Soul Food - Weekly Energy Boost

Good morning,

Everyone.

Good evening,

Good afternoon,

Wherever you are,

And welcome to this week's weekly energy boost.

My name is Ellie Sheva and I am joined today by both David and Batya,

Who is definitely one of our number one guests,

And we are here to talk about soul food.

This is the second episode in our series on eating nutrition and nourishment.

And if you didn't get a chance to hear last week's episode,

Go back and listen to it.

It was it was phenomenal.

We keep getting messages about how enlightening it was how perfectly timed it was.

And as we came to even understand between the three of us last week,

Everybody is reactive around food.

And we want to do what we can to create the best odds in our own lives to be less reactive.

And we're going to talk about what that means today,

Specifically focusing on the different energies that foods can give us and how our relationship with food affects the energy that we receive from it.

One of the things we talk about in the show in different ways is how we get to decide the narrative we get to we determine whether something is good or bad,

And food is not outside of that reality.

The weekly energy boost is a spiritual seven day seven day spiritual energy forecast.

What we've been doing these last few months is focusing on the energy of the month.

And what's interesting is that we the three of us are actually coming out of a fast,

Which is perfectly timed.

One of the things that we spoke about was we touched on we didn't really talk about it in depth last week is that fasting kabbalistically has different intentions.

And you can actually be nourished by a fast.

In terms of spiritual energy.

So that's one of the things that we were doing last week,

Yesterday is we were abstaining from food and drink for the sake of being nourished from the right place and not the wrong place.

And I think that that right and wrong,

That,

You know,

Labeling this is good and this is bad is a great place for us to start.

And then we can get into the different kinds of food groups and what energies we get from them.

You touched on elevating sparks last week,

I think we need to talk more about that.

And of course,

Having body here is a gift because not only is Batya amazing teacher and friend,

She is also a fellow human being and has a lot of experience.

So they tell me experience with food,

A lot of experience.

Unfortunately,

I have too much experience.

Well,

We're all here to share our different perspectives.

And of course,

You know,

The root of what we're sharing,

That's one of the things I love about having someone to talk to about this live with with all of you listening is that we all have different perspectives.

And we're all basing those perspectives in the same route,

Which is the wisdom of Kabbalah,

The teachings of the Zohar,

The wisdom of the Kabbalists.

But when we hear we each hear the same teaching,

We take three different things from it.

And that's one of the things I love about these conversations.

We do not plan it.

This is not a scripted podcast.

We're genuinely coming to the table,

Literally and figuratively to share what's worked for us and what we've learned as a means to help elevate and support everyone who's listening to elevate their consciousness.

One one topic we can start with to kick it off is this idea that feelings of anxiety and guilt,

Feelings of anxiety and guilt and fear,

If any of us feel those feelings can come from our relationship with food.

And a lot of times we don't make that association.

How I eat,

What I eat,

My belief system about eating,

My belief system about good food,

Bad food can contribute,

Feed,

Exasperate the feelings of anxiety,

Guilt and worry.

So if you're feeling any of those emotions,

One thing to to one area,

One rock to look under is what is my relationship with food?

And the first thing I'll say and then we can discuss it is a lot of times people think that eating a bad food makes me a bad person.

And that's wrong.

Eating a bad food doesn't make you a bad person.

When you say bad food,

You mean like junk food?

What do you mean?

You perceive.

Sometimes people think,

And that's a whole other discussion,

People have perception.

Some people might say eating meat is a bad thing.

So if I eat it,

I'm a bad person.

And some people say eating meat is a wonderful thing.

So it all depends on how you define a bad food.

Some people call it junk food.

What is junk food?

French fries?

What is junk food?

Gluten?

So however you define bad food and good food,

You should know that eating a bad food doesn't make you a bad person,

Nor does eating a good food make you a good person.

And that sounds so basic.

But believe it or not,

If I eat like I ate this morning,

I know something I shouldn't have eaten,

But I go to I get my coffee and there's this healthy food.

And when that healthy food isn't there,

I opt for the unhealthy cookie.

And as soon as I ate it and it was delicious,

I thought to myself,

I just ate a bad food.

And whether I realize it or not,

Something about that makes me feel like,

Well,

I started my day off wrong.

I must be a bad person.

So all of us have it.

And it's very subconscious.

It's very,

It's very,

You don't notice it,

But it's there.

That's what I want to start with.

Well,

The thing that came to mind when you were saying that about,

You know,

You look at somebody who eats unhealthy and David is saying,

You know,

You say they're bad or you judge them.

Some of us are actually jealous of them.

I'm jealous of anyone who can eat anything and not gain weight.

Well,

That's my point.

So my point is that we we bring into I think one of the things we talked about last week is how similar eating a meal is to prayer.

And and I think that what's interesting about that and bringing it into what we're saying now is that we don't judge people or hopefully we don't judge people for how they pray and we don't judge ourselves.

I actually saw the funniest thing on social media last week.

Somebody put a meme that said,

I really regret that meditation said no one ever.

Right.

Like we don't we don't we we make these efforts to connect.

