Reply To: Eating milchigs while thinking about fleishigs

Because I listened to a shiur today and the rabbi talked about how our mitzvot are dependent on our intentions.

So if someone is putting on tefillin because he has to but doesn’t want to, the act itself is less valuable than if someone was super excited to put on tefillin. He gave an example of someone who said he couldn’t wait until putting on tefillin the next day. How nice it would be if everyone [men] thought like that, said the rabbi.

I was thinking about my intentions before saying a bracha AND while eating the food.

What if I said the bracha with proper kavanah, but later was eating the same food but thinking about other food.

Then, what if that other food was assur at the time. Or what if I, like I did while eating tonight, imagined eating both meat and dairy while looking at menu ideas.

Oh. Also the rabbi said that why we are eating matters. If someone eats to be healthy and strong to do more mitzvot, that is greater than someone who is eating because he likes the taste of food.

So I was eating without appreciating the food since I thought of other food at the time. I wasn’t eating mindfully.