An Open Letter to University Presidents
6 min read
Overcoming your temptation for unhealthy eating is a key to spiritual growth.
Surprisingly, many kosher consumers are non-Jews. They apparently look for that kosher symbol on packaged food because they think that kosher means “healthy.”
On the flip side, some Jewish people who keep kosher only look for that kosher symbol and don’t care about the ingredients. They apparently believe that kosher means "fine to eat."
In fact, although eating kosher is a mitzvah (commandment), it has nothing to do with the mitzvah of keeping healthy. One can eat strictly kosher food and still be very unhealthy.
Moreover, while keeping healthy surely makes good sense, many people don’t realize that it, too, is a commandment in Judaism.
A deeper understanding of this mitzvah can be gleaned from examining the Torah’s very first commandment, which took place in the Garden of Eden:
And God commanded the human, saying: “From every tree of the garden you shall surely eat; and from the tree of knowledge of good and evil you should not eat from it...” Genesis 2:16-17
Fascinatingly, the very concept of being commanded is introduced through the arena of eating and self-control. It didn’t have to be that way. After all, the exemplar mitzvah could have echoed Rabbi Akiva’s famous declaration that “love your neighbor” is the Torah's most important principle. Accordingly, the first mitzvah given to Adam might have been, “Toward every creature you shall show kindness and to no creature shall you show meanness.” Or it could have been based on the first two of the Ten Commandments, stating: “You shall worship God and you shall not worship idols.”
Adam and Eve, who represent the archetypes of humanity, were not commanded about ethics or religion, rather about eating and self-restraint.
But the lesson doesn’t end with the commandment; this first mitzvah is soon put to the test with the introduction of temptation:
And the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was tempting to the eyes... Genesis 3:6
With its characteristic brevity, the Torah is teaching that the epitome of a mitzvah is self-control in the face of food temptation. From this paradigmatic story of Adam and Eve in the Garden, seven principles emerge:
Awareness of these seven principles can enable the conquest of any temptation, for food or anything else. Absent this wisdom, attempts at temptation-control (such as dieting) tend to fail, for our animal nature is always “crouching at the door” (Genesis 4:7), ready to pounce on any temptation.
Yet until recently, food itself wasn't necessarily more of a test than other temptations. Five hundred years ago - even 50 years ago - food wasn't the kind of temptation that it is now. Approximately 50 years ago, two things changed regarding food production that impacted our relationship to food.
The first was the agricultural revolution of the 1960s which created vast food surpluses worldwide, making calories very cheap in most countries. The second was the scientific engineering of food to be extremely pleasing to the eye and tongue.
These two developments have transformed the desire to eat something unhealthy (including overeating) from an occasional challenge to one of the greatest and most universal tests of our times. Temptations for unhealthy eating are constant and incredibly powerful. It's easy to see why:
These conditions conspire to get us repeatedly fail the eating test. The Forbidden Fruit of the Garden of Eden has become acutely pertinent.
Struggling with temptation builds spiritual muscle.
Yet the situation is far from bleak or desperate; on the contrary, any struggle with temptation is meaningful, for the struggle itself is central to elevating oneself to one’s higher potential. Each and every experience of desire is a new opportunity for this self-elevation.
When I feel a temptation and resist it because I know that this thing or action is not good for me, at that moment I'm achieving my primary purpose for being alive. Thus, the temptation (when resisted) is a gift. Just as struggling with a dumbbell builds physical muscle, struggling with temptation builds spiritual muscle.
And while food temptation has become a central struggle of humanity, it also remains the archetype of all spiritual tests. When one begins to conquer this primary test, other temptations can be more easily mastered.
This self-mastery has cosmic ramifications; in the words of Rabbi Moshe Chaim Luzzatto:
In truth, the world stands in a balance: for if a person is pulled after the world and is drawn further from his Creator, he is damaged, and he damages the world with him. But if he rules over himself and unites himself with his Creator, and uses the world only to aid himself in the service of his Creator, he is uplifted and the world is uplifted with him.1
We elevate ourselves and the world through self-control in the face of temptations of unhealthy food, laziness or any other bad habit. This is the foundation of the commandment to be healthy, and every healthy choice in the face of temptation is a step up that spiritual ladder.
Rabbi Alexander Seinfeld is the co-author of Body & Soul: the Torah Path to Health, Fitness and a Holy Life which is the result of 10 years of research and writing with Dr. Daniel Grove, MD. This thought-provoking, motivating book brings together in one place for the first time in one place, hundreds of Jewish sources translated into English, about health and diet along with the most recent, reliable, evidence-based science of food, diet, nutrition, exercise, and much more to aid in leading a vibrant and balanced life.