And I think we judge those efforts much less than we judge our efforts in the material world,

Not realizing that through that judgment,

We're diminishing the light we can reveal.

And maybe that's the starting point of today is we're actually meant to reveal light through our food.

Yes.

Well,

I'm so glad I'm on this podcast today as I volunteer to represent all the people who are listening and watching this podcast who have a dysfunctional relationship with food.

I am your poster child for this episode.

I just want to say that.

I mean,

It's a really loaded topic.

It's many,

Many layers.

I have to be I want to really be transparent here.

I'm no expert at mastering this at all.

So learn from my mistakes or relate to them.

But my dysfunction with food,

It's actually karmic,

As you know,

We have karmic relationship with food.

For example,

My parents were in the Holocaust and my mother practically starved to death when she was a teenager in the Holocaust.

And it actually did exist for those people who ever doubted it.

Same maniacs.

But yes,

It existed.

And because of that,

She was so scarred that she passed it down to us.

I believe I am a reincarnation of someone who passed away in the Holocaust myself.

So so that whole thing,

My mother always walked around with food in her bag.

So what do you mean by passed down?

How are you?

I think I know what you're talking about.

I want to I want to listen to know how do you pass something?

How does a parent pass something down to the child?

You know how,

You know,

Parenting is one of my also my side coaching gigs.

I don't know if you know that.

But,

You know,

Parents,

When a child comes into the world,

Yeah,

We all have our baggage.

And I'm going to address that kabbalistically a little later in the in this podcast.

But we have our we have we come in,

We have our own baggage.

And in one sense,

In the other sense,

We're a slate.

We're like a blank slate.

And you know how a child when a child falls down,

The first thing a child will do is look at their mother.

Usually it's the mother.

And if the mother is freaking out,

Then the child starts crying.

But if the mother is like very calm,

It's OK.

You know,

I'll kiss the booboo,

Go get play.

And they go,

Oh,

OK,

This was this is what it's supposed to look like.

I'll do that.

In my house,

Food was a very big issue.

We could not leave the table unless we filled our bellies up till we couldn't breathe.

So you're saying that's a belief system or a way of life that your parents educated you on.

Yes.

And for example,

You know,

Oh,

You're sad.

Let me make you something to eat.

Oh,

You're crying.

Eat something.

You don't want to finish the food.

Well,

You know how many kids are starving in some other part of the world,

Which I can never figure out why my over stuffing myself somehow is helping some child in a starving country.

But somehow,

You know,

It was that you have to eat it.

You can't live.

Of course,

We can't waste it either.

You can't waste it.

You can't you know,

It's a big deal.

I don't and a lot of people just use food,

Objectify food as a short cut or short circuit instead of dealing with what's really going on.

Emotional eating.

Guilty as charged.

You know,

Just learned.

I have to unlearn.

I'm still unlearning that.

And you know what's even in my chart.

Isn't that interesting?

Your astrological chart.

In my astrological chart,

The astrologer said,

You know,

You have a little tycoon here with food.

A correction with food.

A correction with food.

Yes.

Sorry about that.

Correction with food.

Sole correction with food.

And then later,

You know,

The astrologer was saying to me,

You know,

One of the things to work on is to say no.

And I said that I don't have a problem saying no,

As anybody who knows me knows,

I have no problem saying no.

He goes,

No,

No,

No,

Not with people,

With food.

You have to say no to food.

Which,

You know,

Restriction,

Which is the name of the game.

Right?

So restriction with food is actually a karmic issue that a lot of people don't even realize.

You don't even realize you inherit or we inherit these issues.

It's not just that just showed up or,

You know,

Instant meals became so popular.

All of these is like no restriction,

No restriction equals a lot of ill health and a lot of other issues.

Where with food,

You know,

Is really our opportunity to practice restriction.

I want to clarify a couple of things that you just said.

When we say the word restriction.

Yeah,

I'm going to say what that means.

OK,

You were going to go into.

You can tell me what you are.

It's such a powerful word.

I'm happy you used it.

And if you're listening for the first time,

When we say restriction,

Sometimes people confuse it with suppression.

Right.

We're talking about overcoming my need for instant gratification.

Right.

That's probably the simplest way to put it.

Here's how I would I how I explain restriction.

I can afford restrictions.

I can afford to wait.

I can afford to share.

I can afford not to react in this moment.

I can afford because the opposite of restriction is if I don't have this energy right now,

I'm going to die.

If I don't eat that cookie right now,

I'm going to die.

My boyfriend broke up with me.

I'm going to sit there and binge watch on something and I'm going to eat my bun buns and I'm going to like that.

Like that's how I'm going to get through the night.

The opposite of that is I can afford not to.

I can afford to breathe through it.

I can afford to meditate.

I can afford to ask myself questions like what's going on with me?

And,

You know,

It's been very helpful if you're one of those people,

You know,

I have found in the past like I'll be at 11 o'clock at night.

I'm eating potato chips.

Wait a second.

I didn't come home and plan to eat potato chips.

Why am I suddenly eating potato chips at 11 o'clock at night?

