A Healthy Start

I was born in New York City and reared in an orthodox Jewish home that kept all the laws of the Bible implicitly. In 1972, my family was living in a Jewish religious neighborhood in Brooklyn. I was very close to my mother. She taught me how to clean, cook, sew and do all kinds of needlework and crafts. After I started the seventh grade, my mother became very weak. She couldn't keep her job. She used to work as a secretary from 9:00 A.M. to 5:00 P.M., but suddenly she lost all her strength and enthusiasm. Mommy remained exhausted in bed all day except for supervising my brother and me in the kitchen and laying down on the couch in the afternoon. All the housework fell on me. I attended to all the dishes, the laundry, and the vacuuming. I also cooked most of the meals with my mother's guidance.

In the spring of 1973 when I was thirteen years old, I worked in preparation for the Passover holiday, known as Pesach in Hebrew. I cleaned and changed over all the dishes and scrubbed the kitchen appliances according to the laws of the eight-day festival. After the holiday, I had to pack up all the Passover dishes in one night. My mother was too tired, so I did it all by myself. I worked until midnight and then I came to my parents' bedroom to inform them that I had finished. My father was very pleased and proud of me. He went back to his bedroom, returned and offered me ten dollars. Ten dollars was a lot of money in those days. I used to baby-sit at that time and made a dollar an hour. I told my father that I didn't agree to lose out on the reward of my mitzvah (Hebrew for good deed) for ten dollars. I said, "It's not worth it. I worked too hard to sell this mitzvah for just ten dollars!" My father was shocked but impressed. He went into his bedroom and told my mother. Until this day I am not sure if they appreciated the extent of my unique sense of religious commitment.

Mitzvah means a commandment from God in the Torah. It also refers to a moral deed or act of kindness as in the above example.

Today I know that there is nothing wrong with getting paid for doing a good deed. You don't lose out on Hashem's reward because of monetary compensation even if the mitzvah is part of your job like a teacher or a nurse. However, I do want my readers to understand how even as a young child I was very spiritual and devout.

Devotion to Hashem

As I matured I continued to grow in my level of faith and devotion. To fulfill the commandment to "Honor Your Father and Mother," I respected my parents, no matter what they did. I started praying from the prayer book, with deep concentration, attending to every single word. I also took my schoolwork very seriously and excelled in Bible studies.

I worked on myself to develop a love for God. We learned in school that if you say to Hashem, "I love You, Hashem" you would start feeling love for Him. I already learned from the first grade that it is a mitzvah to love Hashem. We say every day in the prayer book that you should "Love Hashem with all your heart, all your soul and all your strength." (Deuteronomy 6:5). My faith gave me the strength and perseverance to excel in my studies and in my household chores.

Health Food

My mother's illness was diagnosed as a thyroid problem. The medication that was prescribed to her didn't help her recuperate her strength. A few months after Passover, my mother finally visited a private doctor. He was a pioneer in a new field called megavitamin therapy. He instructed us to remove all the white flour, white sugar and white rice from the house.

My father meticulously threw out all the unhealthy products from the house. He bought large sacks of whole-wheat flour and brown rice plus a large jar of honey. I was fourteen years old at the time but very precocious. I learned to make breads and cakes. I practiced altering recipes from white flour to whole wheat and from white sugar to honey. My parents also bought books and magazines about nourishment which I relished. Adele Davis was my favorite author. Today I know she made mistakes. Nevertheless, I respect her for her many breakthroughs in the field of nutrition and vitamins. The doctor that treated my mother prescribed vitamins in large doses for both her and my younger brother, who was very hyperactive. My mother completely followed this new doctor's regimen and she regained her health after a year of illness. She returned to work with even more energy than before. I was thrilled and became encouraged to learn more about nutrition, vitamins and minerals.

I came to school with whole-wheat crackers, an unpeeled carrot and a cucumber. In those days, it was unheard of not to peel vegetables. I learned that most of the vitamins are in the peels, so why discard the best part?

At first, the girls made fun of me. Even though I was usually very shy, when talking about health food I was proud and confident. I would open a box of whole-wheat crackers in the late afternoon and distribute them to everyone. They were thrilled because everyone was already hungry by the end of the day. By the end of the year, one of the most popular girls in my class brought unpeeled carrots, cucumbers and whole wheat crackers to school.

A Teacher's Advice

When I was in the tenth grade I had a private talk with my Bible teacher and told her that I wanted to improve my level of religious observance. She advised me to write a diary and specify in each day what I did right or wrong. She said that just writing would make me grow. The diary really did help me advance emotionally and spiritually. When I browse through it today, I can find stories that I have no memory of at all. It is fascinating to learn about myself from my own words of the past.

At the time, we were living in a neighborhood of young Jewish families. There were lots of children on my block and I started working as a baby-sitter in the evenings. The dollar an hour I earned was enough to pay for my own carfare, clothing, a new tape recorder, and even to have enough left over to save a little in my own bank account.

Thus, I blossomed into a little lady at age fifteen. I began to exude a bit more self-confidence concerning my new ventures into the world of health food and into earning my own allowance. Slowly I became more socially outgoing and began making more friends.

I have never stopped learning about natural medicine, vitamins, and herbs. When I was first married and was waiting to have children, we didn't have money to purchase books. A friend bought me the book called Laurel's Kitchen by Laurel Robertson, Carol Flinders, and Bronwen Godfrey. My sister in...