HAGD

I woke up thinking about the balance of body and soul. During my formative years, in terms of Jewish thought, I imbibed the idea that the relationship between our body and soul is like a horse and rider. Our soul is us and our body is merely a shell; one day the body falls away and we, the souls, our true selves, reunite with G-d.

The above thinking can lead to neglect of care for our bodies. On the other hand, many people have the opposite problem - caring for their bodies to the degree that it's hard to consider their soul at all.

A couple of years ago I was in a hotel for work and I went to the gym very early in the morning. I didn't have sneakers with me, but decided not to use that as an excuse. Afterwards, I wrote this poem:

Are Those Rubber Sole Shoes?

By Neil Fleischmann

n

One day my body

will fall away

like a peanut shell.

That's what I learned

in my yeshiva days.

n

Those were just words,

and that was long before

the nut started cracking,

filling with dotted lines

to tear upon.

n

Those were just words,

spoken with no due respect

to "the irrelevant piece,

the unessential

the husk."

n

I'm 45 and it's 7:20

treadmill sweat trickles my head.

I self inflict pain because I -

the rider and the horse -

I want to stay alive.

I wish all my readers, all the world, a great day of synergy between body and soul. Hillel was once stopped by his students on the way to the bathhouse and told them he was going to do a mitzvah. Care for our body, and of course for our soul, is a mitzvah. As an old woman in a Starbucks once turned to me and said, "The body goes, take care of it."