And if I stop and again,

I can afford to check in with myself,

Restrict,

Say,

Oh,

Wait a minute.

I got triggered emotionally about 15 minutes ago and it didn't register.

But I'm on automatic pilot.

So I just grabbed the bag of potato chips to to shift me out of that that mood.

And and so it acted as a an addiction.

That's what it's like.

That's like what addiction looks like.

I don't want to deal.

I can't deal.

I need.

I can deal,

But I don't want to deal.

And I have to have this energy right now,

Some other form.

And then,

You know,

Not realizing the long term damage of it.

I don't mean to hog the.

No,

This is good.

This is good.

And I want to elaborate on the word afford.

I love this word.

And the reason why people are writing in the chat that they love this word is because it's very spiritual.

It's very interesting.

Afford means I'm letting go of something now,

But I'm getting something bigger.

Suppression means I'm just letting go of something and I have to punish myself.

Suppression means I'm not letting go of anything.

I just look like it.

I have a smile on my face,

But I want to rip your throat out.

That's suppression.

That's not.

Afford means I am letting I'm paying something now,

But I'm getting something of higher value.

And Kabbalistic,

What we're always saying is don't suffer.

The name of the game is not to punish,

Not to suffer.

Religion has flipped that on its head and made it about that.

But in Kabbalah,

Everything that we do is to receive more,

Never less.

Exactly.

And everything.

Receive everything.

Receive everything.

Right.

So it's not just more of what you have.

But if you're not getting everything,

If you're not at least meditating on everything,

You are settling for less.

And that's a sin.

That's the sin.

The sin is thinking you can't have everything.

Exactly.

That is the sin.

Sin is mediocrity.

So I want to share with you something that I learned that I thought was really profound.

And then you can go back to doing whatever you think.

No,

No,

No.

I feel like I'm sitting I'm a listener today.

I love this.

The one of the things one of the questions the Kabbalist ask appropriate the word,

The word sin made me think of it is that we all are familiar with the original sin.

Right.

What Adam and Eve went experienced.

And the Kabbalists asked the question,

Why is it centered around food?

Think about that for a second.

Why what you know,

Was it the first bite?

We talk about the first bite.

And there's a whole discussion also among the Kabbalists of what kind of fruit was it?

I think that art has has corrupted corrupted it into we just assume it was an apple.

There's a whole discussion about what it really was.

But everybody agrees it was around food.

And what a pro.

Okay,

But that's and they're related.

They're related,

Right.

But we're here to talk about food.

That's another episode.

That didn't sound right.

You could invite me on another episode for sex.

That's not what Batya meant.

But the point is,

Within our spiritual DNA,

There is a struggle to accept a balanced relationship with food.

Our first Kabbalah teaches that we were all one soul,

We were all a part of that,

That intelligence called Adam and Eve.

And therefore,

We are all programmed with their spiritual DNA.

So the Creator told us not to eat from that.

The original parent told the original child,

Don't touch the cookies in the cookie jar,

Essentially.

And we didn't listen.

So in a way,

We're we're created with a challenging relationship with food in the same way that being to reference what Batya said,

We're also we also have a challenging relationship with our bodies and sexuality and healthy desire.

But it goes both ways.

It's both with food and physicality in our bodies.

And therefore,

One of the most powerful ways we've been empowered with to connect with spiritual energy is through eating.

And that's why it's so challenging for us to have a healthy,

Mindful,

I'm going to even use the word peaceful,

Peaceful,

Meaning the opposite of struggle,

Right?

Most people have a struggle with food,

Whether it's this doesn't agree with me,

And I want to share one more quick thing about it.

And I'm thinking about it.

What you know,

Most people have things they can't eat most things they wish they could eat.

There's things they're not allowed to eat.

There's the food that they save for when they're being bad.

Right.

I remember in the 80s,

Our teacher Rob Berg gave a lecture and said that he read it in a magazine earlier in the week that they finally discovered a way to keep cows lactating without them getting pregnant again.

So before in the olden days,

In order for a cow to give milk,

They needed to have babies,

Which is the natural way that milk is produced.

In the 80s,

They discovered a way to not need the cows to get pregnant just to keep them lactating infinitely.

So they're upset.

Wow,

That's amazing.

You know,

Think about how much more money and how much more efficient and but nobody's asking the question what 20 years from now,

What's the quality of that milk going to be?

And think about it.

Who isn't lactose intolerant now?

Right?

What happened to the milk?

So part of the the reason I'm bringing this up is,

First of all,

Our teacher was a visionary and had the foresight to ask those kind of long term questions where there was no restriction there in creating that.

I don't know if it was a medication or some sort of system that allowed the enabled the cows to not need to conceive again to to lactate.

But the bigger picture is,

What kind of damage are we doing?

We're interfering with nature.

And you can say that about the vegetables,

The grains that we eat now,

You can say that about the the meat,

You know,

So much is done to animals to fatten them up to keep them unhealthily robust for for then the slaughter and,

You know,

Bringing it into the supermarkets and whatnot.

But we're not really thinking about the consequences.

