Somachat Alayich - Episode 9 - Vaccines: Yes/No!?

00:00 Speaker 1 Okay.

00:01 Speaker 2 Ready?

00:01 Speaker 1 Come on, start the music. Shomachat Alayich.

00:07 Speaker 2 Shomachat Alayich.

00:08 Speaker 1 Michal Levitin, how are you?

00:10 Speaker 2 Chani Marzel. Thank Hashem.

00:13 Speaker 1 What an atmosphere, what an atmosphere.

00:15 Speaker 2 We’re out in the yard, a new location.

00:19 Speaker 1 I think we can start.

00:20 Speaker 2 Okay, fine.

00:25 Speaker 1 So, how are you?

00:26 Speaker 2 Wow, boruch Hashem.

00:27 Speaker 1 Wow, we haven’t seen each other in ages.

00:28 Speaker 2 Right.

00:29 Speaker 1 Pesach.

00:30 Speaker 2 Really.

00:31 Speaker 1 How was your Pesach?

00:32 Speaker 2 Oh, I can see you enjoyed Pesach. It shows in your eyes.

00:37 Speaker 1 Yes, we enjoyed it.

00:38 Speaker 2 Honestly, we enjoyed it too, as much as we could with all the sirens and everything. But you know, it’s a holiday of food, a holiday of family. A holiday of... I remember posting a status: “Chol Hamoed is a time for food and family.” And someone wrote back, “Why, what have we had for the last two months?”

00:56 Speaker 1 Totally. But for you, Chol Hamoed is...

00:59 Speaker 2 Work.

01:00 Speaker 1 Work.

01:00 Speaker 2 So for me, it really was.

01:02 Speaker 1 You got your...

01:04 Speaker 2 Yes.

01:04 Speaker 1 Did you manage to enjoy it?

01:05 Speaker 2 Yes, of course.

01:06 Speaker 1 How nice.

01:07 Speaker 2 I always enjoy being in the kitchen, and that’s something that...

01:10 Speaker 1 I thought you’d fly somewhere for Pesach.

01:11 Speaker 2 Wow, I wish. Amen—hopefully by the time we release this, I’ll already be on vacation somewhere.

01:17 Speaker 1 Because this is when you always take a vacation.

01:18 Speaker 2 Right. By this time, we usually know where we’re going and for how long, and we’re making plans. Right now, we have nothing.

01:25 Speaker 1 We’re in a ceasefire.

01:27 Speaker 2 We’re in a ceasefire.

01:27 Speaker 1 What does a ceasefire mean to you?

01:31 Speaker 2 Wow. A ceasefire is like... Well, first of all, never mind the disappointment that Moshiach didn’t come, that...

01:39 Speaker 1 That we were sure...

01:40 Speaker 2 On Seder night.

01:41 Speaker 1 We decided to sing a Pesach song, certain that it was happening.

01:43 Speaker 2 I’m still disappointed from Seder night, but yes. We said, “Come on, the Seudas Moshiach—it’s going to happen,” and it didn’t. And then it was like...

01:49 Speaker 1 We got our hopes up a bit during COVID too.

01:50 Speaker 2 Right.

01:52 Speaker 1 We were sure we’d go out onto our balconies and all that.

01:55 Speaker 2 What else has to happen? What’s going on?

01:56 Speaker 1 There’s a theory about that, but okay.

01:58 Speaker 2 Yes, I once asked my grandmother, may she be well, “Why hasn’t Moshiach come?” She said, “He’s walking slowly.” And I said, “Even if he were crawling, he should have arrived by now.”

02:05 Speaker 1 I think he’s here; we just need to open our eyes.

02:08 Speaker 2 That’s it, I need to talk about that. We’ll do a podcast about opening our eyes too. What does it mean to open our eyes?

02:16 Speaker 1 It’s something the Rebbe said many years ago. Remember, we grew up hearing it, and I never understood what... And today I often live it and see it. I mean, I... This isn’t the true and complete Geulah, and it isn’t the Beis Hamikdash or the resurrection of the dead. And with Hashem’s help, I’m curious to know what that will be like and when it will happen. But I think we’re living on the wavelength of personal Geulah, where we can reach a place of personal Geulah. Then you see Hakadosh Boruch Hu, and you live with that. And in many of the things you do, you’re living in Geulah too.

02:50 Speaker 2 Right.

02:50 Speaker 1 With a Geulah perspective, it’s...

02:52 Speaker 2 Okay, so people will say, “Fine, but you’re special.”

02:55 Speaker 1 No. No, nobody is special in that way. It takes work, and I believe that one person’s personal Geulah, and another’s, and another’s, will bring the true and complete Geulah. And that’s what I do, by the way, in my shlichus with Motzi’ah Or La’or.

03:09 Speaker 2 Right, okay. And that’s what I do in my shlichus with Shomachat Alayich too, but...

03:13 Speaker 1 Right.

03:13 Speaker 2 Still.

03:14 Speaker 1 So it takes work, but it’s the wavelength you’re on. But that’s not the topic of this episode.

03:21 Speaker 2 I have no idea what the topic of this episode is.

03:23 Speaker 1 Yes.

03:24 Speaker 2 Anyway, you asked how I feel about the ceasefire. I felt like, you know, I was ready for us to be done with this already, for the Iranian threat to be removed, and suddenly you realize... I don’t know. It’s this kind of inner disappointment, because the Hamas threat hasn’t been removed and the Hezbollah threat hasn’t been removed. And... what are they doing there? I mean, what are they removing, apart from the... the...

03:48 Speaker 1 That’s the point: Hakadosh Boruch Hu is running this, and it’s okay.

03:50 Speaker 2 Right.

03:51 Speaker 1 Now, if we go back to the Geulah from Egypt... Wow, I’m starting to feel like some kind of Rebbetzin.

03:55 Speaker 2 Well, I like it.

03:55 Speaker 1 What happened? What happened? There was the plague of blood, and what did they say? “Here we go, here we go, now we’re leaving Egypt.” No. Then came the plague of frogs. That’s what we’re going through today. But it will come... We’re already there. I have no doubt about it.

