Help Israel's Farmers - And Help Yourself

Special Healthy Jew workshop this Tuesday - "Israel Needs Healthy Jews - Finding Wellness During Wartime."

Jan 14, 2024

Dear Healthy Jew,

When the history of this terrible war will be written, one of its motifs, I have no doubt, will be Israel’s farms.

After October 7, hundreds of Israeli farms lost their Arab and Asian workers overnight in the middle of the fall harvesting season. To save their brothers’ produce and livelihood, Jews from all over the world poured into Israel’s countryside to work as farm hands.

Several weeks ago, we took our Lev Hatorah gap-year guys to an orange grove not far from the Gazan border, and picked over 20 tons of delicious fruit - a tiny fraction of the long overdue harvest. We probably ate another ton right in the orchard. It’s sad to think of the hundreds of more tons that are probably rotting on the ground right now.

Israel Needs Healthy Jews

Israel’s farmers need help, and Israel’s people are showing up to help them.

But Israel’s people too also need help - you, me, and every Jew living in Israel and abroad.

In recent months, our nation has suffered terrible pain:

Thousands have been through unspeakable, Holocaust-esque horrors.
Hundreds of thousands have lost their homes and livelihoods.
Millions are watching along with shock (“how could that happen?”) and fear (“am I next?”).

Life is in Session

Yet traumatic experiences are nothing new to the Jewish people, or, for that matter, to humankind.

By leaving our mothers’ wombs, we signed up for challenges and stresses of all shapes and sizes:

wars
serious illness
family crises
financial troubles
that irritating boss, friend, parent, child, you name it
just going through everyday life (that’s often the hardest one for me!)

Hard times such as these can break us - or grow us.

We can’t know ahead of time whether a crisis will leave us stronger or shattered. Nevertheless, our choices influence how life’s struggles will affect our lives. We don’t need to be innocent bystanders, watching ourselves unravel while we look on.

We can meet and greet any challenge with healthy Jewish living.

We can take our health and wellness seriously - not only to make life possible, but because that’s we’re good choices begin.

We can put ourselves first, because God thinks we’re worth it.

Thank you for reading Healthy Jew.

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Also check out this intro and index to explore hundreds of posts about our 3 Healthy Jew topics: Wellness with Wisdom, Land of Life (Israel), and Sensible Spirituality.