Rambam On Health

Remark: The great physician and Kabbalist Rambam wrote: “Taking care of one’s health is a component on the path to the Creator, for it is difficult to understand and attain while being sick. Therefore a person should distance himself from everything that is harmful to the body, and accustom himself to what is healthy, to rebuild his well-being.”

My Comment: Rambam’s words can be interpreted on the spiritual level, as well as on the physical one, either of them is correct.

Everything written by him comes from spiritual attainment, so he was a great healer. His medical tractates and drawings still remain; they show how to trepan the skull, the brain, and how to treat such areas of our body that we still know very little about today. You can gain a great deal from his writings. I would advise doctors to learn from them.

Question: Would it be possible for a person to understand anything in Rambam’s books without instruction, without a teacher? He writes about spiritual states.

Answer: Relatively, yes. An ancient book survived to this day, called Rambam’s Recipes. But who would use it? It is written there that you should take, let’s say, some kind of a tree, mix it with something else, use it in a certain way, etc. In our day and age, there are amateurs that are engaged with this, but generally people prefer to take a pill and be done with it. No one will search for various roots, branches, or minerals.

Question: Is it true that during a meal a person should engage all his five senses? So there should be music and aromas?

Answer: This is how it was done in the past. A regular meal was conducted with music, scents, while assuming the correct position, leaning to your left, etc. All this is supported by our physiology.

Rambam wrote: “Every time a person eats, he should sit or lay leaning on his left. One should not walk or ride a horse, work, or make sharp movements, nor stroll until the food is digested.”

Remark: It is hard to imagine eating this way.

My Comment: Indeed, today we grab a hamburger on the street, inhaling some exhaust fumes with it, or drink a bottle of soda that contains 20 teaspoons of sugar per 200 grams of water, and this is considered normal.
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From the Kabbalah Lesson in Russian 8/20/17