And I think one of the things that's also important is to realize that if we go back to the original use of food,

Which was to connect with spiritual energy to elevate sparks,

One of the things that we have to do,

And I think that's one of the reasons why people have gone in back to gardening and,

And using local farms and things like that,

Because that's the closest that we can get now to the original way that food and and agriculture,

Agriculture was meant to be handled with that continuity with that respect for the respect.

That's the word respect,

You know,

It even goes deeper than that,

You know,

In the time of the temple,

When the when the world was in balance,

When the temples were functioning the way they're meant to explain what you mean by the temple in the thousands of years ago,

Gotta gotta educate the crowd,

There was a there was a communication system.

And there was a system of receiving and sharing energy in a very balanced way through the use of what's called the temple.

I'm sure people have heard of the temple in Jerusalem.

I'm not talking about it from a religious point of view,

I'm talking about it from an energetic point of view.

There would be people called the priests and they would and the Levites and they would receive people's sacrifices and offerings and they would come for redemption of their soul,

Redemption if they had a short circuit,

If there was an imbalance,

And they would create a balance against something this world is very out of is balance.

And it's funny because it was all around food,

So they would bring,

Let's say,

Barley cakes with salt,

Or they would bring,

You know,

An animal for sacrifice,

Etc.

And so forth.

But what's really interesting about all of that,

If you don't really,

If you don't study kabbalah,

You're gonna miss the whole thing.

First of all,

It sounds like it's so irrelevant and so barbaric in today's times,

Although what we do to animals,

I'd say today is extremely barbaric,

But it's another conversation for another time.

Anyway,

Going back to the time of the temple where the whole purpose was this restoring balance,

Is that if you paid attention,

They would bring a sacrifice,

An offering of some sort of food,

Salt,

Grains,

Animals for the purpose of consumption.

And the reason why the kabbalists say they did that is because what we haven't introduced yet into this subject is the fact that everything has spirit,

Everything has energy in it.

Souls incarnate into the vegetable kingdom,

Into the mineral kingdom,

Into the animal kingdom.

And the purpose of eating food with consciousness is all about elevating those sparks of those souls.

And then when we consume them and we're making a blessing,

We're preparing ourselves energetically,

Spiritually,

To release,

If there is a soul,

To release that soul to its next kingdom,

To its next level.

So eating is actually an act of sharing.

And in that sharing,

Because healing always is through sharing,

In that action of sharing is how we create a win-win scenario for us and whoever we have a karmic relationship with that comes to our table,

To our lips.

We're drinking water,

We're putting some salt on our food,

We're having an impossible burger,

Whatever it is,

Or a salad,

Or a beautiful steak,

And we don't think about,

Wait a minute,

That could be my Uncle Bob there in that thing.

Bob's your uncle?

Bob might even be your kidney for now.

Everyone's uncle's Bob.

Everybody's Uncle Bob.

But seriously,

So it's this beautiful action of sharing together and creating that balance,

Something we've really lost along the way.

And then because we lost that connection,

People feel free to play with the food,

Genetically modify,

You know,

Wheat isn't wheat what it used to be now,

You know,

You can't even get real wheat anymore.

There's such corruption,

Hopefully,

You know,

One day very soon we're going to go back to this state of balance with food,

And with this podcast,

You know,

Feel free,

Really share it with your friends.

It's such an important subject.

Because it really just takes a second,

Like this,

Just make a new decision.

From this moment forward,

I'm going to establish a more spiritual connection,

Even with my ice cream or bonbons or whatever it is,

Your pizza,

Whatever you're having,

It's about re-establishing our connection and restriction.

Right?

We talked about restriction,

I can afford.

You know,

If you,

This is something I haven't mastered yet,

So I want to be really transparent about it,

But I have read in so many sources when it comes to relationship with food,

That people,

David,

I'm sure you could bear me out on this,

You probably chew your food very slowly and you chew it a lot,

Don't you?

This is what I've been reminded of doing every moment of my day,

Yes.

Yes,

And I keep forgetting every moment of my day,

I think right around my palm,

Chew your food.

Because it's so important,

The chewing of the food is the restriction.

When just chewing food till it becomes liquid is the restriction,

Something that if you really want to shift your relationship with food,

You have to chew it,

And I constantly forget.

There's this Facebook thread,

I was in a group yesterday and someone posted about their children and constipation and why this child,

Like how to become more regular and is there a vitamin,

To use this,

To use that.

And then one of the moms put up what really helped my child is teaching how to chew his food more and more because your stomach doesn't have teeth.

And the moms went crazy over this because they said,

Oh my God,

We're thinking I got to give him this,

I don't know what it's called,

Miralix,

Miramax,

Some kind of pharmaceutical thing.

Laxative.

Yeah,

It's a laxative or more fiber or more this.

That's a great point.

Someone just said,

Institute a little bit more restriction,

Which is the mouth pausing chewing actually made their child more regular.

I thought that was really powerful.

So anybody here who has constipation issue.

Any kind of digestive issue.

Any kind of digestive issue and you're looking for that amazing probiotic before you even get there,

Realize that there is a spiritual tool,

Which is a physical tool,

Which is chewing.