04:09 Speaker 2 Okay, okay, Chani, I don’t doubt that it will come either, but still...

04:14 Speaker 1 But I think we have a lot of work to do. And of course there’s prayer and faith too, but it’s about working on it and living there. That’s what I think.

04:25 Speaker 2 I agree with that thought.

04:27 Speaker 1 Not that I manage to live that way all the time, but it’s a wavelength I live on quite a lot, boruch Hashem.

04:34 Speaker 2 That’s why you’re here with me.

04:35 Speaker 1 Right, and I think what we’re doing together...

04:37 Speaker 2 We’re on the same wavelength.

04:38 Speaker 1 Michal, I think what we’re doing together is exactly that. And I’ll tell you something else—I shared this with you. There was a day... Which day was it that I opened the discussion group?

04:48 Speaker 2 Right.

04:49 Speaker 1 The club’s discussion group. I saw what the women were writing and I said, “Wow, isn’t this Geulah?”

04:54 Speaker 2 It is.

04:55 Speaker 1 Great.

04:55 Speaker 2 It’s Geulah.

04:56 Speaker 1 So I’m saying, it’s one more and another and another and another, until all of us are ready for...

05:02 Speaker 2 Amen. Okay, this is just the moment for some kind of...

05:06 Speaker 1 What do you want? What? Anyway, Michal, we’ve arranged a game here, and you’ll enjoy all sorts of sounds along the way. I’ll tell you what I want to talk about with you today.

05:16 Speaker 2 So what is it? What’s the topic?

05:18 Speaker 1 A topic I’ve noticed you know a lot about. I know less. Not that I’m someone who knows a lot about things.

05:25 Speaker 2 Chani, you know plenty.

05:28 Speaker 1 I know less about this, but I’ve seen that it’s part of your life and you’re passionate about it. I mean, once you posted something about it and got a lot of negative responses too—unfriendly ones, probably from people who don’t know you very well.

05:40 Speaker 2 About what? About chocolate being a fruit, so you can eat it like a fruit salad?

05:46 Speaker 1 I didn’t see that one.

05:47 Speaker 2 Oh, okay.

05:47 Speaker 1 Sorry, it’s the subject of health—vaccines.

05:51 Speaker 2 Ooh, wait. This calls for something. Listen, this is a whole scene.

06:03 Speaker 1 I only just told you. Look, look...

06:05 Speaker 2 Oh my goodness.

06:06 Speaker 1 I deliberately didn’t say a word about it beforehand today.

06:06 Speaker 2 I need to drink some courage juice before I bring this up with you. Oh my goodness.

06:10 Speaker 1 Bless you.

06:11 Speaker 2 Ahem, ahem.

06:12 Speaker 1 Herbal.

06:13 Speaker 2 Herbal, of course.

06:16 Speaker 1 Why do you need courage?

06:18 Speaker 2 Because right now the world is divided in two: those who believe vaccines saved our lives, and those who believe vaccines are thinning out the population.

06:28 Speaker 1 Does it have to be either-or?

06:29 Speaker 2 That’s what’s happening right now. That’s what’s happening. It doesn’t have to be either-or, not at all, because of course there are vaccines that save lives, and of course there are vaccines that take lives. So it doesn’t have to be either-or. But right now, people want to cling to some kind of certainty. So they cling to...

06:48 Speaker 1 Basically, that’s how people live, and that’s why we see these extremes too.

06:52 Speaker 2 Exactly.

06:53 Speaker 1 With everything, you have black and white, and then you have... I can tell you that I’ve always felt stupid, because I don’t have an opinion. Because maybe this is right, and maybe that is right. But over time I’ve realized I tend to see things with more perspective and complexity.

07:11 Speaker 2 Mm-hmm.

07:12 Speaker 1 This is right and that is right; this isn’t right and that isn’t right. Put a question mark on everything.

07:16 Speaker 2 Exactly. But people don’t know how to put a question mark on things, and they take what people in authority tell them for granted.

07:21 Speaker 1 Okay, so that’s the... So, come on, enlighten me.

07:25 Speaker 2 Sure. Since you’re a curious woman, and everyone who comes to this podcast comes out of curiosity, my message is: put a question mark on everything people tell you about anything. I mean, reconnect with your motherly, feminine intuition, with your curiosity. For mothers in Israel today, anything they’re told at the well-baby clinic or by the Ministry of Health is absolutely sacred.

07:55 Speaker 1 No—why is that happening?

07:56 Speaker 2 Why is that? Because...

07:56 Speaker 1 Because, really, because...

07:57 Speaker 2 Because, again...

07:58 Speaker 1 The way we’re educated. By the way, I could do a whole episode with you about education, about the education system.

08:02 Speaker 2 Exactly.

08:03 Speaker 1 But I don’t know if we should really get into that, because I think we’re on the same page there.

08:09 Speaker 2 Oh, wow, yes.

08:11 Speaker 1 But the way we’re educated really does teach us to remain ignorant rather than truly understand.

08:18 Speaker 2 Right.

08:19 Speaker 1 So you’re saying to put a question mark on things. But telling someone who isn’t used to doing that to start questioning things could be dangerous too.

08:25 Speaker 2 Right, because it would leave her uncertain, and that isn’t healthy either. So I do tell mothers: if you don’t have time to look into vaccines and learn about them, okay, vaccinate. Hold on to faith, turn to prayer, keep believing it will be okay, and be happy.

08:41 Speaker 1 Okay.

08:42 Speaker 2 Because emotional health and stability matter too. If you know that what you’re doing is good, that you’re doing the best you can for your child, and you’re trusting blindly because your rabbi said so, or because you believe in the Ministry of Health, and you feel at peace with it—bye. This podcast isn’t for you.

08:57 Speaker 1 So let’s ask you.

08:58 Speaker 2 Skip ahead now.

08:59 Speaker 1 You don’t vaccinate?

09:01 Speaker 2 I don’t vac— These days, I don’t vaccinate. I did vaccinate, I didn’t like what I saw, I started researching, and I’m telling you this in very broad strokes. I started researching and discovered a whole world.

