Dr. Shmuel Shields: Physical and Spiritual Immunity.

okay my name is dr shmuel shields i'm here with khazak today to do a uh a little talk um actually the first topic we're gonna do is on the pandemic and basically we all know that over the last year or so we've developed a new vocabulary many new words have come in and i just thought it'd be a good idea to try to use those new words to give us some physic and to try to develop a musa scale from those words also the new words that we're using could hopefully shed more meaning on the pandemic that we're in the throes of and hopefully we could also look to use these new words with a musser interpretation of them to strengthen ourselves and to work on ourselves and hopefully we'll all get some good ideas from it so i wanted to start with covert 19 covert 19 we hear the word covered in there and it might be a good way to reflect on giving cover to the 19 brachas of the amidah hashem has a prophecy through ushaya and he says the following vasi they come to my house um and they darwin before me they pray before me fixed to feelers lo believe shaolin but not wholeheartedly the kitsa shulkenarak also says we should direct the thoughts of our heart to receive to recite the brachas for the sake of the creator with feeling that's what the ribunislam wants he wants us to serve him with heart with feeling not out of habit and not rote so hopefully when we think of cupboard 19 it could be a reminder to give covet not only to the shimon ashrae to the 19 brothers of the amida but to all the brothers that we make the next word that is part of has become part of our vocabulary in the last year remote slash distance distant learning so we could maybe connect that to kira of rohokan we should try to bring jews close who are distant from the torah the torah is not over the ocean it's not in shamayim it's close to us and every jew should be made to feel close to it mute yourself another part of our new vocabulary and a musa scale on that would be to think about refraining from lashon hara shimon the son of robin gamliel said all my life i have grown up among the sages and he said below matasi laguftov ella stika i have not found anything better for a person than silence social distancing in pirkei avos we know it tells us to distance yourself from a bad neighbor and to distance in our own lives our own everyday lives when we think about social distancing maybe we could add on to that and think about distancing ourselves from the wrong things the wrong people the wrong places the wrong thoughts next word i have on my list here it's not an exhaustive list but just words that i know we've been using and just trying to develop some sort of a musa scale from these words bubble slash pod so i said on that when in gallus stay in goshen goshen was basically our bubble our pod in mitzrayim and all the problems began once we left that bubble so goshen really represents one of our earliest historical lessons of the dangers of assimilation so i think when we think of bubble and pod we could expand it to the greater outside world that we live in and take steps to stay a little bit more insulated and isolated from from the outside outside world uh as a matter of fact a dear friend of mine in jave rabbi avraham lamb showed me a very fascinating cli yucker i'll just share a little bit uh what what it says on in on the pasek in davarim there's a passage that says that we went around uh har sair uh many times okay and um and then hashem said rav sov s [Music] enough of you're going around this mountain turn yourselves northward again this mountain mount say here was the home of asav and hashem told us enough of going around this way head northward so the cli yucker on this basically focuses in on the word saphone which means to be hidden or to hide ourselves so when in gullis we should try to hide ourselves from asif we have to remember that asap still has a chip on his shoulders towards us for taking the bracha and therefore we don't want to flaunt in front of ace of what we have you know to to live quietly to hide ourselves to not uh flaunt our wealth our homes our fancy things and that's a way we could protect ourselves by staying in our our own little bubble or pod the next word i want to talk a little bit about plexiglas barriers okay so one of the things we could take from that concept or those words is to make the durham to make spiritual fences for ourselves protective spiritual fences just like we have locks on the doors alarms cameras vaults to protect property and valuables how much more so do we need barriers to safeguard the kadusha of the neshama mask the mask for most people has become part of our everyday garb just as we fulfill mitzvahs when we put on the talus and to fill in why not get a mitzvah when masking up how do we do that simple if we put on the mask with the right kevana and the mask is usually going on before the tolus and the filling so maybe he could set the stage for having more kavanaugh for those mitzvahs as well but the mask if we put it on with the kavana of i'm now taking a step to protect the health well-being and possibly the life of another jew then we're putting on the mask and we're getting