Also time,

Two things,

Chewing and time.

I scarfed my food down.

Today we're all encouraged to scarf our food down,

All the fast food,

You know,

Drive by,

Have a burger while you're driving and a shake or whatever,

Going through our busy day.

We don't have time to eat.

And truly,

If we want to create a healthy relationship with food,

Just like any healthy relationship with someone you care about,

You have to make the time.

Set the time aside to really give yourself a chance to eat slowly and chew.

And you realize,

Wow,

I just scarfed down three burgers,

But I was really full on the half of the first burger.

But it takes the digestive system like 20 minutes to catch up.

So like I say,

I'm not an expert at this.

I certainly have not mastered this.

Share this journey with me.

I invite you on.

Let's cheer each other on,

Help each other to chew our food and take our time.

Here's an interesting thought.

I was going to say food for thought.

I want to be too cliché.

But it's understood that when you combine different types of foods,

So let's say some meat,

Some carbs,

Some fruit,

You create a traffic jam in the stomach and the colon.

This is the whole premise behind food combining because it takes,

Let's say,

A meat six hours to digest.

It takes carbs two to four,

And it takes fruit 15 minutes.

Jam them all together,

You've got a traffic jam.

Some cars are moving faster than others.

Now,

I just thought about something powerful.

You talk about the food kingdoms,

You talk about the… I realize when you're combining different kingdoms in your colon,

You're creating some kind of a spiritual mishmash of sparks being elevated from one kingdom to another.

Because if I eat a piece of fruit,

Which is an inanimate object… It's vegetable.

I'm sorry.

Vegetable kingdom.

It's the second kingdom,

Vegetable kingdom.

The purpose of eating that apple is you elevate the spark of light or even the soul that's in that,

Because there are souls trapped in these fruits,

To the next kingdom,

Which would be logically the animal kingdom.

But if I'm eating,

Let's say,

A piece of steak with a tomato sauce,

I've now combined two kingdoms.

So you've got these elevation of souls happening,

And I'm curious.

I don't think Kembla has ever wrote about this,

But I'm curious if that is why there is indigestion,

Because this is all me just opining upon this spiritual concept.

I'm not basing this on anything I've read in the Zohar.

It's just an interesting thought that when you eat food kingdoms by itself,

You feel better.

It's easy exit.

It goes in and out.

It doesn't create all this gas pressure and all this mess in your stomach when you don't combine kingdoms.

I think that's pretty fascinating.

Well,

You don't combine meat and dairy.

Well,

That's a whole other topic of energies.

I'm just saying kingdoms digest differently in your stomach.

But I think it's important to,

You know,

Everybody is empowered to make their own choices,

But I think it is important to explore that,

For example,

When you eat an animal product,

Not dairy,

But meat,

So whether it doesn't really.

The only animal I think that's exempt from this category is fish,

But what it does is that even the spiritual energy in those poultry,

Beef,

Etc.

That's feeding the what we call the animalistic self.

So some people need that,

Right?

That's one of the things we were talking about how the Kabbalists knew how to balance their energy with food is that if a person was too passive,

Too not able to speak for themselves,

Not desiring to anything for that matter,

To succeed,

To move forward,

To achieve or accomplish.

Eating more of those things might support them to have more zest for life,

To have more energy of life because they're ingesting things that live,

That lived.

When a person has,

For example,

Dairy products,

Right?

Think about even the colors,

Right?

Flesh,

I'm sorry if I'm grossing anybody out,

Flesh is red.

Milk products,

Dairy products are white.

And Kabbalistically,

The white represents sharing.

Originally,

I should go back to what I said before,

Originally milk was created from childbirth.

I mean,

You know,

Giving forth life.

So being able to lactate was a result of creating life.

So there was an energy of continuity,

Of sharing,

Of caring.

And so that's the energy that originally dairy products had.

And then you have the greens,

The vegetable kingdom,

Things that grow from the ground that have a completely different energy that's much more balanced.

And that's actually going to the food combining theory.

You can combine vegetables with either proteins or carbs and it works.

But when you bring in sugars,

Right?

The fruits,

Like you said,

It digests so quickly.

It's like fermenting the food.

The food doesn't actually get to digest.

So there is that balancing,

That idea of distinguishing.

Well,

When I'm combining different foods on my plate,

I'm actually combining different energies.

And are these the energies that I want?

I did the food combining thing for a very long time and felt great.

It just requires a lot of discipline,

A lot of restriction,

And a lot of forethought into what I'm doing now and what I'm going to do later,

Planning ahead.

So I guess somewhere in the mix,

I lost a little bit of that control in me.

But I can tell you,

There were Kabbalists,

For example,

And David,

I really wanted you to talk about elevating sparks because when you talk about it,

It's captivating and compelling.

But there are Kabbalists that,

For example,

Didn't eat meat on any day that wasn't a spiritually elevated day.

They would choose the most elevated day of the week and that would be the day that they would eat meat because they knew that then they were guaranteed to elevate the spark inside the animal.

Because it's harder to elevate a spark from an animal than it is from the vegetable kingdom or the mineral kingdom.