09:12 Speaker 1 Meaning that you, you, um, at the beginning of—

09:15 Speaker 2 You did your homework.

09:16 Speaker 1 At the beginning of your parenting journey, you were like me.

09:18 Speaker 2 Like everyone. At Tipat Chalav, I believed I was a terrible mother, that my children weren’t developing, that something was wrong with them, that their growth curve was off all the time, that nothing was right.

09:28 Speaker 1 They get a grade from the moment they’re born.

09:30 Speaker 2 Exactly. They’re behind in this area, and already... that’s what they call it, they’re already behind, and already this and that.

09:36 Speaker 1 Think about it: they haven’t even been born yet, and they have a grade.

09:38 Speaker 2 Exactly.

09:39 Speaker 1 Like, it’s...

09:40 Speaker 2 And you’re already, um, a failure. The breastfeeding isn’t right, this isn’t right. You’re not doing enough of that. I mean—

09:46 Speaker 1 It’s a very, very difficult experience.

09:47 Speaker 2 Very, very difficult experiences—exactly. Instead of giving you encouragement and strength, saying how wonderful it is, you’re already having a negative experience.

09:54 Speaker 1 So let’s pause for a second. Why do you think they do that?

09:56 Speaker 2 Control. I think it’s just control. We know better, we understand, keep coming to us. It’s as simple as that. We’ll give you a grade on whether you’re a good mother, we’ll give you a grade on whether the child has gained weight, we’ll give you a grade on whether he’s doing enough. What is this nonsense?

10:10 Speaker 1 And they call you, and if you didn’t come in, it’s as though you’re not a normal mother.

10:13 Speaker 2 Yes, and what’s with all this monitoring? It’s like they’re already making you feel the child isn’t yours. You put him in school, and you can’t just take him out. You need permission, you need a signature, there’s a guard, there’s— They already make you feel: the child is ours. We’ll see whether you can keep him. We’re watching you. Maybe this is meant to prevent situations involving unfit mothers and so on, yes, that could be. But there’s a way to do it.

10:36 Speaker 1 Okay.

10:38 Speaker 2 And... um.

10:39 Speaker 1 And when you say you went and researched, what does that mean?

10:41 Speaker 2 I bought books and joined groups, and I saw that there’s such a thing as people injured by vaccines, and these are huge groups. And I saw that there’s such a thing as compensation for people injured by vaccines. And—

10:53 Speaker 1 Okay, explain to me—

10:54 Speaker 2 I realized.

10:54 Speaker 1 What does it mean to be injured by a vaccine?

10:56 Speaker 2 Vaccine injury can mean lots of things. It can mean problems, um...

11:00 Speaker 1 But don’t you think it could have been a problem he was born with? I mean, it was there potentially, and—

11:05 Speaker 2 No.

11:06 Speaker 1 And the vaccine brought it out?

11:08 Speaker 2 Look, there are things... Let me put it this way. It’s very possible it was in the genetics or something, okay? We carry diseases, we carry whatever is in our genetics, but it triggered it. It triggered it.

11:19 Speaker 1 And caused it to break out.

11:19 Speaker 2 Right, caused neurological conditions, autoimmune conditions, all kinds of skin conditions and allergies to break out. Listen, we’re the most allergic generation in the world, in—

11:31 Speaker 1 Forget allergies—attention disorders.

11:32 Speaker 2 Attention disorders. We’re only going to become a sicker generation. So people will say, “But vaccines saved...” Maybe they reduced mortality, let’s say. I don’t know. I don’t want to argue about that, though there’s evidence against that too. But what did we get? What did we get? Children who aren’t healthy.

11:48 Speaker 1 So we’ll give them pills.

11:50 Speaker 2 All kinds. Right.

11:50 Speaker 1 We’ll give them pills.

11:51 Speaker 2 It serves an industry. A whole cycle of money.

11:54 Speaker 1 So it’s all politics and money.

11:55 Speaker 2 It’s all politics and money, all of it. Sad, harsh—a very, very painful truth.

12:03 Speaker 1 I have a question I want to ask, but first I want to understand what you did then.

12:08 Speaker 2 Um, so first of all, I stopped. I said, before I... I realized vaccination isn’t mandatory in Israel, so they couldn’t require me to vaccinate. So I took time to learn. Every time they called me at first, I said, “I’m still researching, I’m learning, leave me alone for now.”

12:25 Speaker 1 And were you afraid?

12:26 Speaker 2 No. I wasn’t afraid, because at the same time I’d started learning about natural health, and I came to understand the nature of illness. Hakadosh Boruch Hu doesn’t create us sick.

12:35 Speaker 1 Okay.

12:36 Speaker 2 Hakadosh Boruch Hu creates a child—

12:37 Speaker 1 Tell us a little about what you learned. It’s interesting.

12:39 Speaker 2 Right. So Hakadosh Boruch Hu creates a being with the ability to heal itself. It has gifts. A fever, for example, is a gift Hakadosh Boruch Hu gave us to heal and burn off viruses and illnesses. What does Western medicine tell us? A fever is dangerous; bring it down quickly. What happens? It’s like driving a car when the fuel light comes on, right? You need fuel, but you silence the light, you break the fuel light. Something’s going to happen.

13:08 Speaker 1 Okay.

13:09 Speaker 2 Then something develops here, something develops there, because we’ve essentially damaged the body’s natural mechanism for dealing with illness.

13:16 Speaker 1 The next time there’s a fever, the body no longer knows how to get through it on its own, and it needs the... the fever reducer.

13:22 Speaker 2 There’s dependency, and then there’s antibiotic resistance and so on. The body no longer responds to it, and also...

13:28 Speaker 1 And at the same time, you were studying natural medicine.

13:31 Speaker 2 Yes, the body’s natural defenses, really.

13:33 Speaker 1 What does that mean?

13:34 Speaker 2 That the body has mechanisms through which it can heal itself. The body can heal itself if you give it the right conditions.

13:44 Speaker 1 Okay, so...

13:44 Speaker 2 Go ahead, ask.

