Matters of the Heart

The last post got me thinking about the heart on a different level. 

We often refer to the heart as the source of our emotions, our spirituality. In essence it is our life source on so many levels. 

A defective heart has catastrophic ramifications. Someone who is emotionally stunted will have difficulty with relationships. A spiritually defective heart will have a hard time connecting to G-d, to one's own spirituality. No one needs me to go into the myriad of problems that come about for a person that has a physical defect. 

We all do things to make sure we keep "heart healthy." We eat our cheerios, exercise. We carefully guard who we let in and who we don't. Spiritually, the Torah gives us guidelines. What will keep our hearts healthy. Clearly, keeping the mitzvos all 613 of them, maintain the strength of our heart, it allows for us to maintain a relationship with G-d. But there are certain mitzvos we know that define us as Jews. Certain mitzvos, if we did not keep them, it would be like taking a syringe of cholesterol and sticking it straight into your heart, thereby blocking all blood flow to the body.

One of these mitzvos is kosher. Hashem tells us that eating treif is "mitamtem et halev" it blocks the heart. Someone who does not keep kosher has made it extremely difficult to ever connect spirituality. The non-kosher food puts a blockade around the heart making it difficult, not impossible, but extremely difficult for any inspiration, holiness or connection to penetrate the fortress that has been put up.

Yesterday in class a girl was eating pretzels and offered me one. There was no bag but I asked her what brand it was..she didn't know. Since there was no box present there was no checking. She told me "I'm sure its kosher. you want?" I said thanks..but when in doubt do without.

Kashrus is not something to mess with. We face enough spiritual challenges as it is. The world is filled with enough darkness and impurity as it is. My challenges that i bring on my own, too numerous to count. But keeping my heart healthy? That is not something I want to mess with. If i keep my heart strong then I have a fighting chance against Manhattan. So I choose to eat right.