The Ramchal on Eating

In Mesilas Yesharim, Chapter 15 – the Ramchal says:

There is no pleasure more tangible and more palpable than that of eating. Yet is there anything more short-lived and fleeting that the pleasure of eating?

The food is enjoyed for the short time when it is in a person’s throat, and once it leaves the throat to descend into the intestines, its memory is lost and the food is forgotten, as if it had never existed.

Enough black bread will satiate one to the same extent as fattened geese.

One will be made especially aware of the truth of what is being said if he considers the many illnesses connected with eating or the heaviness and dull mindedness that one experiences after eating improperly.

These considerations would unquestionably cause one to avoid unhealthy eating, after seeing its limited upside and big downside.

One comment on “The Ramchal on Eating

  1. “Yet is there anything more short-lived and fleeting that the pleasure of eating?”

    Maybe sex.

    And interestingly those are the two things specifically mentioned in Ramban’s famous introduction to Parshat Kedoshim. We can be technically kosher but evil with the “permission” of the Torah. We are to be holy in everything. Rambam codifies that we must follow the middle path in everything except arrogance which we must completely avoid.

    Thank you for reminding me of this.

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