soulspice mission

This is an introduction to the Soul Spice cooking show, which focuses on the spirituality of eating in Jewish everyday lives. The host, Chef Yochanan Ambiassi, discusses the importance of food in Jewish culture and how it connects us to Hashem. He also mentions the growth of the kosher food industry and the need for community support during times of war. The show will feature recipes, special guests, and discussions on various topics related to Jewish existence and spiritual connection. Listeners are invited to join the Soul Spice community and contribute their own recipes and suggestions. Hello everyone. Welcome to Soul Spice. We are broadcasting from Jerusalem and I'm wishing you a good Erev Shabbos. It's the first kosher cooking show with a little bit of a twist. Not only great recipes, great chefs, great speakers, great influencers, great topics. We go deeper into the spirituality of eating and how it connects our everyday lives. Especially in our Jewish everyday lives. Because the Jewish people, from the moment you're born until the moment you leave this world, you are always involved with food. From Brit to Bar Mitzvah, Bat Mitzvah, engagements, weddings, Shabbos, Yom Tov, 52 Shabboses a year. Oh, at least that or maybe more. Every week is Shabbos. Every week is three meals plus another meal at the end. Hashem loves to eat. He loves to give us food. He loves to sustain us. And even more so, don't you think even more so that how much we work for food? I mean we wake up in the morning to sustain ourselves and also to sustain our families. Food is an integral part of our lives and Shabbos is our island in time. And I'm going to take you on this journey and we're going to have a wonderful, wonderful soul spice feeling. The smells wafting from our kitchen here in Jerusalem. Beautiful Shabbos cooking and also when we go through the week, we're going to also use some wonderful recipes too. You'll leave this program not only with some interesting tips, some great information, wonderful Divrei Torah, deeper insights, but you're going to go into Shabbos with soul spice. So once again, let me first of all introduce myself to you. My name is Chef Yochanan Ambiassi and many of you probably remember me from the Jerusalem Culinary Institute. It was the world's first kosher, the Mahadrin cooking school. And we had students that would come from all over the world to learn to be pastry chefs and restaurant chefs and caterers and beyond means sommeliers and a wonderful group of young people would come and they would go back and they would change their communities with the culinary arts that they had learned. Now you have to remember in 2003 that this was really the beginning of the revolution of kosher. There were more and more kosher products coming on the market. There was a cornucopia of wines, there were spices, there were new innovations in cooking. And we can see now, almost 20 years later, we can see that the kosher food industry has absolutely exploded. We have Kosher Fest in New York, we have amazing holidays, we have amazing experiences. But comes with that a community and this is what we are. We're a community, a community of Jews together who love to eat, who enjoy food and we want to connect together. And I've been on a 30 year journey since I became a chef all the way from the age of 16 all the way until today. Where I found that food and kosher food was so much more of a deeper part of our connection not only to Hashem. That I found through kosher food and through the right way of eating, that eating in the right way with the right understanding brings great benefit not only for ourselves but also for our family and all of those around us. You see, I think I'm now even more apt that we decided to start the Soul for Spice podcast for the simple reason that is now in this time of war in Israel where we are needing you to strengthen each other through eating, through food and through giving. And as we move through the podcast, you know, you'll be able to hear a little bit more about myself, my connection with food. I was being on many radio programs, I had a radio show in Israel which was called An Hour of Meats with Chef Yohanan Lambiasi. You might have found me in quite a few articles and you can look me up on Jerusalem Post. We had a whole series of programs there and I am involved in consultancy and also in strengthening our Jewish communities through speeches, through Zoom meetings to be able to strengthen each other in our understanding of eating. Welcome back to Soul Spice. We are very excited to be here and very excited to tell you what is going to be actually happening in this program. So I want to introduce you to some of the topics and some of the guests that we are going to be having here on this program. But first of all, we're a cooking show. That's an important thing and as I said, we're here from Jerusalem, from this beautiful kitchen here and we've got the spice box of Soul Spice that is wafting around the room with these wonderful, wonderful flavors. And as I said, you know, we're preparing for Shabbat and obviously we're going to be having many programs about all different Atachagim, special holidays, special events and special community things that we can do together to strengthen our soldiers at a time of war here in Israel. And also, obviously, all of the Jewish people here in Israel and all of the Jews around the world that need our help and support, both physically and emotionally. Remember, all of us Jewish people, we all have a DNA. We have a DNA of Avram, Yitzhak and Yaakov, Sarah, Rivka, Leah and Rachel. And their DNA is Ahnachas Orachim, is all of giving. And we remember the tent, the tent, the Eshel, the Aleph of the Eshel, of the tent that had four doors. For wherever you came, you would always walk into a place of