Lazer Brody's Blog, page 20

The Emuna ABC

Today's shiur is a vital encapsulation of Rabbi Shalom Arush's teachings during our recent North American tour about what emuna really is; it's a game-changer, a lifesaver, and the fast route to genuine emuna, which will change your whole outlook on life. Don't miss this…

The Focal Point of Judaism

Rav Lazer Brody with his esteemed and beloved teacher Rav Shalom Arush shlit'a during their recent "Emuna is our Future" tour in North America

My esteemed and beloved teacher Rabbi Shalom Arush writes: "Human dignity should be in our focus always. People asked the Chazon Ish: 'What is the pinnacle of spiritual levels that a person can reach in this world?" He answered, "to traverse one's seventy years on earth without harming a single person'. The first priority in harm prevention is being careful not to hurt one's spouse and children. One's child is the Almighty's creation as well as one's spouse. No one has the right to hurt them."

Don't be satisfied with the above quote; continue reading Family Focus: Dignity by Rabbi Shalom Arush in this week's thought-provoking issue of Breslev Israel web magazine:

Also featured this week:

Rabbi Lazer Brody - The Master Smuggler

Dr. Zev Ballen - Deep-Freezing the Past

Racheli Reckles - Split Ends

Yehudit Channen - Moment of Clarity

Dennis Rosen - Uman Closeup with Rav Arush

David Ben Horin - Inside the Shell

Alizah Teitelbaum - School of Hard Knocks

Enjoy, and have a lovely new week! 

Shape Up

The anti-Semites characterize Jews as hook-nosed and pot-bellied.

Our hooked noses come from our Semitic origins. But pot bellies? They're not Jewish at all. To serve Hashem - without fooling yourself, because you're certainly not fooling Hashem - a person must be in good shape. This is an absolute requirement of Judaism, as the Rambam teaches us. Six-pack abs are a perfect complement to the Six Orders of the Mishna...

Look forward to some exciting Emuna Fitness vid clips and articles, designed to make you feel good and look great. We've got some big plans here at the Beams, and G-0d willing, Emuna Fitness will soon return, big-time.

The Four Levels of Thought, Deed and Speech

Shavua Tov! Each happening in life falls into the category of thought, speech and deed, or combination of them. Each thought, speech or deed, when assessed on a spiritual level, falls into one of four quality levels, which we'll learn today with Hashem's help:

Parshat Chayei Sara: Eliezer's Exquisite Example

This week's Torah portion gives us more detail about Eliezer's prayers to Hashem than the entire Torah gives us about such major laws as observing the Sabbat. Why? Enjoy this 10-minute mini-shiur and have a lovely Shabbat!

Dr. Zev's Upcoming Webinar: Emuna in Action!

Bye, Bye, Diabetes!

Rav Brody and I are big on being healthy (except on Shabbat in my case,) and we've decided that our mission together isn't just about helping others heal their souls. It's also about helping others heal their bodies. Let's be honest - what good is a healthy soul without a healthy body? Can you properly express your soul's potential if you're 350+ pounds and full of atherosclerosis, diabetes, and other chronic diseases from the progressively longer list? I think it's safe to say no, you can't. 

In our joint quest to better our own health, we've discovered many things about modern medicine that ain't so pretty. I don't want to get into all of it now, because this post will never end if I do, but the bottom line of our discovery is that the modern medical model does not aim to prevent or cure disease. Doctors are not the ones to go to for dietary advice or lifestyle changes. While they can help with an acute problem, they can do very little to fix a chronic problem. Furthermore, many cannot offer any advice as to where a person can turn to for alternative therapies.

So Rav Brody and I have decided to do what we can to help our readers achieve optimal health, both spiritually and physically. You deserve to know something critical: most, if not all, chronic illnesses are treatable and reversible, with minimal drug intervention, and in many cases, no drug intervention at all.

