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Someone told me that you don’t gain weight from Shabbos food because your neshama yeseira uses up the extra calories. But suppose you want to gain weight! How do you keep you neshama yeseira from preventing your weight gain?
Considering the fact that the Neshama is a purely spiritual construct that does not rely upon the burning of sugars for energy and sustenance, I fail to see how the NY could possibly use up any extra calories.
The Wolf
the Neshama is a purely spiritual construct
Yet somehow, it enables you eat more.
Yet somehow, it enables you eat more.
Does it? Or is eating more on Shabbos merely a learned behavior?*
The Wolf
* Example: About ten years ago, I lost a lot of weight. What I discovered was that a lot of my eating wasn’t because I was hungry, but because of learned behaviors. For example, if I was going to sit down and watch TV, I needed a snack — even if I wasn’t hungry. I would literally spend time searching the cabinets for something to eat while watching TV. Learned behaviors can be sneaky — you don’t even realize them until you try to combat them.
Wolf, Rashi in Beitzah (16a) and Taanis (27b) says that the neshomo yeseirah helps a person eat and drink more.
I still disagree with the premise told to the OP. The neshomo yeseira leaves, but the guf yeseira remains. 🙂
DY: Don’t some read Rashi as saying that it allows you to enjoy the food more?
The way I understand that Rashi is that the Neshama Yeseira causes the mind to broaden. The Gemara in Gittin says that you shouldn’t eat till your stomach is completely full, because if you get angry it pumps up your stomach and can harm it. So, if there is no danger of getting angry, thanks to the Neshama Yeseira, you can eat much more.
Sam and Haleivi, my point to Wolf was that it has physical ramifications, no matter how you read Rashi. I disagree with the OP, though, because there’s no reason to think that eating more won’t result in weight gain.
Gosh what do I do about my boich yeseira?
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