13:45 Speaker 1 So you’re saying something very important here.

13:48 Speaker 2 It takes work.

13:49 Speaker 1 Good.

13:49 Speaker 2 A lot of work.

13:50 Speaker 1 Good.

13:50 Speaker 2 A lot.

13:51 Speaker 1 Good.

13:51 Speaker 2 A lot.

13:53 Speaker 1 So you see, this is good: we started with a question mark, but you’re also showing us a way forward.

14:00 Speaker 2 There are lots of ways forward.

14:01 Speaker 1 Because you can’t just come and tell people “no” when this is what they’re used to, this is how they were raised, and everything. And as I told you, I have a question I’ll get to in a moment, because ultimately we’re also part of our surroundings. But when we’re thinking through that question and saying what not to do, we should always think about what we can do.

14:23 Speaker 2 Right.

14:23 Speaker 1 That’s really true of everything in life.

14:25 Speaker 2 Right. And there are many ways forward. Many.

14:27 Speaker 1 But that... Okay, I’m interested in what the work involves.

14:30 Speaker 2 First of all, the work is really to strengthen the immune system, mainly through nutrition. You know, the Rambam says, “Let your food be your medicine.” Meaning, what we eat is what makes us healthy—or the opposite. Western medicine doesn’t emphasize that. They’re starting to a little today, you know, occasionally saying, “Eat healthy,” but it’s just lip service.

14:56 Speaker 1 But you walk into a store and see the abundance, the colors, the sugar and the flour. I mean...

15:01 Speaker 2 So yes, it’s poison, poison, poison and more poison. They’re giving us poisons. You see it in hospitals too: you go there and see patients being served meals full of unhealthy food. You think to yourself, come on, is this about keeping the customers coming back? What’s going on here?

15:14 Speaker 1 Wow.

15:15 Speaker 2 They need different nutrition. And when I go to bring some joy to people in different hospital departments, especially oncology, where they know that cancer feeds on sugar, that it lives on sugar, you see little children hooked up to chemo, eating sugar and candy that volunteers bring them.

15:28 Speaker 1 It’s as if they’re feeding it.

15:29 Speaker 2 I just... it makes me want to cry.

15:31 Speaker 1 But look how little awareness there is.

15:32 Speaker 2 A lack of awareness, turning a blind eye. It’s a kind of... there really isn’t... I don’t know. I don’t, I don’t know.

15:39 Speaker 1 I didn’t see, I didn’t hear, I didn’t know.

15:40 Speaker 2 It hurts. It really, really hurts. Now, first of all, I want to qualify this. It’s not that I live the healthiest life possible, but I am aware.

15:48 Speaker 1 So what did you do? Come on, tell me what you did in your home.

15:51 Speaker 2 First of all, I cut out dairy completely. No dairy.

15:54 Speaker 1 Wait, don’t shout. You’re scaring me. You’re scaring me. Slowly, slowly. Wait.

15:58 Speaker 2 Let’s talk about dairy. Wow. Wow. This is one of the things I think... Anyone who wants to start eating healthy can either raise a cow, feed it grass, give it a little room to live and milk it—fine, no problem—or cut out dairy. Meaning, if you don’t have a cow in your yard, don’t touch milk.

16:19 Speaker 1 Okay, because what’s in milk?

16:22 Speaker 2 There’s no milk. It has everything in it except milk. The Israeli cow today—and I really apologize to all the dairy farms, I have nothing against you. Go ahead and make money, but at least tell the truth about what’s in milk. Today’s cow is the sickest creature on the... on the planet. She has a medical file and gets medications and antibiotics, and we drink everything that...

16:43 Speaker 1 So why do they tell us it’s healthy? And the calcium too...

16:45 Speaker 2 Because it’s all an economy that sustains itself. And yes, yes, it’s sad.

16:51 Speaker 1 So you took all the dairy out of the house?

16:53 Speaker 2 Look, I didn’t eliminate it completely. From the house, yes, but I didn’t stop using dairy altogether, because I also discovered, again through my research, that once the body is completely free of dairy, when you’re exposed to it... there can be severe reactions.

17:06 Speaker 1 It’s an allergy. You sort of develop an allergy?

17:08 Speaker 2 Kind of. Yes. For example, if I go a while without touching dairy and then I have some... First of all, I don’t touch liquid milk at all. It’s the absolute worst. I’m talking about a dairy product, like pizza or chocolate or something with dairy in it, or cottage cheese, which I really love. Then I get earaches right away. I mean, it turns straight into an ear infection. It’s crazy.

17:28 Speaker 1 Wow.

17:29 Speaker 2 It’s like, I see milk, I see an infection. For me, that settles it.

17:33 Speaker 1 Right away? Immediately?

17:34 Speaker 2 Immediately. And it’s the same with the kids. It’s crazy; they know it. So I take GSE, grapefruit seed extract, which is nature’s antibiotic. We take it right after we’ve eaten dairy, and I do expose the kids to dairy occasionally so they won’t develop severe allergies.

17:49 Speaker 1 Wow, wow, wow. What a nightmare.

17:49 Speaker 2 It takes work, I’m not saying it doesn’t.

17:50 Speaker 1 Wait, so your kids really don’t eat pizza or...

17:53 Speaker 2 About once a month, once every two months, depending on... we order some. Yes.

17:58 Speaker 1 And when they go to an event and there’s dairy?

18:01 Speaker 2 They don’t touch it.

18:02 Speaker 1 When you go to a dairy event, you don’t eat the food?

18:06 Speaker 2 We’ll eat the fish, we’ll eat the salads, we’ll eat the... No, no.

18:09 Speaker 1 Wow. Okay.

18:12 Speaker 2 Yes.

18:12 Speaker 1 An alternative Shavuos.

18:13 Speaker 2 A pareve Shavuos. And listen, Shavuos is as delicious as can be.

18:17 Speaker 1 What do you make?

18:17 Speaker 2 You have no idea. The pareve substitutes are incredibly tasty.

18:20 Speaker 1 Little by little, we’ll get to where everything is a substitute.