This statement of fact is not coming from our own mouths. It's coming from the mouths of the top research scientists in the world, a fact that has been known in the elite scientific circles for many years. So this bold statement begs the question: how are chronic illnesses like diabetes, heart disease, cancer, etc., curable? The answer is simple. Chronic diseases such as these and many more are all related to diet. Bad genetics, bad luck, being born under the wrong astrological sign are all excuses created to distract us from the truth. If you would like to know more about the connection between diet and health, read the first on my series of articles, The Protein-Cancer Connection. 

So let's talk about diabetes. I'll try to keep this as short as possible, and if you're interested, send me a comment and I'll forward you more info. Basically, Type II Diabetes people have a hard time handling all of the sugar in their blood, so their bodies respond by producing large amounts of insulin in an attempt to lower their blood sugar. When the body can't lower its blood sugar levels with the insulin that it produces, they are then required to inject even more insulin in order to keep the blood sugar levels from shooting up too high. This creates a vicious cycle that seems inescapable.

But, there is a way out! It's a combination of intermittent fasting, exercise, and eating healthy. You see, your body runs on two energy sources: sugar or fat. It can't run on both of them at the same time, however. Every time you eat, you signal your pancreas to release insulin. Furthermore, it takes about 12 hours of not eating for your body to switch from burning sugar as its fuel source to burning fat. 

These two factors combined keep you not only in a constant state of releasing insulin, but they also make it nearly impossible for your body to reach your fat stores and use them up. In other words, if you are constantly eating, especially starchy, sugary foods, you will never lose weight and you will never get yourself out of the deadly diabetic downward spiral. 

You can jump start yourself out of this illness with intermittent fasting! Here's what you do: after your dinner, don't eat. If you're still hungry, drink unsweetened herbal tea or water. Hunger comes and goes in waves; if you can stick through it, it will pass. When you wake up in the morning, do your best not to eat! Drink a coffee or tea with stevia, NOT sugar.

Try to make it until 10am without eating. If you're feeling super hungry like you're going to faint, here are some suggestions: a handful of macadamia nuts, walnuts, any nut with a high fat content, or an avocado. You can also take a 1/2 teaspoon of coconut oil in a little bit of warm water. These healthy, high-fat foods will fill you up and give you a boost of energy. The point is not to eat anything with a high sugar content that will spike your blood sugar. Whenever you break your fast and/or eat, make sure it's foods that either keep your blood sugars relatively stable or do not spike your blood sugar. This means no junk foods, starchy foods, sodas, and sugary snacks. Also, please don't substitute diet drinks and snacks. While they may not spike your blood sugar, they are certainly extremely unhealthy and won't benefit your body in any way.

Fasting makes your body go into ketosis, which means it is burning up the stored glycogen in the liver, and it's now burning up all of those fat stores for energy.

If you do this every day and exercise a few MORNINGS a week, you are well on your way to curing diabetes! 

Now let's talk about eating. Here's something you need to keep in mind: the more sugar and starch in your food, the higher it will raise your blood sugar. So the key is that when you do eat, make most of your meal whole plant proteins from vegetables and fruits, and absolutely stay away from processed carbs and sugary drinks. If you really feel that you must have animal protein, keep it to lean meat and keep your portions below 10% of your entire meal. The bulk of your food should come from fruits and vegetables. 

We're actually giving you a 2-for-1 deal, here. You're not only going to cure your diabetes, but you're going to lose tons of weight doing it!

And by the way, I'm actually doing what I wrote here. Thank G-d I don't have diabetes, but I do fast every day until around noon. The secret is the coconut oil and the exercise. I have a coffee and a side of warm water/coconut oil about an hour before I exercise. The coconut oil and the exercise keep me from being hungry, and that gives me another few precious hours of ketosis. 

Please keep in touch and let us know how you're doing!

~Racheli

The Emuna ABC

Today's live broadcast and shiur from Jerusalem is an encapsulation of Rabbi Shalom Arush's teachings during our recent "Emuna is Our Future" Tour to North America.

It's a game-changer and a lifesaver so don't miss it.

