboratory I don't think that appears on the food label that that food contains an ingredient of an animal that was cruel and that and that was a the way it tore apart its prey but nevertheless we have a strong tradition that we are what we eat and we absorb those same qualities we have there were absorbed those same energies that's why it has not played such an emphasis even with children to be extremely and extraordinarily careful and vigilant and what they eat and what they consume what they are exposed to because even if it's accidental and even if it's not on purpose and even if they're not even aware of what they're doing or eating but nevertheless just like if your child has an allergy just like if your child was exposed to a poison you wouldn't say well I don't really care whether they're aware or they know or they were intentional about eating it all we care about of the results all we care about are the consequences if you consume poison you will be harmed and injured and if we consume foods that we shouldn't we will be harmed and injured this is what the rabbi's here in the metro-style house quoting says is metalli us it makes us impure it contaminates us not only does the contaminate our body in a measurable way but again it contaminates our soul the inability to be disciplined is an inability to be dignified the inability to have self control is actually allowing the animal impulse and the animal instinct and the animal in us to rule over the godly spirit the telemental Kim that godliness the fact that God is breathed life into us and animated us that we have access and can tap into the God inside each and every one of us means we have that capacity for self control and for discipline to lead the best of ourselves and when we ignore it and neglect it and when we marginalize it and instead we feed right into that animal aspect of ourselves that has an impulse of an instinct that's hungry it has an appetite we're not thoughtful we're not vigilant we're not careful we're not disciplined in what we do we've not only contaminated our body but we've contaminated our very soul the Mishna says that on Chamba son Yount if a person has to say kiddush been welcomed Citadel we recite kiddush and then you have to do it where you're having the meal so you go right into the remote sea where you have Mazzone or some crackers some cakes and babka or we pass skin if you drink or Avia's if you drink enough of the wine not to qualifies as kiddush Moroccan Sudha you made kiddush in the place that you're going to eat the fascinating debate and lumbus doing the rush bomb and toast folks is it that your kid ish is not a kid unless it's where you're having the meal or is it that the meal is not a real meal unless it's introduced with kiddush what is the rationale behind this law not for now but I saw a very beautiful explanation or a beautiful illusion that this principle kiddush been welcomed Sudha means do you know where you achieve kedusha kiddush do you know where we find holiness Bamako Masuda holiness is not in the shul or the base measures alone holiness is not in the religious venue or atmosphere you know where holiness is holiness is when you're hungry holiness is how you eat did you make a bracha before and after were you mindful when you said that Braja did you eat foods that were good did you stop eating it when you were full did you display and tap into your capacity for discipline and dignity did you in fact express your godly soul or did you allow your animal soul to rule the day and simply to follow its impulse and it's instinct the answer will determine whether we live lives of purity of impurity whether we are contaminated or whether in fact we are elevated who Masha Amrish a scam king then it may see bum out to Griffin it may seem I love any tantum Chavira matam temas limo shell autumn kee missa like a seminar daya meters but Walker say flesh echoes Berkeley mostly like I see them Raja Morocco so cash a meeting a hakama for who being a loony char bahama bahamas Masuka big asses are all amazi don't read it when it may samir defile but when he tempt them you will become contaminated that great what is create a missed opportunity the inability to have discipline the inability to create boundaries the inability to say this far and no more I'm stopping arrived at the great intellectual sparring partner of the Rambam the great raiven at a practice what we call tynus arrived at the tennis arrived it was whatever the rival was eating he left over the last morsel of food he never finished until the very end he didn't lick his bowl he didn't lick the plate he didn't scrape the plate but he always left over a little food why in order to show that he owned the food the food didn't own him in order to show that he could who was he showing this to the the writers for the art scroll biography of the raiven no himself his neshama his soul he wanted to be able to say to himself I'm in charge I'm in control I don't have to eat until the very last drop I'm able to leave over so some of you will recoil and say potage cos he threw out the end what are you talking about by my grandparents they would wrap the food in the napkin and take the extra and save it over and you know it's not pot ashes if you're doing it for a legitimate bona fide reason you know some people will overeat quantities and just to not leave leftovers because they say ball Tosh cos but I like to say that putting something in your mouth when you're not hungry is also about Tosh cos your mouth is also a garbage disposal and your and your and your throat and your digestive system is also a garbage a sewer system if it doesn't belong there it's about Tosh cos so whether it's throwing it in the garbage or putting it in your mouth which is putting it in the garbage when you're not hungry have no appetite and it's not good for you is also about TouchWiz so when the rival left it over he didn't feel bad because he didn't see it as waste he saw it as in fact work he saw it as his ability to grow to achieve to advance the tiniest arrived it to leave a little over not to me bhajami Mohammadi says that i'm how bahama means like an animal the bahama karma means homer our our material who we are Masuka big asses are OA to not be immersed in the coarseness of this world but Mahalo sorceresses Sierra's bizarre collie sone Kimmy Chen Mikasa Magoo Boosh lot of management awesome boss from sorrow non kosher food is the worst of all the undisciplined eating because we're absorbing those qualities and those traits so my dear friends let's go live our best lives let's go be our best selves and that includes the capacity to be careful to be vigilant to be in charge and in control to only what and only in how much of what will help us that we eat to live and not live to eat and that way realize the best of ourselves continue with the living with Emunah sheer here in the same place in 15 minutes at 8:45 if you are watching YouTube please subscribe even if you're not please do tonight 9:00 p.m. behind the be my special guest movie it's gonna be fantastic hope to see everybody later today have a great day