food and comfort. The Shin of Eshel, the tent, is Shtia and the Lamed of Eshel, the tent, is Leina. This is us. We give. We're careful. A Jewish mother, she says, did you eat? Did you drink? She always worries about you. That's our Mama. That's Mama Rochel. And I'll tell you many, many stories about Mama Rochel in our podcast, because Mama Rochel is the mother of the Jewish people. She is known as the Shekhinah Tata, the lower presence that cries for her children. And all of us cry for the Geulah Shalema, that there's us and Hashem that we should have peace. And we find every time that we say B'kat HaMazon, and especially on Shabbos, that when we say the famous words, Poseach Es Yodecha, open your hands, Umasbir L'kol Chai Rotsom, and give to those who need. That is Mama Rochel. That is the Shekhinah. That is the flow of light that comes down from all of the worlds, from Hashem's Integral. And wanting for all of us in mankind is really only to give, and for us then to give on. And that is Mama Rochel. So when we say, Poseach Es Yodecha, Umasbir L'kol Chai Rotsom, L'kol is Lamed, Chai is Chet, Rotsom is Reish. And if you take those letters, Lamed, Chet, Reish, and you turn them around, you get Rachel. That you can tell to all of your friends. Because Hashem is always here to sustain us, and He does it through Mama Rochel, Baruch Hashem, through the Shekhinah, that we are all connected to raise us up. And especially as we come to Shabbos, when we say, Lecha Doidi Nikras Kalo, Penei Shabbos Nekabalo, that now we all raise ourselves up with the Shabbos Queen, the Shekhinah Tata, up to Shemayim, together with Hashem, as everything raises up to oneness. And as we end this week, we are going to have some wonderful, wonderful recipes. I have a special speaker, and he is going to be joining me regularly. His name is Adi Ben Zan, and he is the mastermind and the choreographer of the very famous culinary cooking show in Israel, that even was greater than the World Cup, they say. His name is Adi Ben Zan, a wonderful, wonderful individual, a great chef. He is involved very much in television, of culinary, and here in Israel, Israel Bake Off, many, many great shows, a royal chef, very, very interesting shows, and is a wonderful man, an encyclopedia of gourmet and culinary ideas. And especially one thing that we both have together, Adi and myself, is a total love for cooking, and a total love for tradition, and a total love for entertaining, and able to give people a beautiful experience about how wonderful, and how deep, and how inspiring, and how ancient, and how deep is our connection with food throughout our 3,000 years of the Diaspora. We're going to give you wonderful tips. We're going to give you great sources, great sources, great stories, great anecdotes. Adi Ben Zan and Chef Yohanan Biasi together are going to give you a more inspiring culinary cooking show. But even more than that, we're going to introduce you to other guests, because we're going to walk a little bit deeper into the spirituality of eating, and we're going to invite Rabbi Avram Shepard from David's Kabbalah, and Hadzion, the King David's tomb, for the past 20 years, has been giving amazing lectures to many people about the deeper secrets of the Torah at King David's tomb. And he's going to come on our show and give us some also beautiful insights, and also according to the Pasha, that we're going to go through each week. We're also going to be joined at the end of our program by Eliezer from Jewish Guided Meditations, a wonderful gentleman that we met quite a few years ago, and he has synced his wonderful meditations to this podcast of Soul Splice, and at the end you'll have a thought, you'll have a meditation, and he'll get you ready, then we'll move into Shabbos and beyond. And obviously speaking that we're a community, and we will be inviting many, many speakers, many, many influencers, and we're going to be raising many topics at our virtual kitchen table. Issues, topics that involve us, our Jewish existence, and our spiritual connection with Hashem. So we invite you to join us at Soul Spice Radio, every Thursday, getting ready for Shabbos, and beyond, we're inviting you to become our community, in your communities to reach out to us, with your recipes, with your suggestions, with your comments, and if you would like to invite us to come and speak, if you would like us to give more strength to our communities here in Israel, and also around the world, then please you will come, and we will invite you also to join us on our new blog, that will be starting extremely soon, very exciting, that will give beautiful recipes, what's happening in Soul Splice at the moment, how you can help, and how we can become one community. Anyway, thank you so much for listening, and once again my name is Chef Yochanan Lambiasi, and welcome to Soul Spice, and let's move forward together. Have a wonderful Shabbos. Bye-bye. So thank you for joining us on Soul Spice Radio, every Thursday, transmitting from Jerusalem, and again, remember you are our community, we are together, and we welcome all of your suggestions, we welcome all of your tips, if you would like to come and speak on our radio, if you're wanting to share with us stories, to speak with us, how you yourselves are helping and working together in your communities, in order to be able to strengthen us here in Israel, and all of the Jews around the world. B'sha'ast HaShem, I'm looking forward to coming on this journey with you. Our blog is on the way, in which they will be synced also, with our podcasts, with recipes, with anecdotes, with deeper stories of eating, with important topics in the lives of Jews at the moment around the world, in all areas, and we're looking forward to having you, and being part of the Soul Spice community. Thank you for listening. Goodbye.