Rabbi's Message

                                  THE WEALTH OF HEALTH

“He who has health, has hope; and he who has hope, has everything.”  Medieval Proverb

From biblical times onward, Jewish thought has always emphasized health as an important aspect of religion.  The Book of Leviticus, for example, is replete with situations in which the Kohane, acting in his capacity as physician, diagnosed and prevented the spread of communicable disease.  Also, according to the halacha, traditional Jewish practice, it is forbidden to fast extensively, lest it harm the human body.  Piety can never be gained at the expense of a person’s health. Again, it is customary for observant Jews to ritually wash before every meal, and, according to some scholars, the kosher dietary laws have as one of their fundamental purposes the extension of hygiene and cleanliness.  The Talmud teaches that any time human health is endangered by Jewish observance, health clearly come first.  In fact, our tradition permits even the violation of the Sabbath, or Yom Kippur for that matter, if it is necessary for the preservation of a life. 

It has been noted that during the Middle Ages, our ancestors customarily took baths on Friday afternoons before the Sabbath.  Women also followed a strict regimen which included regular bathing.  This was during a period when a queen of England once boasted that she had taken only two baths in her lifetime: once on the day she was born and the other on the day she was married.

Page after page of Jewish literature has shown not only a concern for illnesses and healing but also the preservation of the human body as a gift from God.  While Jews were excluded from most professions in medieval, predominantly Christian Europe, yet our ancestors were accepted as doctors and surgeons, ministering not only to other Jews, but to Christians as well.  In fact, one of the greatest Jewish physicians of the period was Moses Maimonides better known by the acronym RAMBAM.  Most remembered for his scholarship, he was also a legendary master of medicine, regularly treating Egyptian royalty and even receiving a request to become court physician to King Richard the Lion-Hearted.

The founder of the Hasidic movement, the Baal Shem Tov, always tried to apply his ideals.  He urged his Hasidim to remember the importance of good health and taught them: “Do not consider the time you spend eating and sleeping wasted.  The soul within you is rested during these intervals and thereby enabled to renew its holy work with fresh enthusiasm.”  From the Jewish point-of-view, physical fitness is an authentic mitzvah.

In the words of the ancient sage, Ben Sira, “There is no wealth like health.”