B”H
Elul Eating
The King is in the field. It’s the famous chassidic teaching we hear every Elul.
We have all heard it for years, even decades. But what does it really mean for ourselves? For our food?
Yes, we know the yud gimmel middos harachamim are shining. Yes, we have heard that Hashem is “smiling at us.” He is in the field, right there, oh so close.
But…
What.
does.
that.
mean?
Sure, I have learned plenty on the topic. But I still don’t feel it.
Am I supposed to?
I’ve felt it before. I know I experienced Hashem up close and personal almost 25 years ago. Chof hei is my 25th soul anniversary, TYH. But what happened back then? Did I do something to get so up close and personal?
For decades, I’ve grappled with naming that experience. I couldn’t find words for it, let alone understand it.
Craving.
More than 25 years ago, I had a craving. An existential itch that I couldn’t satisfy without running after it.
There were no words for what I was looking for, but there was a knowing. An intuition. A kind of soul knowledge. And I followed it.
That’s what a craving is…something you can’t necessarily put your finger on or explain, but that drives you toward something that needs to be satisfied.
But there is a caveat.
If you don’t give yourself what you truly need, you will still feel unsettled. The desire to quench that internal state will remain unmet. A craving is never about the food or object, but a desire to change an internal state
Only when we give the craving what it truly desires does it settle.
25 years ago, my soul pined for Hashem, and when I went to meet Him in the Chabad House, it felt soothed.
So what did I do?
And how can I bring this attitude all the way down to my plate?
They say a convert always has a Jewish soul; it’s just that, for some reason, Hashem puts it in a non-Jewish body. So the conversion process is about revealing and returning to the truth.
The same is true with Elul.
And the same is true with Elul Eating.
Elul means back to basics. Back to what we already know.
Deep down, we know how we want to show up to our food and which eating habits serve us best.
And then life gets cloudy. Our plates get messy, and what was once clear can feel further and further out of reach.
In Elul, the clouds part and awareness shines through. More than that, the spiritual energy in the air gives us extra strength to follow through with action.
We just have to do it.
Or rather, just do you. Return to the way you know how to eat, the way that is maatim you.
That’s Elul eating, and it’s right there inside you.
Let’s use a Structured Write to access your inner knowing:
When I think back to a time that my eating served me, I was…
This felt right because…
What I was doing was…
What I wasn’t doing was…
Three things I can do now to return to that place are…
This week I will do this one thing to get back to that place…
I know this is right for me because…