18:22 Speaker 2 Right. And listen, it’s really, really good. I won’t tell you all the substitutes are healthy—not at all—but I try to pay attention to that too.

18:30 Speaker 1 In what way?

18:30 Speaker 2 Because sometimes you have to check that the soy isn’t genetically modified, and you have to pay attention—come on, that’s a whole world in itself too. Like you might say margarine isn’t healthy, but now they’ve made better margarine from coconut oil, almond oil, from... Okay, they’re getting there too, toward optimal health.

18:49 Speaker 1 So you cut out dairy. How many years have you been without it?

18:54 Speaker 2 Um, how many years? At least eighteen. More. More than eighteen. I haven’t drunk milk in over eighteen years. Now we bought a substitute—um, I think one of the big companies made something like milk.

19:06 Speaker 1 Right.

19:07 Speaker 2 And I gave it to the kids. They all went, “Yuck, disgusting.” They don’t know the taste of milk.

19:12 Speaker 1 Oh, that kind of...

19:13 Speaker 2 They thought it was gross.

19:15 Speaker 1 And is it any good? I mean, you haven’t tasted milk in eighteen years.

19:17 Speaker 2 First of all, it’s no good at all, because it’s completely synthetic. Really. They made it from some engineered version of cow’s milk protein. So it’s not dairy.

19:28 Speaker 1 It’s not from a cow.

19:28 Speaker 2 No, not from a cow, but it’s meant to imitate real milk. It was disgusting.

19:34 Speaker 1 Wow, wow.

19:34 Speaker 2 Disgusting.

19:35 Speaker 1 Good thing you didn’t name names. But, um, what did I want to ask you? The substitutes—so you basically live on substitutes?

19:44 Speaker 2 Yes.

19:44 Speaker 1 So you never have a problem eating meat.

19:46 Speaker 2 Do you know how many substitutes there are—right, absolutely, absolutely. How many are there? Almond milk, oat milk, coconut milk, rice milk, milk... My kids really like soy milk, and I don’t deny that it’s not all that healthy, but they really like it. Um, almond milk with a high percentage of almonds. Sometimes I make it myself too.

20:04 Speaker 1 Oh, really?

20:04 Speaker 2 Yes, with the...

20:05 Speaker 1 What else have you brought into your healthy routine?

20:06 Speaker 2 [unclear]. Um, first of all, sourdough bread.

20:10 Speaker 1 Why is it healthier?

20:11 Speaker 2 Because it doesn’t have the yeast.

20:14 Speaker 1 And what’s wrong with yeast? Look, I really don’t understand this. T-t-talk to me, tell me what you think.

20:18 Speaker 2 Yeast can also encourage fungal growth in the body, because yeast is a kind of substance that causes a whole party in your stomach, in your body, in your intestines. But with sourdough, you have natural yeast that grew out of the...

20:34 Speaker 1 Oh, so now I know why Shneor makes sourdough.

20:36 Speaker 2 So Shneor does make sourdough, absolutely. He researched it, and he does it for health reasons.

20:41 Speaker 1 That’s it.

20:41 Speaker 2 We bought all the equipment, of course. A stone oven and everything.

20:44 Speaker 1 Podcast. Talk to them, Gani. Wait, but, um, what did I want to ask you? So the... and... No, but I’ve also seen you give them vitamins, and, like, what...

20:56 Speaker 2 Right. So first of all, there’s liposomal vitamin C, as it’s called, um, which is absorbed quickly by the body. It’s something I increase during seasonal changes, or if I see the beginnings of a cold or something like that. Um, first of all, for bringing down a fever—it brings down a fever.

21:15 Speaker 1 You do bring fevers down?

21:16 Speaker 2 I bring a fever down naturally with vitamin C, which basically prompts the body to bring it down at the rate that’s right for it.

21:22 Speaker 1 I see.

21:23 Speaker 2 But not with anything chemical, and not, um...

21:26 Speaker 1 You don’t give medicine.

21:29 Speaker 2 Look, I won’t tell you I don’t have Nurofen for emergencies. If I feel it’s been too much, that the child has been suffering for too long and is uncomfortable, then in a real emergency I’ll give it—and even then, a quarter of the recommended dose and so on, just so I can have peace of mind.

21:51 Speaker 1 And how does the child’s body respond to it?

21:53 Speaker 2 Honestly, the few times I gave Nurofen, they went into this kind of high.

22:02 Speaker 1 Okay. And the high was alarming.

22:03 Speaker 2 It was unnatural. You can see it’s something that isn’t natural.

22:07 Speaker 1 No, but okay, that’s also...

22:08 Speaker 2 Because when you’re sick...

22:09 Speaker 1 It suppresses it.

22:09 Speaker 2 Yes, but when you’re sick, the most natural thing is to withdraw a little and rest comfortably and...

22:19 Speaker 1 And give it time.

22:20 Speaker 2 And give the body time to recover. You can see it isn’t natural when a child gets Nurofen and suddenly starts jumping around and gets all hyper. That isn’t a natural part of healing.

22:29 Speaker 1 The drop afterward is also very drastic. It’s all very intense.

22:31 Speaker 2 It’s very drastic. It’s not... So it isn’t healthy. You can see that it’s chemical and not balanced.

22:38 Speaker 1 Wow. So what I’m saying is, you’re immersed in this whole approach. You really live it.

22:44 Speaker 2 Yes.

22:45 Speaker 1 And do you make healthy food too? In what ways?

22:48 Speaker 2 Um, what does “healthy food” mean? I try, if I absolutely have to use soup mix, to make sure it’s... First of all, I try not to use it. But there’s a particular eggplant salad—the traditional one from the Levitin family, for anyone who follows me—that calls for soup mix, so there are ones with natural ingredients. You know, it’s worth buying products and looking at what’s in them.

23:11 Speaker 1 So you check the ingredients.

23:13 Speaker 2 Yes. Yes, absolutely. I...

23:16 Speaker 1 I only just started checking ingredients, and I’m trying to wean myself off things. But, um...

23:21 Speaker 2 Yes, it’s very important. Very. Um...

