Real or Artificial?

Real or artificial?

[Warning: this article may contain harmful substances ]

The supermarket search is on.

Racing down aisles with carriages jockeying for the nectar of Eden, we level well-aimed jabs at jars and tins in blazoned with words declaring purity. Bold print screams out at the seasoned shopper: pure vegetable oil, low in saturated fat, all natural, organic! 

You ever let your eyes meander over the ingredient list for fruit juice? Of course you have. Most contain corn syrup, artificial sweeteners and artificial flavors. One famous brand proudly proclaimed that it has 10% real juice in it.  Gottenu! Others claim that they come from fruits that are naturally processed…along with the pesticides and residues from acid rain that annually falls.

Many years ago we decided to raise her children on nourishing foods, ones that were free from contaminants and unnecessary additives. So we bought apple juice with no more than two ingredients listed on the labels, water and apples.

Then came another scare something called a Alar. Remember that?  I heard that I was guilty of poisoning my child with some trisyllabic word.  Less fastidious parents than we -- filling baby bottles with root beer instead of superpure apple juice -- were the heroes, the real caring guardians of the child’s health. I remember feeling deceived and violated.

We live in an age when Cheetos are touted as health food. After all, they have real cheese in them don’t they? Nature stores sell items antithetical to sound nutrition.  Do we trust? And we are called upon to make choices every day, real or artificial?

We live in the healing universe.

Huge machine spew six smokers they grind intrude into the earth displacing massive boulders, uprooting trees. Gaping wounds spill over onto untouched ground like flesh peeled back from the skin, exposing the bowels of the earth. I’m ready soil is ripped up as the life force of the earth bleeds.

Truly amazing is that these terrible dismemberments gradually heal. By themselves. Moss slowly grows over the shattered and twisted lambs cast about. Grasses return to unfold the stark landscape. Flowers bring back bees and with them, arrive insects and turtles.  Left alone, all the radiation, smog, pollution, non-biodegradable shmutz is absorbed and healed by the universe.

We are just too small to see the magnificence of life; we are like fleas on a dog.

The holy days recognize the supremacy of nature as the hand of God behind the falling leaves, the darkening skies, the rain, the snow, the wind and sun. It is no wonder that we grow quiet and introspective when we open our eyes and hearts.  Kohelet, Ecclesiastes, offers this advice:

Remember your Creator and appreciate life

In the days of your youth, before the days of sorrow,

And years draw near when you will say,

I have no pleasure in them.

To sum up the matter,

Revere God and for fulfill His mitzvot.