Many religions and spiritual traditions view the body as an adversary of the soul that drags it down and distracts it from its true mission. It follows that the spiritual strategy employed by this worldview is to diminish the body’s compromising impact on the soul.

The idea that the body must be tamed or even “beaten” into submission is a pervasive one. In his book, Walking Words, the Uruguayan writer Eduardo Galeano sums up prevailing contemporary views of the body succinctly: “The church says: the body is sin. Science says: the body is a machine. Advertising says: the body is business. The body says: I am a fiesta.”

The Jewish perspective on the body is quite different. Whereas some traditions view corporeal life as an obstacle course—a series of challenges designed to test our spiritual resolve and integrity—Judaism sees the body as the interface and means of expression for the soul in physical reality. In this way, the body gives the soul a voice, and the soul provides the song.

Such a positive view of the body may strike some as counterintuitive from a religious perspective, but this is the basis of Jewish faith and practice. Judaism is a religion of action, not just good intentions. Towards this end, G‑d desires the physical performance of mitzvot, which the soul is incapable of without the body. After all, it has no hands of its own to don tefillin or give charity, which is why it needs the body to give it form and expression, enabling it to achieve its raison d’être in the physical realm.

Accordingly, the Jewish approach to physicality is one of active engagement, not of avoidance or escape through ascetic practices and behaviors. While Judaism does not encourage indulgence, neither does it view abstention as the goal of bodily experience. The purpose of corporeal life is therefore not to negate but to embrace physicality and utilize it to achieve spiritual aims. As it says in Proverbs: Know G‑d in all your ways.1

For instance, in the Tanya, R. Schneur Zalman of Liadi discusses reciting a blessing before eating a meal. The purpose is described as twofold: to spiritually elevate the physical substance of the food itself, whether plant or animal, and then to harness the energy gleaned from eating into mitzvot.2 Thus, in the ideal world, the body is transparent to the soul—a suitable vehicle to assist it in carrying out its Divine mission.

This transformation from physical energy to spiritual action can and must begin with one’s own bodily functions and habits. It is for this reason that Jews even recite a blessing after using the bathroom, thanking G‑d for the intricate workings of the body and acknowledging that if even one opening were to close, it would be impossible to continue the mighty and sacred task of living in and Divinizing the world. And so, following what could be considered our most base activity, we say a blessing to acknowledge the Divine design of the body itself. Over time, these rituals, of which there are many in Judaism, help us develop a more refined nature and existential orientation that is in sync with the soul and better suited to acting on its behalf.

Indeed, the Hebrew word for body, guf, means a lid or cork,3 signifying that the body serves as a container to encase and give form to the soul. Like software, the soul is immaterial and cannot function without the body’s physical hardware to process and translate its instructions into tangible actions. The body is thus the vessel that enables the soul to inhabit physical life. Without it, the soul would be unable to interface with the physical world.

However, the body is not merely a means to an end, needed to facilitate the soul’s aims and enable it to find physical expression; it also has its own unique contribution that transcends even the soul’s greatest capabilities. King Solomon writes in Proverbs4 that a rich harvest comes through the strength of an ox. The body, like an ox, possesses strength and passion that, when unbridled and untamed, has the potential to wreak havoc. However, it is this same fiery passion and brute strength that, when harnessed and directed towards spiritual aims, can be utilized to achieve what the soul could not accomplish on its own.5

From the soul’s experience of reality, all is already one. Through embodiment, however, the soul experiences a more fragmentary perspective, giving rise to the drives and ambitions of earthly life. These psycho-emotional drives, such as jealousy, envy, and greed, which arise from life in the body, can potentially be harnessed by the soul to propel it beyond the heights it could reach on its own. For instance, the Sages teach: “Envy among scholars increases wisdom.”6

In this way, the body takes the soul to places it could not reach alone. This is alluded to by another Hebrew word that shares the same root letters as the word guf (body), agapayim—wings. Contrary to popular belief, it is the body that provides wings for the soul, not the other way around. Therefore, the body is not just a vessel for the soul, but its vehicle.