Right.

It's harder.

It's a heavier piece of soul,

So it's harder to elevate it.

And they would reserve eating those kinds of meals for days that were more spiritually elevated so that they would be able to more easily elevate those sparks.

And this is so powerful because when you hear this,

You're like,

Wait,

That's what they're thinking about?

When I'm going to eat a piece of steak,

I'm not thinking about,

All right,

I want to make sure it's eaten at the right time and the right day to elevate that spark because that's what's good for the spiritual framework of the world and again,

My soul.

People don't think that way.

And that's why they don't elevate the sparks.

That's why they don't elevate the spark.

And what we're teaching with Kabbalah is there's a whole new way of living your life that is not about just feeding my desires.

There's a whole other world that's happening that we don't realize.

And when we are living by the rules of that world and we're conscious of that world,

Gates open,

Fulfillment comes,

And miracles occur in ways that we've never experienced before.

When people come to Kabbalah 1,

They're not just learning life hacks of how to make more money or life hacks of how to find their soulmate.

Initially,

That's why they think they're there.

And they do get those.

They do get those hacks,

So to speak.

But ultimately,

You realize,

Wait a minute,

There's a whole new way of living life.

Which is much bigger than anything I've experienced so far in my life.

And this is along that topic of what we're talking about,

Which is learning these rules.

It's a whole other spiritual world and to become familiar with it.

The same way that you're subject to gravity,

Whether you believe in it or not,

We understand that we're subject to these rules whether or not we know them or not.

And I think what a lot of people find as they learn these rules is that they understand why things played out the way they did in the past.

Because we didn't know X,

Y,

And Z happened,

And now that we know,

We can work harder and be more mindful of the choices that we're making.

Something practical that I share with students when they are looking for more fulfillment or to remove a blockage in their lives,

You brought up the sin of Adam that had to do with food.

And why did it have to do with food?

And the Zohar teaches that the area that's hardest for a person to correct always is two areas.

It's anything that has to do with the mouth and anything that has to do with the sexual organ.

So the mouth is food and speech,

So it's very hard.

It's very hard to control what we say and to control what we eat.

Even if I know what I need to do,

It's very hard.

And then the sexual energy,

Even though a person knows what's right and what's wrong,

Let's say,

Sometimes the urges and the desires cause them to be impulsive and ruin their lives.

So why is it so hard in these two areas?

And so the Zohar explains that these are the two areas that create and sustain life.

Think about your elbow.

Your elbow doesn't do anything.

Your elbow doesn't create or sustain life.

It's an elbow.

But the sexual organ and the mouth are both responsible for keeping you alive or creating new life.

So there's so much energy.

That's actually where you become like God.

So it's like atomic.

It's atomic energy in your mouth and your sexual organ.

So the negative side is very strong in those two areas and constantly trying to get people to be reactive and impulsive in those two areas.

And when I talk to men or women and they're looking for a breakthrough,

I say,

Well,

Let's just focus on these two areas.

People are asking for business advice.

I'm like,

Well,

Tell me what's going on in the sex life and in the food and word life.

If we can bring that into,

That's the power of Kabbalah.

It's never about the money.

It's not about,

Oh,

Teach me how to create a product line.

All right,

Well,

Here's what you do.

How are you using your mouth?

How are you eating your food?

Wait,

What did I got to do with anything?

Control these two areas and you control the world.

Not repress these two areas.

That's I think that people like diets don't work right there that that the the awareness that we're trying to bring is that by knowing that there is a tendency to do this or that right.

You can have it can be either extreme.

I talk too much or I don't talk enough.

I use my words to build.

I use my words to destroy.

I there's so many people think,

Well,

I'm celibate,

So I'm OK.

That's not necessarily the answer either.

The point is balance and part of our relationship with food.

And we use I actually one of the things I wanted to talk about today,

If not,

We'll save it for next week,

Is actually using food as a tool to reveal spiritual light.

It's not just I need it,

Therefore I consume it and hopefully I'm consuming the right stuff.

It's there are certain opportunities that food acts as a vehicle.

And if we don't eat it in that particular window in time or that moment,

We're missing an opportunity to reveal the light.

That's beautiful.

That's beautiful.

One of the questions we have,

We didn't talk about.

There's so much going on in the chat.

The fish.

So fish are in a different category.

That's why I didn't I didn't pilot with the poultry and the meat and other animals.

Fish are in a very special category,

According to Kabbalah.

They're more it's more related to dairy products because it's it has fish are constantly surrounded by water.

So they're almost in a merciful.

It's like they're between the physical reality and the spiritual reality.

That's a nice way to put it.

Right.

So they're they're here,

They're alive,

But they're not really subject to gravity the way we are.

They're not really subject to even weather the way that they're in the land,

The physicality.

So fish,

It's obviously it's biologically considered a protein,

But the energy that it has is much more elevated,

Light,

Spiritual.

Right.

You're going to be hungry sooner after you eat fish than you are after you eat a steak,

Because it also is lighter in the body and has a lighter energy in it.