23:25 Speaker 1 So do you feel your home is healthy?

23:29 Speaker 2 Not yet as healthy as I dream of and want it to be.

23:30 Speaker 1 What’s your dream?

23:32 Speaker 2 My dream is for us to live the way we do on Pesach all year round.

23:36 Speaker 1 Meaning, make things from basic ingredients.

23:39 Speaker 2 Yes, really basic. Live on the basics. Fruit, vegetables. Listen, nothing was missing from our food on Pesach, even without spices. Nothing was missing. I ground up vegetables and seasoned everything with them. Why do we need the additives?

23:53 Speaker 1 So what are the additives you’d like to get out of the house?

23:56 Speaker 2 Anything industrially processed.

24:00 Speaker 1 What, sauces? What do you mean?

24:01 Speaker 2 Yes, yes, yes, those too. Sauces and seasonings that are too strong.

24:06 Speaker 1 So that basically means not enjoying food out of the house either.

24:09 Speaker 2 That’s a problem. It is a problem, but I’m not extreme. I mean, I think it’s very important to enjoy the best of both worlds.

24:18 Speaker 1 How? How can you enjoy both worlds?

24:20 Speaker 2 I don’t know. With balance. Find the balance. If I ate an indulgent meal at a restaurant this week, then the following week I balance it out. I’ll eat more healthily, make more salads, eat more vegetables. I kind of balance it out.

24:36 Speaker 1 And why do you need an indulgent meal?

24:39 Speaker 2 Oh, because sometimes the soul also, um...

24:41 Speaker 1 Needs it.

24:42 Speaker 2 Yes, yes, yes. Before Yom Tov, we went to a restaurant and I ate a huge amount of dairy. I... Yossi and I ordered everything. Yes.

24:51 Speaker 1 And people commented on it.

24:52 Speaker 2 You saw that?

24:53 Speaker 1 Dairy. Yes, that was from...

24:54 Speaker 2 Now, I didn’t write that I’d eaten dairy. People zoomed in on what... Honestly, I was craving... What did I order there? Lasagna?

25:01 Speaker 1 No, it was—I remember. It was after a few days of the war, when we weren’t going out of the house and everything was closed.

25:07 Speaker 2 Yes, yes, yes, yes, and I felt I needed to eat something like that...

25:12 Speaker 1 And it’s like, you know you’re about to...

25:14 Speaker 2 Listen, my husband and I had stomachaches for two days afterward. I really suffered.

25:20 Speaker 1 You really put yourself through, um...

25:21 Speaker 2 I suffered, but I knew—I knew beforehand that would happen. So what? I said, okay, the Jewish people are suffering, I’ll suffer a little too. It’s not so terrible. I just had this feeling...

25:29 Speaker 1 An emotional need.

25:29 Speaker 2 No, listen, because our souls really need an indulgence sometimes. I mean, okay, when we get angry, we know it’s like idol worship, we know it’s forbidden, we know all that—but we get angry because we need to be angry at that moment. Still, you know it isn’t good. Okay.

25:46 Speaker 1 So I can tell you about myself. I’ve been going through a period of cutting out flour and sugar.

25:50 Speaker 2 Yes, well done!

25:51 Speaker 1 Really, yes.

25:52 Speaker 2 Yes, that’s the best thing. The best. And it’s...

25:55 Speaker 1 I mean, I started before Pesach, carried on through Pesach and after Pesach, but the day after Pesach I had this kind of slip and said, “Why am I doing this?”

26:01 Speaker 2 Wow.

26:02 Speaker 1 It’s not as if I don’t have the urge to go buy pizza right now and— I went and bought some for the kids, yes. Don’t think I don’t feel it. And I find myself asking, why am I doing this? Why? From that emotional place. But thank G-d, I held firm, because in my mind, what I’m doing is breaking a dependency. I’m not on a diet.

26:24 Speaker 2 Amazing.

26:25 Speaker 1 And I’m going through that process of breaking the dependency.

26:29 Speaker 2 “Diet” is a terrible word. You mustn’t use it.

26:31 Speaker 1 For me, diets are associated with a lot of failure.

26:33 Speaker 2 Right, for everyone.

26:34 Speaker 1 So, breaking a dependency.

26:35 Speaker 2 For everyone.

26:35 Speaker 1 With Hashem’s help, we’ll see. I’m curious.

26:37 Speaker 2 You’re curious.

26:39 Speaker 1 What did I want to ask you?

26:40 Speaker 2 Yes.

26:41 Speaker 1 In the end, people say that with vaccines, if there’s a child who isn’t vaccinated—although I think you already answered this by saying you build your children’s health—but an unvaccinated child can put the group at risk.

26:52 Speaker 2 Oh, that’s such a lie and such nonsense.

26:54 Speaker 1 Wait a second. First, just make room for that for a moment. It’s a little—

26:57 Speaker 2 A hug for anyone who thinks that way.

26:59 Speaker 1 No, but you can understand it.

27:01 Speaker 2 Of course, emotionally.

27:01 Speaker 1 Can you, for a moment—can’t you understand it?

27:02 Speaker 2 No, because if you vaccinate—

27:03 Speaker 1 Then explain it. Go on, explain it.

27:04 Speaker 2 So let’s do this.

27:06 Speaker 1 Without anger, without judgment.

27:07 Speaker 2 Without judgment. If you vaccinated—why do people vaccinate?

27:12 Speaker 1 Why do you get a vaccine?

27:13 Speaker 2 Why do you vaccinate?

27:15 Speaker 1 As I understand it, what I was taught is that a vaccine gives the body a little bit of something, and then, if the disease comes along, the body is already protected.

27:25 Speaker 2 Good. So why are you worried about someone who isn’t vaccinated? You’re vaccinated; your children are vaccinated.

27:31 Speaker 1 So who could be harmed—your children?

27:33 Speaker 2 My children could be harmed. My children, not yours.

27:37 Speaker 1 Ah.

27:38 Speaker 2 Your children are vaccinated.

27:39 Speaker 1 Presumably.

27:41 Speaker 2 So—

27:41 Speaker 1 So why? Why? No, I’m telling you what I know.