Join us for today's emuna lesson and live broadcast from Jerusalem entitled "The Emuna ABC", which will take place, G-d willing, on the ground-floor main sanctuary of the Chut Shel Chessed Yeshiva on 13 Shmuel Hanavi Street in Jerusalem at 7 PM Israel time (important - Israel is now on winter time); the shiur is open to the public - both men and women are invited. You can see today's lesson here - the broadcast, as well as our lessons posted from now on - are Mac and iPod compatible. If you tune in too early to the live broadcast link, you'll be sent to the main page of the Breslev Israel website, so try to tune in on time.  If you are not able to view today's broadcast live, then G-d willing, you'll be able to see the video tape of it later this coming week on Lazer Beams. 

Daily Centering

Here's something I picked up from a health-and-fitness coach's manual from one of the recent refresher courses I took (the bold-letter emphases are mine):

"The very first way to combat stress is to have your clients begin the exercise of taking 10 minutes each day - to simply sit and center themselves with their thoughts. They can find a quiet room somewhere and as they do, they should simply clear their mind or let their thoughts take place and then release them. This is a form of meditation and it can do wonders for helping to restore central nervous system balance, reducing ongoing stress and helping them feel that much better on a day to day basis. If they can’t do this for 10 minutes – 5 minutes will suffice. Any amount of time done daily or as close to daily a possible will have a very positive influence on their stress levels."

I don't know how many other health-and-fitness coaches follow the teachings of Rebbe Nachman, but the author of the above manual is right on the money. If 10 minutes daily ("5 minutes will suffice") does so much good for a person's nervous system, stress levels and overall good feeling, then imagine what 60 minutes a day of secluded personal prayer accomplishes! This is quality time, alone with Hashem, where you collect your thoughts, clarify issues and simply recharge body and soul. I like to do my daily sessions while walking, especially somewhere secluded and beautiful where heart and soul open wide up. It's the key to self-composure, happiness and sanity. Try it - you'll love it.

The Truth about Anger Management

"Normal" doesn't necessarily mean "healthy". A cave dweller thinks that darkness is normal, and can't fathom the beauty and the benefits of sunlight. In the same way, tranquility is so elusive today that many people don't even consider it a realistic emotional goal. Yet, if we want to escape a lifelong fate of emotional darkness, we desperately need to find a way back into the "emotional sunlight" that is the birthright of each and every one of us.

A good example of this confusion between "normal" and "healthy" comes from the American Psychological Association. In their position paper on anger, they conclude: "Remember, you can't eliminate anger - and it wouldn't be a good idea if you could. Anger is a natural, adaptive response to threats; it inspires powerful, often aggressive, feelings and behaviors, which allow us to fight and to defend ourselves when we are attacked. A certain amount of anger, therefore, is necessary to our survival."

These words strike me as most peculiar. They seem to assume that we all live in a dangerous jungle, where only the biggest, angriest inhabitants manage to survive. In fact, I can testify from my own personal combat experience in one of the world's most elite military units that anger clouds decisions and lowers effectiveness. If we're talking about survival, an angry soldier is far less likely to survive that a calm one. A good soldier has to be cool-headed in order to function at an optimal level. An angry soldier, by contrast, is a menace to both himself and his brothers in arms. And if that's true in the high-stress battlefield arena, it's certainly true on the city streets.

Most of conventional psychology's anger-management programs are based on the faulty assumption that "containable" anger is a good and even necessary thing. For example, the APA suggests that with anger management therapy "a highly angry person can move closer to a middle range of anger in about 8 to 10 weeks". Translated, that means that you won't break windows anymore, but you'll still be gritting your teeth, clenching your fists, and maintaining your candidacy for heart disease and strokes.

The basic flaw with this approach is easy to understand once you realize an important truth about anger: Fundamentally, anger is an addiction. And you can't "manage" an addiction - as any drug, tobacco, or alcohol rehabilitation specialist will tell you. An alcoholic can't limit himself to two Bloody Marys a day, just as a heavy smoker can't cut back to five cigarettes a day. The results are not permanent! Addiction management requires a huge amount of sustained willpower. Why invest so much physical and emotional energy when better options are available?

Oh, you'd like an example of a better option than substances or anger management? Try combining walking with personal prayer. The Trail to Tranquility will also make a dramatic change in your life for the better.