And it's often more elevated with the Kabbalah teaches that those souls that are just at the end of their correction process,

A soul maybe that only has one more thing to correct before they no longer need to incarnate again.

They'll they'll incarnate in a fish and live their life as opposed to coming back in human form,

Have to go through a whole life cycle again.

Exactly.

For one thing or two things.

Exactly.

So the fish,

It is in its own weird limbo category,

Kabbalistically and energetically speaking.

But there's no.

You know,

Not the same restaurant,

Not the same impact,

Let's say,

As the steak or the turkey dinner.

We should know that if a fish is appearing in front of us to eat,

Right,

If I meant to eat it and it's on my plate,

We can meditate that there is a powerful spark of light or a powerful soul that through conscious eating,

We elevate that soul and it becomes almost like a guardian angel to us.

Well,

I think that's that's an important thing to mention in general is what can we do?

What can our what should our conscious,

I don't like the word should,

What can our consciousness be when we eat so that we get the maximum spiritual benefit from what's on the plate?

So what is conscious eating?

Essentially,

If we can say one,

Two or three things that people can keep in mind for conscious eating,

What would it be?

We already said chew your food,

Chew it and meditate on it that you're elevating the sparks of light through the teeth grinding,

You're actually elevating the spark of light.

So,

You know,

Kabbalistically,

We know this is the purpose of blessings.

When we bless our food,

We're injecting gratitude and gratitude is one of the highest consciousnesses you could have.

So by injecting,

There's a story of a kabbalist and the student and they're both eating an apple.

And the kabbalist said to the student,

You know,

The difference between you and I,

You're saying a blessing so you could eat the apple.

I'm eating the apple so I could say the blessing.

I want to connect to that higher energy.

So before you eat that tuna sandwich,

You know,

Stop for a moment,

Be grateful,

Have gratitude.

If there is a soul,

Whatever souls,

Whatever sparks of souls or light are in this food,

May I have the merit to elevate that?

If you know the blessings,

You know the blessings.

But if not,

It's not about the learning,

Suddenly learning a particular language.

It's about,

More importantly,

The concept behind it.

Somebody could just mumble a few words because they know what wrote,

But that doesn't mean they have a consciousness behind it.

So the conscious behind it is the gratefulness of being a co-creator is you are about to become one with whatever you're ingesting and to elevate those sparks.

So when we take the time to do that,

Food becomes our servant.

Food becomes our support system.

When we don't do that,

The food actually can attack us.

And it says in the Zohar,

By the way,

Food is medicine for the body until a person overeats.

Then the food attacks the body.

So it's everything,

You know,

It always comes back to the same thing,

Everything in balance.

If you want to have a prosperous relationship with your food,

It begins with,

First of all,

Gratitude that it's showing up for you.

There is no accidents in the universe.

If there's a spark of light in that food,

It's meant for you and only you to be the one to have the opportunity to activate your own level,

Your own consciousness through your gratitude.

As you meditate on elevating those sparks,

Chewing slowly,

Having restriction around it,

Like I could afford to wait.

I could afford to take 25,

Chew it 25 more times before I swallow it.

I think,

You know,

If anything,

Just today,

Start practicing and see the difference.

And I'm sure,

You know,

As you notice the difference,

Please make sure that you let us know.

And to be practical about appreciation,

Regardless of what your language is,

Just saying thank you is a great start to elevating the spark of light.

By the way,

I think,

David,

Even before the thank you is what you said before.

It doesn't matter if it's a fish or a chicken or a cow or an apple,

The food that you're about to eat is in your hand or on your plate for a reason.

It chose you.

So connecting with that food,

We talked about that last week,

You know,

Recognizing.

.

.

We think we're ordering off the menu.

The menu is ordering off of us.

Totally.

Why do you suddenly feel,

I have to have a Caesar salad?

Whoever says that,

I actually do.

I love Caesar.

I love salads.

But most people,

They say,

Oh,

I have such a craving for a burger right now or a pizza right now.

And yes,

It may be consciously driven by a sensation you feel in your body or you think you feel in your body.

But know that the pizza that gets delivered to you or the chicken nuggets that you're eating,

Whatever it is,

Right?

The granola bar.

We're revealing our diets,

Right?

I don't eat chicken either,

So it's totally fabricated.

But actually,

That's a really great example.

You know,

I am allergic to chicken.

Why am I allergic to chicken?

I don't know.

But what I know is that there is something in the energy around that particular food.

I cannot eat it.

And I have I crave it sometimes.

I miss it.

But I know in that moment that I eat it,

I'm going to deeply regret it.

And so for the last it's been 20 years,

I have not eaten chicken.

Now,

What I can learn from that on a spiritual level is that whatever energy intelligence that product has,

And I'm using the word product,

But I mean it's an energy intelligence.

It's not going to serve me.

The fact that my body has an adverse reaction to it also tells me that there is a spiritually adverse reaction taking place in it.

And before we go,

We have to talk about drinking,

By the way.

We didn't talk about drinking and we're not going to have a separate episode about drinking.

So we need to talk about that in the last 30 seconds that we have.

