You go to a doctor to guide you about which foods are healthy for the body. Which ones strengthen you and which weaken you even if they taste good and the effects are not felt immediately, the doctor knows that those sugary unhealthy foods are not building your wellness. How do you know what the nutritional needs of your soul are? Do souls even have nutritional needs? Kosher is that diet. Designed for the Jewish soul by its Maker. It nurtures Jewish sensitivity and faith, happiness and connection. So why kosher? It’s the diet tailor made for your soul by its maker! Enjoy! Rabbi Menachem Mendel Bluming is a rabbi in Potomac, Maryland since 2000
The utopian Garden of Eden came crashing down because Adam and Eve ate of the forbidden fruit. What was it about this fruit that they could not withstand? This is how the Torah describes it in chapter 4 of Genesis: “The tree was good for food and it was a delight to the eyes, and the tree was desirable to make one wise.” Very interesting description for a fruit! So here is my 2021 perspective, after all the Torah is eternal and its message is as pertinent in our time as it was back then. Our very risky fruit is the iPhone... I certainly don’t mean to offend the iPhone whom I love and depend on... I mean all smart phones. They are a delight for our eyes. Our eyes light up when we get a new text, a new email, a new like on a Facebook post etc. They are desirable to us they are exciting and they make us wise, it can be so enjoyable. Yet it can also be dangerous.... G-d turns to Adam and says where are you and he says I was hiding... Yup, his smart phone has started to take o...
The four species that we bless on Sukkot correspond to the four letters of G-d's Hebrew name. Waving them in all six directions signifies our faith that G-d is everywhere. Specifically, we are saying that on every level, at every stage of life, in all that happens to us, G-d is there. Right and left represent Chesed and Gevurah, the power of love and the power of discipline. G-d, like a parent, can be loving and can also be strict. Sometimes G-d's light shines on us and we feel close to Him, other times He seems distant, we feel left in the dark and have to find our own way through. Whether we receive G-d's closeness and love, or whether He gives us space to grow on our own, it is all coming from G-d. He knows exactly what we need, and that's what we get. Up and down symbolize the highs and lows of life. When we feel we are on top of the world, we need to remember that G-d enabled us to get there. When we feel down in the dumps, we need to have faith that G-d is w...