"Higher Ground..."

Who knew?? All these years I’ve been reading weight loss books from The Pritikin Diet to The Atkins Diet to the currently popular, Flat Belly Diet. And now I find out that, according to Columbus, Ohio Rabbi Areyah Kaltmann, all I needed to do was consult the Kabbalah for weight loss advice. He is offering a six-week course called "Diet Divine: The Kabalistic Secret to Weight Loss" to help people look at food and self-control differently. The program focuses on Jewish mysticism; the spiritual quest to understand God and the soul.

Rabbi Kaltman is not a nutritionist nor is he a personal trainer, however, he says the Kabbalah teaches that limited beings, such as people, can accomplish extraordinary things. His program tries to help people look at food and self-control differently. The basis for that is in Jewish texts, he says, including some by Kabbalist rabbis who lived 250 years ago and wrote about imperfection. In the texts, they taught that God is most happy when imperfect people overcome their limitations, such as a tendency to binge. "According to Jewish mystical teachings, it's OK to be imperfect," he said. "If God just wanted angels, he didn't have to create the world”.

He says the reason the human head sits above the heart is because the mind must rule over emotions, and those emotions, when they get out of control, often lead to compulsive eating. He also cites Maimonides, the great rabbi who lived 800 years ago and wrote a book about nutrition. Maimonides said to eat until you're three-quarters full and then stop. The Talmud also teaches that food should be eaten slowly and savored. So, according to Kaltmann, "saying no is really saying yes.”
"When you say no to unhealthy food, you're saying yes to your family, you're saying yes to a healthy life," he said. "You're saying yes to feeling like a human being and not an animal."

Other Jewish scholars, like Rabbi Deborah Orenstein, have addressed the teachings too. In her 2007 Rosh Hashonah sermon, she noted that the process of losing weight has instructive parallels to the Jewish practice of Teshuvah. Teshuvah literally means "return" and is the word used to describe the concept of repentance in Judaism. Teshuvah is most frequently associated with the High Holy Days but people can seek forgiveness for wrongs they have committed at any time.

Some of the parallels she draws are:

Taking responsibility- She explains that your level of physical or spiritual fitness today is based on what you did in the past, and choices you have made. Understanding what you’ve done wrong in the past is a precursor to change, but it doesn’t cause transformation. For a different result, you have to make new choices.

Loving and Caring for Your Body- Since the first stage of Teshuvah is physical self-care, we need to make peace with our bodies and be kind to them, in order to effectively carry out the work it takes -- physically and spiritually -- to maintain our fitness.


Giving Some Things Up- Of course, if you’ve ever tried to lose weight you know this. You might have to give up desserts, trans-fats, or large portions. You may even need to stop stocking junk food in your pantry. This also goes, she says, for all kinds of temptation we renounce yet keep accessible.

Taking On New Patterns- Healthy eating (like Teshuvah) is undermined when we confuse it with deprivation. She says both are enhanced when we consider not just what we are renouncing, but what we are gaining. (or, in the case of weight loss, losing).
What healthy foods can you add to your diet to give you better energy? How will losing weight make your joints stronger? With what positive habit might you replace destructive patterns?



Keeping At It. Small Changes Make a Big Difference- Be aware that, with both Teshvuah and eating habits, results are not immediate. You don't practice patience once, or eat well for a day, and see dramatic changes. Persist, and you will.


Judaism embraces the idea of persistence--from the efforts of Moses in ancient times to the modern struggles of Israel to find peace. These lofty goals can work just as well for the individual in a personal struggle with weight loss and maintenance. It's the attitude of not giving up that helps weight losers reach and keep their goal. Another Jewish value which came into play was, that at some point, they experienced an epiphany or moment of truth about their weight.

But faith-based weight loss is nothing new. Christian programs, in particular, have existed for decades.

In March 1981, First Place 4 Health was started by 12 men and women at a Baptist church in Houston. Described by its director as “a Christian Weight Watchers”, the program now has 12,000 chapters in the United States and 20 other countries. In Bod 4 God, Steve Reynolds “The Anti-Fat Pastor” lost more than 100 pounds and launched a successful weight-loss program based on four “keys” from the Bible in his church and community. These programs foster the ideas that gluttony is a sin and human bodies are temples.

Having a keen awareness of just how difficult it can be to distinguish physical needs from vaguer, but no less powerful emotional ones is how all religious practices helps us grow. So, using those same skills to guide your body to health really does seem to make sense.