When an Apple Is Not Just an Apple

The students looked at each other a bit perplexed until one had the courage to say, “An apple.”

“Right, but there’s more,” Rabbi Orlowek said. “It’s really a telegram from Hashem— that He loves us.”

The lesson is hakaros hatov, appreciating that everything we have in life is not coming to us. The Almighty is not paying back a debt He owes us. It’s all a gift—and the Giver cares for us more than we can imagine.

Rav Avigdor Miller zt”l would share a similar message.

As we know, the function of food is for nutrition, to provide fuel for the body so it can sustain itself in this world. Hashem could have created all nourishment in the form of “astronaut food”—freeze-dried and bland, without any color or texture. It would have served exactly the same purpose.

But instead, Hashem gave us an apple. Nutritious? Absolutely. But also sweet, colorful, and crunchy to bite into. It smells good, looks good, and tastes good. What a gift. What an op- portunity to appreciate how much of an “effort” Hashem made to give us pleasure in this world.

It’s also a lesson in yeridas hadoros, decline in the generations. We are taught that every generation further away from the giving of the Torah on Har Sinai is on a lower spiritual level— another step removed from the source of eternal truth as it was given in this world.

The same holds true for what we eat. The more we process and manipulate foods, the further we take them from their original form, the more we deplete their nutritional value.

Fruit leather is one example. Fruit in name only, this food is a concentration of sugar baked into a cavity-causing candy.

However, by enjoying food in its pristine condition, exactly the way Hashem gave it to us, we can take full advantage of the gifts of our Creator and benefit both physically and spiritually.

Try a piece of fruit for dessert today and enjoy the telegram.

Rabbi Eli Glaser, CNWC, CWMS, is the founder and director of Soveya and the author of the best-selling book Enough Is Enough—How the Soveya Solution Is Revolutionizing the Diet and Weight-Loss World, available on Amazon and at Barnes & Nobles and Judaica Plaza in Lakewood. He has worked with thousands of clients around the world and has maintained a 130-pound weight loss for the last 19 years. For more information about Soveya’s programs call 732-578-8800, email info@soveya.com, or visit www. soveya.com.

By Esther Retek