Ideally, like horse and rider, the body carries the soul with power and devotion, while the soul provides the body with direction. The body does not therefore simply allow the soul to operate in this world; it carries it further along its path towards fulfillment of its purpose.

The advantage of the body over the soul is thus not merely in its passion and brute force that enables the soul to soar; rather, Judaism views the body as more central to the purpose of creation than the soul. In fact, the soul is sent into this world with the express mission of transforming the nature of the body from a coarse, self-centered, and materialistic entity into a more refined and spiritually-attuned being.

The body is therefore not just a greater engine for achievement in this world than the soul, it is the ultimate purpose of the soul’s descent from its heavenly, spiritual abode into mortal life.

Reflecting this spiritual perspective, Jewish law is very particular about how we treat the body, conferring upon it a degree of sanctity and holiness. For instance, the Torah prohibits harming the body in any way, as can be deduced from the verse,7 Guard your life exceedingly, to the extent that “the danger of physical harm is treated with more severity than (ritual) prohibition.”8

Additionally, pikuach nefesh—the halachic principle that preservation of human life overrides virtually9 any other religious rule—is another powerful expression of Judaism’s regard and even reverence for life in the body. In this way, the Torah frames our physical health and survival as a religious mandate of the highest order! For, as R. DovBer, the Maggid of Mezritch, once taught, “A small hole in the body is a large hole in the soul.”10

In fact, even after death, when the soul has departed from the body, Jewish law requires that we treat the body with the utmost respect. As a tangible expression of this, a ritual purification is performed on a lifeless body before it is placed into the ground and returned to the earth. This indicates the spiritual value and sacredness that Judaism ascribes to the body, which extends well beyond its utility for the soul.

Remarkably, from a mystical perspective, the spiritual origins and potential of the body exceeds even that of the soul! Indeed, the fourth Lubavitcher Rebbe, R. Shmuel, writes11 that “in the time to come, the soul will be nurtured by the body. Because, in truth, the body comes from a place that is immeasurably higher than the soul.”

Based on the Kabbalistic teaching12 that our forefather Abraham also serves as a metaphor for the soul and Sarah for the body, a striking textual allusion to the spiritual supremacy and wisdom of the body over the soul emerges from G‑d’s words to Abraham13 (the soul): Whatever Sarah [the body] tells you, hearken to her voice.14 This reflects the radical notion that, in potential and through the soul’s activation, the body’s unique spiritual intuition and insight15 exceed that of the soul itself.16

Interestingly, there is a debate between Jewish philosophers as to whether the messianic era is one of corporeal reality, where the soul is vested in a body, or whether it is a spiritual state of heavenly ecstasy, entirely removed from any physical trappings.

Maimonides17 maintains that the ultimate state is one of spiritual abstraction. The Kabbalists,18 however, follow the view of Nachmanides19 that the ultimate state is one in which the soul is embodied.20 In this spirit, the Mishnah teaches that21 “one hour of returning to G‑d and performing good deeds in this world [i.e., in a body] is more precious than the entire World to Come22 [in which one is totally disembodied].”

Accordingly, Judaism values life within the body over the highest spiritual experience; since G‑d’s ultimate desire is not for more ethereal spirituality, but for “an abode in the lowest realms.”23 G‑d’s greatest pleasure is therefore not in the negation of the body but in its elevation.

The Big Idea

The body is not just a friend of the soul or fuel to its fire; its refinement is the very purpose of the soul’s descent into this world.

It Happened Once

There was once a Chasid by the name of Yaakov Mordechai who, for many years, deprived himself of all physical comforts in order to achieve supremacy of soul over body. Before his passing, however, he expressed regret at having weakened his body with his unrelenting regimen and desire to put spirit over matter. Perhaps, had he not been so hard on his body, he could have lived to observe one more mitzvah. “For thirty years I slept on a bench (instead of a comfortable bed)!” he was later quoted to have said. “But to put on tefillin even one more time is far more valuable than to sleep on a bench for thirty years!”24