a misser for doing it so it's something to think about and then when we're putting on tolerance into filling after that maybe it will set the stage for a greater concentration and focus on those mitzvahs as well okay another very popular pandemic word has become grab and go so i think we have to reflect when we hear that word grab and go it's usually referring to a kiddush where we grab food and go but what's the tough gift of what's our tough good in this world what should we grab that will really go with us and those are the mitzvas so we think of grab and go we're here to grab mitzvahs that will go with us up to the kiss they are covered i once heard it said that by a leviatha what happens the person's house and property doesn't move at all with him stays stationary the family members the close relatives they go with the nifter or the nif terrorists they go up to the cover but they can't go any further the mitzvahs though are with us and those come with us all the way up to shamayim so basically we want to grab what will go with us the mitzvahs the kumuluska sudden that we have the opportunity to do the tzedakah that we have the opportunity to give these are the things that will that are eternal and that will be with us forever so grab and go could hopefully hopefully make us think of what our tough kid is zoom zoom is just a reminder to be quick to do mitzvahs we have another drasha here on that uh from the tama rabiyoshi yoshia there's a plastic that says hamatos you should go out the matsus. so the tana says do not read the word only as masas but as mitzvahs they have the same letters um in this sense when we come just as we don't want to lose the matzah tahamuts we don't want to lose the opportunity to do the mitzvah so when we when a mitzvah prevent presents itself takes steps to do it quickly that's what hopefully the word zoom could remind us of to do mitzvahs uh quickly i happen to be a nutritionist and many people have come to me over the pandemic many times and said what should i do what should i take should i load up on zinc am i getting enough vitamin d should i take this amount of vitamin d what about echinacea and garlic and vitamin c and many many other things have been i've been asked and i guess what we have to do is again think of the icker in the tuffle so the first thing we want to do is go to hashem first with chuva tofila and sadaka we have to try to remind ourselves continuously why this pandemic came on the world there could be many reasons and many possible ways to look at it but certainly you can't go wrong with chuva tefila and zeducka so that go that way first and then we can do the earthly histodylist and look for some pills to take and look to live healthier lives and so on which we're going to talk about right after this what we can do on the physical side other ways to stay to stay healthy next word antibody you heard a lot a lot about that over the year antibody a good opportunity to think of bain adam le chavero don't be anti-anybody give cover to everybody we know that sin is cost us hashem's house our base amigners was destroyed because of sinner skinner and we also know that davening ends with shalom the brachas of the kohanam ends with shalom benching ends with shalom and that's what we need so antibody could help us reflect on the need not to be anti-anybody and to try to bet develop better relationships with our with our friends people in our community family neighbors and so on okay quarantine quarantine whether you've had to go into quarantine or not the word quarantine could hopefully as a muslim make us think about taking a time out every day we know that when someone got seras they were basically put into quarantine they were sent out of the camp and that daily isolation allowed them to focus on their aveira on doing chuva so taking a quarantine every day and doing a nephesh could be a great uh a great way to reflect on that word and build a musa scale out of it herd immunity we all want herd immunity herd immunity hopefully will protect us from transmitting the virus so another way to think about herd immunity or another way to take a muscle scale for it is to stay with our own herd to remain immune from outside influences and then we have the word mutation try to change for the better the vilma gaon tells us the whole purpose of creation was that a person should be given the opportunity to live in this world and to change and to grow and to make themselves into a better human being so the word mutation we could think about our obligation to try to mutate into a better human being and last but not least moderna pfizer j and j let's think ain old milvaldo many times hashem wins wars and generals take the credit and here too we have to understand the vaccinations that are available or hashem science can't go further than hashem wants them to go and it's only machem's rachmanis that we have these kind of vaccinations today so we got to reflect when we hear these uh companies the names of these companies just reinforce for yourself it's really hashem thank you for listening i hope this was helpful and i hope we can all take it to heart we're going to do another presentation now so i'm going to go