But do you guys want to put a 20 second version of any 20 second consciousness you want to throw in before we do the drinking?

So many ways to put it.

First thing that came to my mind is how the Zohar talks about wine.

I guess alcohol falls into that is an antenna to draw energy.

And so if it's used,

It can be used in a destructive way or it can be used in a way that brings joy and happiness.

And practically I'll say there's that moment where we cross that line and we drink to the point that creates silliness.

We become like a clown.

We lose control.

Now we've invited the dark side.

The negative forces start to cling to a person who crosses that barrier and a person who stays right under that barrier.

And it's more about joy and being open and being social while still having my boundaries and my sanity.

That person draws the positive forces into their life and it enhances their life.

I think in general,

Whether you're looking at wine or any alcohol,

The Kabbalists use it again for elevating.

In moderation.

That's what I think David was saying.

Anything that's going to reveal a tremendous amount of light,

And light when it's revealed in an unbridled way can be destructive.

So the glass of wine or the,

I don't want to say shot,

But the Kabbalists would do a shot and they would leave it at that.

That's my point.

That it's more about bringing a little levity,

Getting a little light,

And then being able to say,

I'm doing it only for that sake and not because I'm running away,

I'm escaping,

I need to disconnect,

Or any of the other reasons that someone might drink.

I want to point something out though,

I'm sure the listeners do not know me,

Do not know me that well,

But I'm learning about wine tasting.

The whole wine thing.

And you know that before you drink the wine you have to look at it,

Then you have to smell it,

Then you have to drink it,

But you can only take a tiny sip.

There's like a limit.

In order for you to get the real,

Whatever the wine maker wanted you to get,

That's how you're supposed to drink the wine.

You're not supposed to have two glasses or a bottle.

You're supposed to have,

It's really like less than an ounce in order to get what the intention of the artist was.

And I think that that's something,

Going back to what both of you have been sharing,

Is that it's really the,

First of all the entire body eats,

And you know,

Back when Adam and Eve were roaming wherever they were roaming,

They would eat with their eyes.

That's another,

I think another one of the limitations that we have in this physical realm is that our senses are limited,

And they limit us.

And at the same time we can use our senses to have a more powerful connection with our food.

Can I make one point before we go?

Please,

Please.

So the word alcohol actually comes from the Arabic word alghul,

Which means spirits.

When a person overindulges in the alcohol,

All these negative entities will come and they will,

It's like,

As if they put a neon sign on their body that says,

Open house,

Come on in.

And when a person has too much alcohol,

These spirits come and take over and actually kick the soul out of the body,

Which is why people have blackouts.

So,

You have to,

It's polluting the body.

So really,

When you drink- Box you to drop in some knowledge.

Oh,

There's plenty more where that came from,

Son.

Saved it for the last 20 seconds of the show.

So be careful when you do,

You know,

Drink some alcohol,

You know that when a person starts to get drunk,

That's too much.

You're out of balance.

If you take a shot and you feel good and you feel relaxed and great and you're doing it for the sake of elevating,

For happiness,

For whatever,

Sharing,

That's why in the Kabbalah Center,

Before we drink,

When we drink alcohol,

We always share,

We say l'chayim,

We give- Energy.

We're always injecting,

Sharing energy into it,

Have a little bit,

Relaxing,

It's good,

You hit the mark.

But when it's used on any other purpose,

Just remember,

It comes with a whole other box of side effects there that you just don't really want to get engaged in.

I think it goes back to Batcha's original point,

And maybe we'll end it there and continue the conversation next week,

Is that like a child who is not allowed to have any sugar,

The moment they leave the house,

They're going to live on a vending machine.

Right.

Right?

Like that's,

I know kids that were like that when we were younger.

The abstinence,

Right,

The extreme repression is exactly that,

It's repression.

The Kabbalists enforce that idea of balance.

Nobody's saying don't have a drink.

Nobody's saying don't have a piece of cake.

What we're saying is that the drink or the cake can't control you.

Exactly.

Can't take over you.

Because there's ramifications to Batcha's point,

We don't even see.

Exactly.

Right?

We don't realize what we're exposing ourselves to or what we're canceling out in the way that we're consuming and what we're consuming.

Phew,

There was a lot there.

You may have to listen to this episode a couple times to get all of those juicy nuggets.

Thank you both for being here.

Oh,

My pleasure.

Thank you for having me.

We're both,

We're all very serious about food and drink and as you can see now it's more than just for nutrition,

It's for elevation,

It's for energy,

Spiritual energy and also for elevation of consciousness.

So hopefully you guys got a lot out of it.

Next week we're going to talk about spiritual weight loss.

Oh,

Oh,

Oh.

We're going to have Marcus Westin on the show.

I feel that having two extremely skinny people on either side of me is going to help bring out the best of the knowledge that I have about the subject.

Thank you guys for joining us.

Please continue to send in your questions,

To share,

To rate and review and if you have any questions that you don't feel comfortable putting out there on social media,

You can always email us at energyboost at kabala.

Com.

We'll see you next week on the Weekly Energy Boost.

Thank you.