27:45 Speaker 2 There’s no logic to it. It’s just antisemitism. I mean, there’s no logic. We’re living in a generation of all this antisemitism. There’s no logic, really no logic. In theory, my children, who aren’t vaccinated, could catch diseases. In theory. But look at the statistics. First of all, there’s no study. Actually, it’s already come out that there is one, but never mind—it isn’t something publicly available that people are using right now. Vaccinated children versus unvaccinated children: which are healthier, which groups? But I can tell you that I did my own study of my children. My vaccinated children spent their whole childhood at the health clinic, using nebulizers their whole childhood, with green runny noses their whole childhood, compared with my unvaccinated children, who don’t know the family doctor.

28:31 Speaker 3 All right. But you answered it here. What was your answer? That you simply build their health.

28:37 Speaker 2 Right.

28:37 Speaker 3 So it’s very, very important to say that.

28:41 Speaker 2 Right. Right.

28:42 Speaker 3 I don’t know how much I—I believe you’ve said it on social media too, but I think it’s very, very important, because there is a way to protect children by keeping them healthy. After all, there were healthy children before vaccines.

28:52 Speaker 2 Right.

28:53 Speaker 3 It’s true that many didn’t survive, and there were diseases and frightening mortality in those years when people were struggling to survive.

28:58 Speaker 2 I can explain all that mortality and everything people talk about. First of all, there’s also an enormous amount of mortality today. All the crib deaths and the... children who... Nobody... What’s happening here is a silent epidemic. Nobody talks about it, says it or cries out about it.

29:15 Speaker 3 Why do they want to silence it?

29:16 Speaker 2 Silence it. Yes, of course. “It has nothing to do with vaccines, nothing to do with vaccines.” Your child developed an allergy; your child fainted right after a vacci—“Nothing to do with vaccines.” Your child stopped making eye contact the day after a vacci—“Nothing to do with vaccines.” Your child got sick—“Nothing to do with vaccines.” No, they don’t even collect and compile all those complaints. That’s something you do in medicine, right? Every package of Acamol you take has an insert listing the side effects.

29:41 Speaker 3 Wow, so many side effects.

29:42 Speaker 2 Exactly. How does it make sense that parents aren’t told about the side effects a vaccine could have? It’s like a medication.

29:48 Speaker 3 They mention fever.

29:49 Speaker 2 That’s it. Fever. No, I mean, there are a million other things that could happen. How does it make sense that they put terrible substances in there, okay, remnants of... and substances from... I don’t even want to get into it, but—

30:03 Speaker 3 A whole doctorate.

30:04 Speaker 2 Yes, but if you Google it a little and see what’s in it—these things can cause... Just look up what aluminum does to the brain, what remnants of a monkey fetus do to the brain. What do traces of egg protein do to the brain? What do they do?

30:20 Speaker 3 You know, people dye their hair, and everything’s fine.

30:24 Speaker 2 Look, again, one person can take Acamol and be fine.

30:27 Speaker 3 Are there vaccines you think are worth getting?

30:28 Speaker 2 For me, today, no. But again, everyone should do their own research. I also don’t understand why they don’t do some sort of background check for each child. We weren’t all born the same. Children aren’t all the same weight, aren’t all on the same...

30:41 Speaker 3 Growth curve.

30:41 Speaker 2 Growth curve. You see what I mean? And they give everyone the same vaccines, the same, the same, the same, without paying attention. Maybe children from those communities don’t need them. Maybe Ashkenazi children do. Maybe, I don’t know. Maybe some diseases are more common in one group than another. For example, the vaccine they give right in the delivery room, hepatitis B—you can only catch it from contaminated needles or from... I don’t even want to say what, but it isn’t something a baby could be exposed to. Okay? It’s simply not relevant. So why give it the moment a child is born? First get to know the child. See whether he was born healthy, how he was born, how he’s doing. Afterward, you can’t blame the vaccines anymore. They’ll say he was born that way. Of course—he barely had time to open his eyes before he got a vaccine. How would you know whether that caused it or not?

31:28 Speaker 3 Yes.

31:29 Speaker 2 There’s no logic to how vaccines are given. There’s no consideration at all for the child’s background at birth, how he was born, whether he needs it or doesn’t need it.

31:41 Speaker 3 If someone listening to us is willing to put a question mark over what she’s been told, open her mind, and look into it and think about it some more—

31:49 Speaker 2 There are Facebook groups, and Telegram groups too: Vaccines—An Informed Choice. There’s also the Chasson website, which provides information on these things. There are books.

31:59 Speaker 3 And to come away knowing: it’s not that I don’t vaccinate; I build my children’s health.

32:03 Speaker 2 Right.

32:04 Speaker 3 I think that’s the message here.

32:05 Speaker 2 Completely, completely.

32:06 Speaker 3 By the way, do you have a stand-up routine about vaccines?

32:11 Speaker 2 No.

32:12 Speaker 3 You haven’t done one? Want to improvise something?

32:13 Speaker 2 Listen. Wow.

32:16 Speaker 3 Here, I’m giving you a stage. Maybe on a regular stage, not so much, uh, not so much.

32:21 Speaker 2 I don’t know. This subject just doesn’t make me laugh, to tell you the truth.

32:26 Speaker 3 But I think you have jokes here. Try to find them in... in... No. I think also—

32:33 Speaker 2 You go to the doctor, or to the well-baby clinic. You ask her, “What’s in this vaccine?” “Good things.” You can ask, “When does it expire?” “It expires, it expires.” “Are there side effects?” “Side effects, side effects, side effects... Stay here for half an hour because of the side effects, and if something happens after that, well, that’s on you. It has nothing to do with us.” I mean, they really don’t know what they’re giving either, or what’s inside. “There are good things in it. What do you want?”

32:56 Speaker 3 Because she’s also part of the crowd that trusts the people above her.

33:00 Speaker 2 Exactly. So how can a mother trust someone who gives a vaccine and has no idea what’s in it—and the doctors don’t know either?

33:08 Speaker 3 Okay, but that really means starting to make sure we know about every single thing. That’s... that’s on us.

