Dear Friends,
We all know it – our western, American society assert a pricey and painful premium on physical beauty.
The beauty industry – from plastic surgeons to cosmetics firms to the media to weight-control diet organizations and fitness clubs – all benefit and reinforce the idea that we should look like store manikins, young and sexy, and cover any deficiencies with some artifice.
But, it isn’t a thoroughly new concept, and the price has been paid for millennia.
Our Torah portion describes who may serve as a priest in antiquity, and who is disqualified. Disqualification was subject to two conditions: if a priest was rendered impure through contact with a corpse or some other impure object, or if he had a physical defect. Leviticus reads: “No one at all who has a defect shall be qualified… no man ho is blind, or lame, or has a limb too short or too long; no man who has a broken leg or a broken arm; or who is a hunchback, or a dwarf, or who has a growth on his eye, or who has a boil-scar or scurvy…” (Leviticus 21:18-20)
Now, today, the concerns for the priest’s physical perfection are moot, yet the continuing interest and expectation of bodily perfection have permeated our western society, especially how it effects women. We all haver heard of young Jewish girls who suffer from bulimia and starve themselves to look slimmer, or who undergo surgery to make their noses trimmer, or older Jewish women who seek tummy-tucks or eye-lifts to remain attractive – all to serve the idolatrous god of bodily perfection. Beyond the physical costs – imagine the social/emotional costs on one who feels inadequate or defective, and who puts their life at risk to correct their perceived deformity.
A social ethic and billions in industry reinforce that such persons are imperfect, and moreover, reinforce the faulty notion that there is such an idea as bodily perfection. How many have been hurt while seeking that elusive, non-existent goal!
Yet, we seem to have overlooked that in Genesis, when God created human beings – male and female – God pronounced us “Very good – Tov m’od!” Torah’s objective for the human was never perfection, but rather a wonderful delight in our being “Good!” And, if one is “Good” at life, at living, at loving and at caring, then one has more beauty than all the Vogue models, combined. “Good” is beyond perfect!
This week, our Torah portion initiated the idea of bodily perfection, and it has run amok ever since. The tragedy is that our wider society rewards the physically beautiful and punishes the rest. Let’s change that back. Let’s see ALL the beauty and ALL the perfection in one another, and see how “Good” and beautiful we might truly be!
With Shalom,
Rabbi Douglas Kohn
(My appreciation to Dr. Shulamit Reinharz, Brandeis University, who seeks fresh ways of thinking about Jews and gender, and who edited The JGirls Guide)
We all know it – our western, American society assert a pricey and painful premium on physical beauty.
The beauty industry – from plastic surgeons to cosmetics firms to the media to weight-control diet organizations and fitness clubs – all benefit and reinforce the idea that we should look like store manikins, young and sexy, and cover any deficiencies with some artifice.
But, it isn’t a thoroughly new concept, and the price has been paid for millennia.
Our Torah portion describes who may serve as a priest in antiquity, and who is disqualified. Disqualification was subject to two conditions: if a priest was rendered impure through contact with a corpse or some other impure object, or if he had a physical defect. Leviticus reads: “No one at all who has a defect shall be qualified… no man ho is blind, or lame, or has a limb too short or too long; no man who has a broken leg or a broken arm; or who is a hunchback, or a dwarf, or who has a growth on his eye, or who has a boil-scar or scurvy…” (Leviticus 21:18-20)
Now, today, the concerns for the priest’s physical perfection are moot, yet the continuing interest and expectation of bodily perfection have permeated our western society, especially how it effects women. We all haver heard of young Jewish girls who suffer from bulimia and starve themselves to look slimmer, or who undergo surgery to make their noses trimmer, or older Jewish women who seek tummy-tucks or eye-lifts to remain attractive – all to serve the idolatrous god of bodily perfection. Beyond the physical costs – imagine the social/emotional costs on one who feels inadequate or defective, and who puts their life at risk to correct their perceived deformity.
A social ethic and billions in industry reinforce that such persons are imperfect, and moreover, reinforce the faulty notion that there is such an idea as bodily perfection. How many have been hurt while seeking that elusive, non-existent goal!
Yet, we seem to have overlooked that in Genesis, when God created human beings – male and female – God pronounced us “Very good – Tov m’od!” Torah’s objective for the human was never perfection, but rather a wonderful delight in our being “Good!” And, if one is “Good” at life, at living, at loving and at caring, then one has more beauty than all the Vogue models, combined. “Good” is beyond perfect!
This week, our Torah portion initiated the idea of bodily perfection, and it has run amok ever since. The tragedy is that our wider society rewards the physically beautiful and punishes the rest. Let’s change that back. Let’s see ALL the beauty and ALL the perfection in one another, and see how “Good” and beautiful we might truly be!
With Shalom,
Rabbi Douglas Kohn
(My appreciation to Dr. Shulamit Reinharz, Brandeis University, who seeks fresh ways of thinking about Jews and gender, and who edited The JGirls Guide)
