HOW TO AVOID HEART ATTACKS

The Zohar portion of Pinchas, which begins this Shabbat, says that bad fats in the arteries are the cause of sickness and heart disease. The Zohar says good fats are healthy and pure.

The Zohar says our behavior—reactive vs proactive— determines whether the liver leaves the bad fats in our blood or cleanses our blood by removing the bad fats.

It’s not the foods we eat. It’s our behavior. Our consciousness. Which explains why someone that has eaten fatty pastrami sandwiches their whole life lives to 95 while the health nut who has eaten well and worked out every day of their life suddenly drops dead at age 40.

The ego determines the balance of good and bad fats in our bloodstream, good and bad cholesterol in our blood levels.

Same with the arteries that exist in business. Arteries are our relationships, the pathways through which sustenance and Light flow into our lives. And there are arteries in our marriage and among our friends.

All of our relationships are arteries. If we clog our relationships with ego, with selfishness (bad fats), we suffer a heart attack in a business as profits choke up. Or a stroke in a marriage, which causes the paralyzation or death of all passion and romance. Or the death of a beautiful friendship that had lasted twenty years.

When things go wrong, it means the arteries are clogged and blessings cannot flow.

And we can also meditate to unclog the arteries that exist between nations, between Democrats and Republicans, between Arabs and Israelis, and between all the races of people that share our planet.

But meditation MUST include giving up our own “bad fats” — our ego. The more ego we give up, the more we unclog all the arteries.

This is the power that is available this weekend. All we need to do is admit and identify as much internal ugly ego as possible. And the Light of the Torah will purge us of the influence of the egocentric traits that we have identified. The more difficult and painful it is to find and admit our garbage, the more cleansing we, and all nations on earth, will receive.

This is the role of the Israelites.

To be the heart of all the nations. To furnish all people — Muslims, Christians, Hindus, Buddhists, Atheists and all of humankind — with unconditional care, kindness and Light.

The same way the human heart furnishes life-giving blood to all the organs, the Israelites must furnish life-giving Light to all of humankind.

And to share that Light, we MUST unclog all the arteries.

It’s up to us.