There is a prayer that is part of the regular morning service that may surprise you. Let me share the English with you, and as I do, please try to think about what this prayer is thanking God for:
Praised are You O God, Sovereign of the universe, who fashions man/woman with wisdom and created within him/her many openings and cavities. It is obvious and known before Your Glory that if but one of them to be ruptured or but one of them be blocked it would be impossible to survive and to stand before You. Praised are You God, Who heals all flesh and acts wondrously.
Let me repeat one phrase that may help you guess what this prayer is about: “who fashions man/woman with wisdom and created within him/her many openings and cavities”.
Yes, you may be surprised: this is a prayer thanking God for being able to go to the bathroom! (And I'm not using bad bathroom humor here!)
In this prayer, we are reminded to not take our bodies for granted. We all know the consequences when our delicate digestive systems fall out of sync with the rest of our bodies, and the severe discomfort it causes!
God has created each of us with intricate systems that should, and often, astonish us. Plato suggested there were two aspects to the human existence, the body and the spirit. In Judaism we understand the experience of living in a similar way. Yet, unlike Plato, we must also understand the two can never be separated. The two are indelibly intertwined: the body and the spirit. We learn in Genesis that we are created B'tzelem Elohim, in the image of God. As such, our entire beings are holy-not just our souls, or our minds, but all of us. Therefore, the prayer that I uttered a moment ago should not be surprising, but a natural way for us to acknowledge the holiness of our bodies, even as we nurture our spirits. We often take the time to acknowledge the spirit, and along with it the mind, but I'm not sure, as Jews, we've learned enough about what our tradition teaches concerning the body. Known in Hebrew as Shmirat HaGuf, caring for the body, it is time to highlight and emphasize the wise ways of our tradition.
Rabbi Elliot Dorff, a contemporary scholar, wrote: “American ideology and law would permit me to eat a half-gallon of ice cream every night of the week; I might be stupid to do so because I will look and feel terrible and endanger my life, but that is my choice. In Jewish law, though, I do not have that right because I have a fiduciary duty to take care of my body since it belongs to God.”
As someone who has battled her weight for most of her life, it has become important for me understand that my body does not belong entirely to me but is a gift from God. When we understand that the way that we eat is holy, perhaps we will become more cognizant of our food intake. We emphasize this by saying a blessing before and after we eat in Judaism: the traditional first blessing thanks God for the food we made in partnership with God, and the blessing after eating thanks God for what we have enjoyed. Elevating food in this way can help us, even when we rush to eat a meal on a busy day. With an increasing proportion of children struggling with weight, and an almost epidemic number of children being diagnosed with diabetes, we must come to understand that every time we eat, we have the capability to destroy our bodies, and we have the opportunity to help them remain whole.
Turn on MTV recently? Hit the wrong button while searching for a favorite website? Sex is everywhere in the media. From scantily clad women hanging on men, to gyrating buttocks, to inappropriate language, this is the norm for our children today. In fact, in watching a young child, of no more than 6, show me her dance routine for her jazz class, I was shocked-it was filled with gyrations and hip thrusts. She claimed, “Isn't it great? My teacher says I'm sexy!” As a 6 year old she has no idea what that means.
This must be a clarion call to teach our children about the beauty, and the holiness of our bodies, and the sexual choices we make. Ignoring the signs in children even as young as 6 will mean we will continue to send messages to our children that teach about sexuality as a convenience and a commodity. We must teach our children that their bodies are holy, and how they use them is a sacred choice.
Along with rampant and unhealthy images of sexuality, we also struggle with the glamorization of substance abuse. This is combined with the fact that substances are easily obtained, and labeled by children as necessary and cool parts of growing up. I know students brag about their first experiences getting so drunk they threw up and couldn't remember where they were. Sure, this may be for us a college memory-but for some kids, this situation can occur as early as 11 or 12.
Substance abuse is not new. What is new is that we are talking about it. No longer hiding the dark secret of a relative in recovery, we are now proud to house a weekly AA meeting, on Wednesday nights. When we acknowledging the danger of substance abuse and that it can quickly elevate to a disease, can help us to highlight the holiness of our bodies and the way that we treat them.
I purposely highlighted children in these three examples. We must, in understanding the importance- holiness-of our bodies within the context of Jewish tradition, also be teaching this to our children as well. As such, the Reform Movement is working to create a curriculum that will enable Religious Schools to teach holiness and care of the body to children from 6th grade and up. Temple Beth-El is proud to be part of this pilot project. Our children and our teenagers are faced with unhealthy choices and difficult decisions at every turn-from enormous portion sizes and constant junk food, to availability of drugs and alcohol, to unclear and dangerous messages about sexuality, our children must learn that their bodies are holy. Through this, they will be more guided and grounded, enabling them to better embrace and care for their bodies.
Taking good care of our bodies, and acknowledging their sacredness, is inherently a Jewish value. “So God created humankind in God's image, in the image of God, God created them, male and female God created them.” As we walk through life in partnership with God, let us not forget to serve our minds, spirits, and bodies.
E-mail Rabbi Bergman Vann
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