Body and Soul

Some ideologies glorify the soul. Some cultures worship the body. Judaism believes in their synergetic nature.

Guarding Our Health and Idolatry

In this week’s parsha, where Moses relates some of Judaism’s most fundamental doctrines, and practices he states the following:

“And you shall guard your souls for you did not see any image on the day G-d spoke to you.. Lest you do not become corrupted and make an idol for yourselves…”

The simple meaning of the text is that we should guard our soul, our spiritual life and not be led astray by idolatry.

The Talmud, however, cites an interpretation of this verse that understands it as an admonishment to guard our health.

Accordingly, the question must be asked: How does the end of the verse that speaks of idolatry have to do with guarding one’s physical health.

One commentator (Moznei Tzedek) explains that with the admonition against idolatry the

Torah wishes to teach us that despite the need to guard our health one may not use idolatrous remedies to cure any of our illnesses.

Indeed, the Talmud writes that even if one’s life is danger one may not use idolatrous remedies.

This is not only true because these remedies are usually useless and perhaps even harmful, but, moreover, even if, hypothetically, there was a situation where these idolatrous remedies worked, it would still be forbidden to avail oneself of them.

The prohibition against idolatry is so serious that a Jew is expected to die rather than to benefit in any way from it.

Body Worship

Another way of explaining the juxtaposition of guarding one’s health and the warning against idolatry is based on the limits the Torah places on our bodies.

To explain:

When a religion advocates a lifestyle that accentuates the importance of the body there is also the danger that it can lead to glorifying the body and even worshipping it.

Indeed, the ancient Greeks glorified their bodies and were therefore opposed to, and eventually banned, circumcision because it mutilated the body. Even today we find echoes of this ancient body worship cult in all segments of society, in various subtle and not so subtle forms.

To disabuse us from this notion that Judaism worships the body, the Torah tells us that notwithstanding the need to guard the body’s health it should not be misconstrued as a license to be obsessed with the body and its needs.

In short, Judaism maintains a healthy balance between the absolute repudiation of any form of idolatry while firmly advocating an attitude of respect for the body.

The Paradoxical View of the Body

In truth, while in Judaism the rejection of idolatry and body worship is so strong, it does, paradoxically, place an incredible emphasis on the body?

The question arises, why is Judaism, the most strident of all ideologies in its repudiation of idol and body worship of any kind, so deferential to the body? Why does the Torah admonish us to take care of our bodies and lumps it together with the health of our souls?

There are a number of explanations of the importance of the body in Jewish thought:

Temple of the Soul

On a most basic level the body is seen as the “Temple of the soul.”

For 70, 80 or 120 years, the soul leaves its heavenly abode where it enjoyed a relationship with G-d—indeed, the soul itself is a part of G-d—and enters into a physical body. There is no way that the soul does not leave its imprint on the body.

Second, by honoring the body we are vicariously honoring the resident of that body—the soul.

As such, we must not abuse it because by doing that we deny the soul a proper and dignified place in which to reside.

Third, without our physical health, it makes it hard to concentrate on our Torah study and difficult to perform all of the Mitzvos. Not only is the body the location where the soul resides, it is the soul’s very instrument to fulfill its mission to study Torah and fulfill the Mitzvos.

The Divine Source of the Body

Jewish mystical thought adds a fourth dimension to our understanding of the role of and attitude to the body based on a fundamental principle stated in the early Kabbalistic work, Sefer Yetzirah:

“The end is wedged in the beginning and the beginning in wedged in the end.”

Accordingly, what ends up being lower, Kabbalah teaches us, comes from a higher source. Or, as it is frequently put in Chassidic literature, “the higher something is the lower it falls.”

In simple language this means that the body, because it is physical and lower than spirituality actually belies its higher G-dly source. The body contains hidden Divine energy that can only be accessed when the body and enjoy a harmonious relationship; so that the soul and body work in tandem and are both going in the same direction.

Teacher and Student Metaphor

There is still a fifth way of viewing the relationship of the body to the soul and our attitude towards the body. This approach will also reconcile the paradoxical attitude that seems to be advocated by the Torah when it tells us to take care of our bodies but not to deify them.

The soul can be likened to a teacher and the body to a student. When an educational institution hires a teacher it is for the purpose of educating the student and not to help provide a teacher with employment.

If we were to ask, who is more educated and sophisticated, the teacher or the student, we would certainly expect the answer to be the teacher. However, if we would rephrase the question to read: who is here for whom? Is the teacher here for the student or is the student here for the teacher? The answer to this version of the question is that the teacher (and the schools administration, maintenance crew, cook etc.) is here for the students.

Similarly, while it is clear that the soul is far more sophisticated, spiritual and sensitive than the body; the souls’ existence in this world is not for itself but for the enrichment of the body; so that the body appreciates its role and true spiritual nature.

To accomplish this, the body must also be healthy.

Reversing Roles in the Messianic Age

If we were to take the analogy of the teacher and the student a step further it would lead us to the conclusion that just as a student can advance beyond the level of the teacher, so too the body can surpass the soul in its Divine essence!

Chassidic thought states that, indeed, in the Messianic Era, the body will have become so refined and sophisticated that it will achieve even greater prominence than the soul.

Another way of putting this is that in the Messianic Age, the body’s true G-dly source and potential will be revealed so it will be clear that the body is no less a venue and vehicle for G-d’s expression than that of the soul.

Preparing for the Messianic Era Body-Soul Relationship

One of the ways we prepare for this era when body and soul will enjoy the most harmonious relationship is to involve the body in more and more physical Mitzvah acts. These will cement the relationship between soul (teacher) and body (student) even today in these last moments of Galusexile.

Every time we put on Tefillin, for example, it gets the body ready for its preeminent role in the Messianic Age.

Likewise, whenever we work to improve the health of our bodies with the express intention of better serving G-d, it will prepare us for the day that both the soul and the body will experience total harmony and bliss.

From the book Light from the Future: Parshas Voeschanan by Rabbi Heschel Greenberg, published by the Jewish Discovery Center.