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.

Just Justice

An ancient source states: “When the mountains bear grain, people enjoy peace.”

Want increases anxiety; it produces jealousy and desire.  When people have work, when they have income, when dependents look to them for sustenance – they generally act with care and deliberation.  On the other hand, when a society is fearful, when they look for food and find none, when work is sporadic or non-existent – people become suspicious and potentially hateful. 

A just society is one that has both expectations of the individual with attendant responsibilities along with the possibility of being lifted out of poverty when life becomes too oppressive.  We are our brother’s keeper and as such need to learn morality in our religious institutions and schools.  There is a right and wrong.

A great Jewish thinker once suggested that a ‘just society is determined by the way it treats its poor.’  Few people would ever doubt that the privileged are denied justice.  What we need to be concerned with is that the underprivileged receive the same treatment.

I therefore make two suggestions:

1. We need to constantly learn and teach not just mathematics and science but morality as well.

2. Everyone deserves the opportunity to work and learn and eat.  There are times in a person’s life when they are impoverished of spirit.  At such times, it is the responsibility of the larger community to help them reestablish their ability to be self-sufficient and a contributing member of society.

Length of Days

It was ordained that no one should live beyond 120 years.  That number represents the outer boundaries of human life.  Moshe rabbenu died when he was that age.  For this reason, Jews have often said as a blessing to one another, “May you live to 120!”

It seems that staying alive is an art: eat the right foods, do the right exercise, take the correct vitamins and you may be rewarded with longevity.  It is usually a blessing to live a long life, although it is not always.    The Jewish approach to life is one of quality not quantity.  What good does innumerable years of misery amount to?  The only positive part about such a long life is that it gives us ample opportunity to “get it together.”

Here is an authentic Jewish approach to meaningful years:

Rabbi Hannina said, “Much have I learned from my teachers, more from my friends, and yet more from my students.”   -Talmud, Taanit 7a

Events are teachers.  Failures are teachers.  Successes are teachers.  And students are teachers…only if we are paying attention.

Meaningful living is connected with growth.   Through the millennia we have hoisted the idea that learning ennobles the soul and enriches life.  It lends quality to our years.  There is an old adage, “the more things change the more they remain the same.”   What a terrible statement about life.  While it is true that human nature may remain the same we do not have to accept that for ourselves.   We do not have to sop growing just because we pass out of teenage years.  As David’s poem goes, “even in old age they shall bring forth fruit.”  -Psalm 92 

Growth can be ongoing.  And each time we gain wisdom our universe glows a bit brighter.  Life looms larger.  The colors of the world become invested with greater vibrancy.  And length of pales beside the quality of each moment lived.

When Rabbi Noach assumed the rabbinical post from his father, Rabbi Mordecai, his followers noticed subtle changes in the way he did things.  His ways were unlike his father.  The disciples gather and asked why he was conducting himself so differently.  He answered, “I do just as my father did.  Just as he did not imitate, so I do not imitate.”

A life that matters comes from an open heart and an open mind.   Open them to Torah.