Leading a wholistic life

Down deep, everyone strives to lead a life of wholeness.

In this day and age, we live in such a fast paced lifestyle governed by time, money, materialism. It's time to stop and listen -- not get caught up in the swirl of rushing, fleeing from one place to the next. It's time to be in our stillness and be directed in a more profound, more powerful way than we have ever before.

There is no time like the present to come to our center, our own power-that place inside of us where we know, we innately know and have all the answers within.

That place where goodness resides, where love lives, where giveness and beauty are present every moment. It's that place where we know we are somehow all connected in some profound way, no matter the color of our skin, the way we pray or the rules we follow in our practice.

It's a time when we see each other on the street -- whether someone homeless or a mother walking with her child or an elder who needs help crossing to the other side, it's time to connect, look each other in the eye and say hello and wish them well.

It's also a time to walk a consciousness life in mind, body and spirit, not only in our relations with others, but in our relation to ourselves.

Sacred Cuisine - the art of divine cooking and eating with Leah Wolf

I love to entertain! For me, inviting people to dinner is one of the most fulfilling activities in my life.

Look at all the wonderful features: making people feel great in another environment; bringing the exciting tastes of nature to the palate of my guests; expressing my creativity through texture and colour; and most importantly, elevating plant and animal life through the sacred act of eating.

I spend a large part of my life helping people maintain the 'temple of their soul'. We all know how a healthy mind correlates with a healthy body. "think positive and the outcome will be positive" is a teaching by one of the great Hassidic Masters.

But the reverse is true as well. How we eat, what we eat, the state of mind and heart when we eat, the combinations of foods, correct foods in the appropriate season, the company we keep while we eat, and the love that we expend in preparing the food, all contribute to our wellness of body.

Food as medicine is a well-established teaching in my tradition. It appears in the most ancient of the spiritual Jewish texts, it was espoused by Hippocrates, and it also works in my kitchen today! What do we do when we eat?

In Kabbalah we learn that we actually elevate the 'sparks of soul' in the very food on our plate. But this can only be achieved through sacred cooking and sacred eating.