Eating with Mindfulness and Spirituality: The Torah’s Perspective on Aligning Food Habits with Faith

Did you know that the average human being lives a grand total of 78.6 years? If you're strong and robust, the imbeg vura shema nam shana, we'll make it to 80 years. It should be Hashem's will that we make it to 120 years, I mean. But the going right now for life spans is around give or take 80 years or so. So let's make a quick little hashbun and accounting here. If we're to say that a person will eat three meals a day, definitely that's true. Here in America Also, there are 365 days in a year. I should command it to eat three meals on one of the days of the week, on Chabis, and a person lives till he's 78 years old. It comes out that we will embark on the activity of joining or consuming food, aka having a meal 86,000 separate times in our lifespan. Markable According to one study, a human being will consume more than 250,000 pounds of grub over his lifespan and we will spend more than 32,000 hours involved in the practice that we call down here on Earth eating. So it only makes a bit of sense that we should think and discuss how the Torah wants us to go about this rather frequent practice of it in our lives. And this week's parashas told us, and we come across a word that seems to separate and divide Asav and Yaakov, and it comes by way of how they ate and how they discussed how they ate. So you know the story. But, spoiler alert, asav went out into the field and he was hunting for a game, just having a good time doing his Asav and Nimrodic things. And he comes and he's starving, he's famished, and he sees Yaakov and Vinu making a chulent, a red lentil stew of sorts. It was the day that Avram and Vinu had died and now Asav returns to Yaakov and he says Halli teneina, feed me, men, adoma, adomasa, of this red stuff. He doesn't even take the time to mention the name of the food, he just calls it the red stuff. Actually. Therefore, I'll encourage him or Edom that's why his whole nation's called Edom after the soup Lesson there. Halli teneina, it means feed me, uncle. This maintains the Halli teneina, the way that he said it with this coarse, luscious. It's because it's laat, laat. Halli teneina means a little bit by, a little bit, meaning. I want to see first if it's actually some good chulent Before, like the Willisiana purchase, I sell you literally half the entire kingdom just for something so small like a bowl of chulent. He gave away the bachora just for some chulent, so give me a little bit first to taste. But Rashi, listen to these words. He touches and translates the word Halli teneina like this Halli teneina means f'ach pi. I want to open my mouth, ushe f'och harbe and pour it in lusoch, pour it down my esophagus. I want to grab it and consume it and stuff it down my throat gruelly. This is how he said it Gulp it, stuff it, like the Gamar says in Shabbos. He can't stuff a camel on Shabbos. Ain't my aval mal'itin? Oh so Halli teneina is a stuffing. Rebbe Yorchim says that we find that esoph, the way that he ate, the way he referred to food into stuffing. In this gulping, it's possible for a person to be a part of base Yaakov, a Ben Yaakov, but eat like a Ben Esoph. I wonder what Rebbe Yorchim would say. Nowadays, food has definitely become such a part of our pleasures, part of our culture, in a weird, not sure of the right way. But if we're going to spend so many hours eating, doesn't it make sense that we should try to eat like children of Yaakov? It actually comes up many times in Shochin Archer, la hallachah. It's prohibited to just gulp things down, prohibited to just eat in the streets. And how odd is it just to stand at some sort of varda la chayim Eating cake and having it come off of your face and I'm guilty of having the oil coming down after some kugel, even if I'm talking to a friend. But God forbid that we should be children of Yaakov but still be called eaters like Esau. Doesn't sound very good. Halli teneina, I want to f'toch piv, I want to open my mouth, ushifoch harbe and pour a lot of it in like a big gulp that they sell in 7-11. So let's strive to eat like Jewish people, with regality, eat monarchically, eat pleasantly, eat with dignity, eat like Yaakov and don't eat like Halli teneina, like Esau.