This is a post I’ve been avoiding for a while. The issue is that I don’t like to write on anything that I am not currently doing something about. As the musician and activist Joan Baez says:
Action is the antidote to despair.
Well for whatever reason, action is particularly hard for me on this subject. The subject is my body. It’s more than just a I want to wear skinny jeans sort of unhappiness. The issue is that I treat my body like crap. It goes beyond physical attractiveness, it’s about the abuse that I put my body through daily.
I rationalize my lack of self-care by listing off all of the great contributions I give to the world. It goes something like this:
I may be unhealthy but….
I am a really good nursing student
I work as a nurse aide and help 11 patients for 12 hours at a time
I am a good friend
I am a good daughter
I sing well
I love dogs
….
It gets weirder and weirder. I use it as an excuse not to take care of myself. I figure, if what I am do for others is going well, then maybe my body is the sacrifice that I will make in my life. Until recently, I figured this was just an issue of self esteem (which it is), but I’ve realized that taking care of my body really needs to be higher up on my list of priorities. I am about to go through a really long progression of analogies that explains why taking care of our bodies is incredibly important. I am going to try to explain that the way we approach the body of work that is the Torah is the same way we should approach the body of flesh that is our physical body.
You see, the other day I was reading an annotated version of The Zohar (the cornerstone of mystical Judaism) when I came across this passage.
Come and see: There is a garment visible to all.
When those fools see someone in a good-looking garment
they look no further.
But the essence of the garment is the body;
the essence of the body is the soul!
So it is with Torah.
She has a body: The commandments of Torah
called the ’embodiment of Torah.
This body is clothed in garmnets: stories of this world.
Fools of the world look only at that garment, the story of Torah;
they know nothing more.
Those who know more do not look at the garment,
but rather at the body under that garment.
Wise ones, servants of the King on high,
those who stood at Mount Sinai,
look only at the soul, root of all, real Torah!
In the time to come they are destined to look
at the soul of the soul of Torah.
The passage is saying that the Torah is just a garment. When you open it up and begin to look at it’s words, you see a body. When you understand and explore those words more fully, you are glancing at its soul.
What does this have to do with my body? I think about the Torahs in my synagogue. They are celebrated treasures. We are blessed to have many and they all reside in an Ark. This ark is made of beautiful wood and stained glass. Behind those doors, each Torah is dressed tons of ornaments!
On the tops of the dowels are crowns, there is a cloth mantel that hangs overtop of the scroll itself, a breastplate over that, and a yad (hand thing used to trace along the text as your read) hanging from the dowels over the breastplate. The tradition of dressing the Torah came as a tribute to the dressing of the high priest as described in Exodus 28.
If, as The Zohar states, the words on the scroll aren’t even the important part of the Torah, then why do we decorate them so much? Why do we continue this absurd tradition of protecting the ink from the oils of our hands by using a Yad to read it? Why do we throw sheaths and metals over something that could stand alone as a source of beauty? Going back to this kabbalistic concept of Torah, the Torah itself is a garment. So you’re telling me that we’re putting garment on top of garment on top of body on top of soul. Why DROWN the original beauty in all of this fluff?
Because we have to is the answer. The Torah cannot exist without the body. The body can not exist without the garment of the scroll and the words. And the garment and the words must be kept safe by the coverings we put around it. We make them beautiful because they honor the beauty that is inside.
So, this body that I’m wearing is my Torah scroll. These are the analogs:
Soul of Torah — Soul of Me
Body of Torah: Actual Torah Words — Body of Courtney: My actions
Garment of Torah: Words and Scroll — Garment of Courtney: My physical body
Decoration of Torah: Breastplate, yad, etc — Decoration of Courtney: cigarettes, cholesterol, fat
I’ve always seen past the actual body and more into my soul and my deeds. The good stuff about me. I have never really cherished my body because it seemed like more a cage holding me back than a vessel for the good underneath. My body is the Torah scroll and I have trashed it.
Rather than protecting my body of work (the analogous scroll), I have abandoned it. Rather than covering my body with the protection of nutritious food and exercise, I have decorated it with filth. My body is polluted with high cholesterol, cigarettes, and a significant amount of extra body weight. In my mind, it is analogous to rolling out a Torah scroll on a sooty ground and slathering it in wet rags. How on earth can you see through it to the text inside? How can you get past the garment to the body. The disease I pollute my body with is my garment. Regardless of how much good I do, this garment hangs in front of people’s eyes. As The Zohar stated:
Fools of the world look only at that garment, the story of Torah;
they know nothing more.
Those who know more do not look at the garment,
but rather at the body under that garment.
This is why I have friends and boyfriends. There are people who are not fools, who can look past that veil of illness and the person underneath, the body underneath. But there are still fools who can not. There are people who may never give me the time of day because of the garments I throw on my body. That is a loss for both of us.
An earlier part of this passage says:
All of the words of Torah are sublime words, sublime secrets!
I am of the opinion that humans are the words on that scroll. We are the sublime words. We are manifestations of the divine. We are the text. So why does it matter if I screw up my garment on my word? Because at all times, I am a part of a greater work. If I become smudged and unreadable, I may completely distort the meaning of the text. If someone tries to skip one word, everything makes less sense.
In the same way, we skip over a person because they smoke, do drugs, are greatly overweight, are alcoholics, or do something else outwardly harmful to their bodies. It’s not necessarily out of hate, I think often people are uncomfortable being around unhealthy people. I notice it a lot in healthcare. It’s frustrating to have a patient who just had a coronary bypass eating a cheeseburger. You want to give up on them. We tend to “skip” these words (or people) because they are harder to read.
The point of this post is not to self-shame, but to remind me that this body is really important. It’s the only one I have to complete my works of divinity. To write my story. To hold my place on the mystical scroll. Is it my essence? No, but it is a beautiful gift that is capable of so many things. It’s my responsibility to clothe it appropriately.
Again, if we go back to the Torah as our example, we can’t be so fearful of harming our bodies that we never give people the opportunity to see what they’re capable of. We can’t be so paralyzed of a smudge or a scrape that we never play. After all, it’s almost Simchat Torah! During that holiday we literally dance with the Torah, and at least at my synagogue, we unroll the whole thing so that everyone can lay a hand on it. What a terrifying prospect! But remember, the scroll itself is just a body that can be repaired. One day it will probably wear out, but there are others ready to carry the Soul of the Torah.
My body is a blessing. It is like the words of Torah, a divine gift. I have the opportunity to clothe my body. It is a responsibility I am beginning to take seriously.
*Also, in case you’re looking for a very readable version of The Zohar, I highly recommend Skylight Illumination’s annotated and explained one by Daniel C. Matt. It’s very accessible.
**I’m sure some of you expected me to compare the clothes of the Torah to the clothes we wear. While that would have been a WAY easier comparison, it wasn’t where my head went when I read the passage. I know this is a particularly ridiculous post, but it’s was important for me to put out there.
And You Shall Love 