Professional photo

Professional photo
Beating Kevin

Wednesday, October 15, 2014

Caring for Your Body


Sometimes, when I'm stuffing 5 Fiber One brownie bars into my mouth (maybe eventually they will taste like actual brownies), I forget that it's my job to take care of myself. It's more than that. It's even a religious obligation:


Once, when Hillel had concluded a class with his disciples, he left the House of Study with them.

The disciples asked him, “Master, where are you going?”
He replied: “To fulfill a religious obligation.”
“What is this religious obligation?” the disciples wanted to know.
He replied: “I am going to the bathhouse in order to have a bath.”
The disciples were astonished, and they asked, “Is that really a religious obligation?”
He answered: “Yes! If somebody who is appointed to scrape and clean the statues of the king that stand in the theaters and circuses is paid for the work and even associated with the nobility, how much more should I, who am created in the image and likeness of God…take care of my body?”

—Leviticus Rabbah 34:3


It is ridiculous that I treat the vase that I got as a wedding gift better than my own body. If we start believing that our bodies are holy, a gift from God and created in the holy image of God, then maybe we'll be more gentle and kind to them.