33:14 Speaker 2 But we’re in an age when we ask questions.

33:17 Speaker 3 Today it’s very easy with chat.

33:20 Speaker 2 Right.

33:20 Speaker 3 You really can ask. But what I want to say is, I feel that you also went through something during this episode, from being very, very against it to...

33:31 Speaker 2 I don’t—

33:31 Speaker 3 No.

33:32 Speaker 2 I’m saying, I also have—

33:33 Speaker 3 You’ve had an experience that you’ve been living with for eighteen years. Come on, I’m not—

33:36 Speaker 2 Right.

33:37 Speaker 3 It’s not just one thing; it’s a process you’re going through. But in terms of understanding the message, the message is that you can protect children by keeping them healthy.

33:45 Speaker 2 Right. There’s another way.

33:46 Speaker 3 It’s a shame I didn’t know that eighteen years ago. No, we didn’t talk about it.

33:51 Speaker 2 It’s good to learn it at any age, and what’s done is done. No need to beat yourself up over the past, because really—

33:58 Speaker 3 Yes, to bring more of that into our lives. For example, I’ll take away what you said about milk and about medications.

34:04 Speaker 2 Right.

34:04 Speaker 3 Like, not reaching for Nurofen straightaway.

34:07 Speaker 2 Look, medications themselves aren’t something that heals.

34:10 Speaker 3 No, okay, again, they relieve pain. That’s what they’re called: pain relievers.

34:14 Speaker 2 Medicine today isn’t trying to heal you; it’s trying to silence symptoms.

34:19 Speaker 3 Okay, so I’m saying I’ll take... What recommendations do you have? What do you do?

34:27 Speaker 2 Yes, no, there are a lot.

34:28 Speaker 3 What do you want people to take away from this episode?

34:31 Speaker 2 To start questioning things, and to get started.

34:33 Speaker 3 What’s your hope?

34:33 Speaker 2 My hope, honestly, is this: pay attention to whether your children are healthy. I mean, if they have a runny nose with green mucus all year, that shouldn’t be happening. If you’ve taken your children to the doctor more than twice this year, that shouldn’t be happening. Children shouldn’t be sick. Childhood shouldn’t be full of illness at all. We, as people, aren’t supposed to be sick.

34:55 Speaker 3 Right. We’re here to be healthy.

34:56 Speaker 2 Exactly, and look at what’s happening. Look at what’s happening at the health clinics. Look at what’s happening in... It’s unbelievable. They keep building more and more buildings, and hospitals just keep expanding, with more and more departments.

35:08 Speaker 3 They have a lot of money.

35:09 Speaker 2 Because it’s an industry that funds itself. It’s the same in education, too. It’s like that with everything.

35:14 Speaker 3 Didn’t you get sick during COVID?

35:16 Speaker 2 We did. So we spent a week at home. What happened? We were sick. Yes, it wasn’t easy, but we got through it very well.

35:24 Speaker 3 At home. So what?

35:25 Speaker 2 Do you think I considered for a moment getting myself and the children vaccinated against COVID? It didn’t even cross my mind. I said, I’ll stay home for years if I have to. I won’t perform, and I won’t get vaccinated with something they’re still telling me is experimental. What am I, a guinea pig? How does that make sense? In what world? After all, every childhood vaccine and so on has to go through eight or nine years of research. It has to go through that process. And here they tell you it’s experimental; we don’t know what will happen. People, please. Someone got sick once, then a second time. Then they got sick again, even worse—a third time, a fourth time. If you don’t understand that it isn’t working either, you keep trying again and again: maybe now it’ll work. After four times, it’ll work. I mean, people understand that today.

36:05 Speaker 3 We need a vaccine against the vaccine.

36:07 Speaker 2 It’s vaccine after vaccine, and some women who got vaccinated have already had severe side effects. By the way, good news: you can do a cleanse. You can do a cleanse; there’s a way to clear it out. But really, the foolish things they told us during COVID, and we believed them. Masks and... wow.

36:28 Speaker 3 Anyway, the main thing is health.

36:30 Speaker 2 Yes.

36:30 Speaker 3 May we be healthy and happy.

36:32 Speaker 2 But we really should know that joy is something that boosts our internal immunity.

36:38 Speaker 3 What does that mean?

36:38 Speaker 2 It says in the Torah and in the Rambam that joy really changes the body, its frequency, and gets rid of unhealthy cells. It actually kills them and clears them away...

36:49 Speaker 3 Joy, laughter. What does that mean? What is that?

36:50 Speaker 2 Look, joy and laughter can even be mechanical. I mean, even a smile...

36:55 Speaker 3 Like putting on a smile.

36:56 Speaker 2 Yes, putting on a smile. Right then, it does something in the brain. It brings... it does something chemically.

37:04 Speaker 3 Okay, so I want to do an episode with you about joy, humor, and all that. It’ll also be a follow-up to the vaccine episode.

37:10 Speaker 2 Yes.

37:11 Speaker 3 Wow, Michal, thank you. That was an interesting episode.

37:14 Speaker 2 It was an interesting episode.

37:18 Speaker 3 I think I came away from this episode a little wiser.

37:24 Speaker 2 That’s wonderful.

37:25 Speaker 3 And time will tell.

37:28 Speaker 2 Time will tell. Yes. Yes, definitely. That’s Geulah, too: opening your eyes and discovering something different.

37:34 Speaker 3 That’s it. So there you go—in the end, we started with the dust of Geulah, you see?

37:37 Speaker 2 There you go.

37:38 Speaker 3 You opened your eyes.

37:39 Speaker 2 Completely, completely, completely.

37:40 Speaker 3 When the Geulah comes, there won’t be vaccines. We’ll all be healthy.

37:43 Speaker 2 No, exactly.

37:43 Speaker 3 Everything will be all right.

37:44 Speaker 2 Absolutely.

37:45 Speaker 3 Okay, thank you.

37:46 Speaker 2 My pleasure. Chani Marzel, thank you.

37:51 Speaker 3 [unclear]. Okay, bye.