A recurrent theme in many presentations of Judaism is its incorporation of physicality into the service of Hashem. The way in which Torah subsumes under its program for human living every last aspect of our lives however seemingly distant from or even counter to spirituality is indeed something unique to Judaism. This aspect is especially pronounced on Purim when wine witticism and song along with lavish feasting take center stage on that most spiritually exalted of days. Purim says Rav Hutner is the time when the holiness of the body of the Jew is made apparent.
Another way to express the same idea is to say that Judaism enables the Jew to mine his life minute by precious minute for maximal meaning. There is no experience or situation no aspect of the natural world without or the emotional world within nothing in all that comprises our material existence that one cannot tap for the meaning inherent within it.
This ought to be one of Torah’s strongest draws for our secular brethren if only we make the case to them. Every kiruv activist’s calling card should include this direct appeal: Got Meaning? After all meaning in life is what everyone is after whether they consciously know it or not.
More spiritually attuned individuals feel the void acutely while others attempt to still the emptiness with the ersatz soul-fillers that abound in life. But kol asher neshamah b’apo all who possess a soul that descended here from On High and that desperately seeks reconnection to that place are searching — though they may know not for what. Not for naught does the Amora Rav (Bava Kamma 3b) interpret the Mishnaic term mav’eh the seeker as a reference to man.
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