right into the other presentation which is basically on ways to strengthen our immune system so this is more what i would call the earthly histodylist our obligation not to sit back and rely on a miracle we're not supposed to do that and we know that these vaccinations is one of the way of uh not sitting back and relying on a miracle but there are many other things that we can do to boost immunity and that's probably the most important thing to do so we want to i'm going to cover 10 tips to better immunity start with vitamins and minerals so the immune system is a complex system and it does require nutrients to make sure that it's working and functioning optimally if you do have a bona fide deficiency in a nutrient whether it's vitamin c whether it's vitamin d b6 folate copper iron selenium zinc you will have a compromised immune system again it doesn't mean we should rush out and swallow lots of these pills you have to do things appropriately and it's probably a good idea to consult with a healthcare professional or a nutritionist or somebody that can guide you on what is sensible so i'm not going to suggest what to take or what to do here but i'm just saying nutrients do play a role especially if there are deficiencies eat well this is a very important this is probably the most important year so that i can give you basically as much of the nutrients as you get from foods the better i usually tell my patients to look and aim for a mediterranean type meal plan the mediterranean meal plan is made up of whole foods it's colorful a lot of colorful fruits and vegetables it is plant-based it does consist of whole grains beans legumes nuts seeds healthy fats olives olive oil avocado the fat that's in fish these are some of the staple foods that are part of the mediterranean way of eating cultured dairy products like yogurt and kefir and then the animal products are used but more sparingly with fish being probably the more dominant animal product but basically we're talking about staying away from processed foods empty calorie foods sugary foods refined sugars and trying to stick with a whole food colorful healthy meal plan one of the best ways to strengthen immunity some particularly uh some particular immune boosting foods include some of the followings beta-carotene rich foods like sweet potatoes carrots squash pumpkin cantaloupe and then there are foods like mushrooms fish oats barley raw garlic and active cultures that are either taken as supplements or found in certain fermented foods uh yogurt kefir and then there are other foods that are not as common or we may not be as familiar with foods like tempeh miso and natto and i guess if you can find the old-fashioned sauerkraut the way they used to make it these also contain some of the healthy bacteria and then generally trying to increase our intake of colorful fruits and vegetables spice it up by adding herbal seasonings to our foods we can derive some of the benefits that that are in different herbal seasonings some of them contain antiviral antimicrobial anti-inflammatory properties so things like curry cinnamon thyme oregano rosemary ginger turmeric garlic cloves just using some of these things in cooking adding them to the meals cutting up a raw garlic clove adding it to your salad or your soup or other things that you're using trying preferably to use it raw and not overcooking it tip number five stay hydrated the immune system requires the ability to needs the ability to travel and if you're dehydrated it can't the specialized cells of the immune system can't travel as well in the body so by staying hydrated you allow the immune system's ability to reach and fight microorganisms so make water the beverage of choice try to include maybe a few cups of green tea for an extra immune boost exercise regularly moderate physical activity improves immunity tip number seven fresh air and sunshine are both immune boosters so make sure you get some fresh air some sunshine go out and take a walk every day if you could sleep get more of it most of us suffer from a sleep deficit less than six hours a night can impair immunity and slow the healing process and tip number nine psycho immunology positive and hopeful feelings enhance immunity it's no surprise that 800 years ago the rambam taught his fellow physicians to make sure that your patient has a cheerful state of mind because the rambam knew that how we think affects how we feel and has implications for health and can take its toll on the human body if we have uh if we're depressed negative and so on and the last tip i'm going to give you today is to relax seek out social support engage in calming activities and take a walk without your cell phone thank you for listening i hope this was helpful if there are any questions or comments you can reach me at seven one eight five four four four zero three six or you can email me at uh ours and robert amazon michael shields s-h-i-e-l-d-s gmail.com and my talk on immunity came from a book that i wrote called lachaim 18 chapters to live by it's a torah-based book on health and fitness anybody's interested you can contact me at those uh numbers and email address and once again thank you and have a kasia vs you