Posted on 08/27/21
If you are being honest, you will admit that when walking from your house to your car or vice versa, more often than not you will actually step a few feet out of the way in order to step on a dead leaf. And why do you do that exactly? Simple. Because the crunching sound of stepping on dead leaves is exhilarating and addictive.
I looked for research on this topic, but to no avail. However, I did come across a fascinating article called “The Science Behind Why We Crave Loud and Crunchy Foods” on the website mentalfloss.com. The author, Jake Rossen, discusses the unique mental stimulation that humans experience when eating crunchy foods. In fact, Rossen highlights an incredible study that was done by Charles Spence, Ph.D., a gastrophysicist and professor of experimental psychology and head of the Crossmodal Research Laboratory at the University of Oxford:
In 2003, Spence decided to investigate the sonic appeal of chips in a formal setting. To keep a semblance of control, he selected Pringles, which are baked uniformly—a single Pringle doesn't offer any significant difference in size, thickness, or crunch from another. He asked 20 research subjects to bite into 180 Pringles (about two cans) while seated in a soundproof booth in front of a microphone. The sound of their crunching was looped back into a pair of headphones. After consuming the cans, they were asked if they perceived any difference in freshness or crispness from one Pringle to another. What they didn’t know was that Spence had been playing with the feedback in their headphones, raising or lowering the volume of their noisy crunching. At loud volumes, the chips were reported to be fresher; chips ingested while listening at low volume were thought to have been sitting out longer and seemed softer.
Humans associate crunchiness with freshness. Although the leaves that you enjoy stepping on are actually dead, it still offers a satisfying sensation when stepped on. The English word “happy” comes from the Latin root word hap, as in happenstance and haphazard. Hap has a connotation of chance, luck, and fortune. So many people in life are not happy because their pursuit is happiness, and happiness is something that is up in the air. It is something based on external factors.
In Judaism we believe in שמחה, which we often translate as “happiness,” but would be more accurately defined as joy; to rejoice. If you think about it, life is not supposed to be dull, down, and depressing. It is meant to be joyful, satisfying, and meaningful. Hashem wants us to find the “crunch in life” and conduct ourselves with שמחה. What is the opposite of being on top? Being down below, right? Right. In Parshas Ki Savo, the Torah tells us (26:19, 28:1): ולתתך עליון על כל הגוים and ונתנך ה' אלקיך עליון – the Jewish people will be in the realm of עליון, which means: above and on top.
How do we merit to live our lives in the lofty realm of עליון? The answer is simple: when we live our lives with שמחה, and infuse our Judaism with joy, that is when we merit being on top. However, the flipside of above is below. The opposite of being עליון is being in the realm of תחת – down below, on bottom. We find ourselves and others in a state of תחת (negative, down, and depressed) when we are not finding joy in the Mitzvos that we do and in life in general.
Perhaps this is hinted to by the verse in our Parshah (28:47) which says: תחת אשר לא עבדת את ה אלקיך בשמחה because you didn’t serve Hashem with joy. When we don’t serve Hashem with joy and when we don’t live with שמחה, we dwell in the realm of תחת. We don’t want that. Let us strive to live with שמחה and joy and merit the promise of being עליון – on top.
Have a holy Shabbos!