The Mystery of the Body
ANN LANDOWNE
SHMA.COM
God formed the human of dust from the soil,
God blew into his nostrils the breath of life
and the human became a living being.
The mystery of the body begins with the synthesis of dust and the intimate breath of life formed in the image of God.
In the first chapters of the Torah we are presented with a dilemma. The body is physical
and made from the earth, but it is also imbued
with the God-given nish’mat hayim, the breath
of life, and created in the image of God, b’tzelem
Elokim. We are part of the physical world but
our physicality is a reflection of the Divine
image, and the atoms and molecules of our
being hum with a God-given life force.
From a scientific perspective the body can
be understood as a complex and elegant system
perfected over the millennia through the
processes of evolution. Our bodies, when functioning well, are able to handle a multitude of
tasks without requiring any conscious effort or
control. Our body temperature, the ability to
fight off infection, the precise balance of oxygen
and carbon dioxide in our bloodstream, and
even our ability to coordinate desire and intention through the seamless melding of thought
and action are just a few examples of the myriad functions of the body. The morning prayer
Asher Yatzar, reminds us of the largely unconscious and wondrous functioning of the body.
Blessed are You, Eternal our God, who
formed the human body with wisdom and
placed within it a miraculous combination of
openings and organs…if only one of them
should be opened or blocked at the wrong
time, it would be impossible to exist and
stand before You.
It is hard for us to imagine the number and
variety of processes that occur within us. The
trillions of cells in hundreds of different vari-eties, operating in a coordinated fashion are us.
We are the sum of these many separate biological entities.
This leads to a difficult question: How does
consciousness emerge from this mass of biological material that is our bodies? Is consciousness the physical manifestation of cells
and neuronal pathways acting in concert? A
wave frequency? A property of a positive feedback loop? Or is it related to a spark of the
Divine, the breath of life and the undying soul?
Science cannot begin to answer how neu-robiological processes in the brain cause consciousness. Lewis Thomas, the noted physician
and self-proclaimed science watcher speculated
about the fate of consciousness after the physical death of the body. He wondered about the
possibility of consciousness continuing to exist
in some form after the death of the body.
“There is still that permanent vanishing of
consciousness to be accounted for. Are we stuck
forever with this problem? Where on earth does
it go? Is it simply stopped dead in its tracks, lost
in humus, wasted? Considering the tendency of
nature to find uses for complex and intricate
mechanisms, this seems to me unnatural. I prefer to think of consciousness as somehow separated off at the filament of its attachment, and
then drawn like an easy breath back into the
membrane of its origin, a fresh memory for a
biospherical nervous system.”
An easy breath, the breath of life, returned
to its source, the source of all being.
Ann Landowne, a rabbinical
student at Hebrew Union
College, is a physician.
Discussion
1. Is it necessary to resolve the unknown?
2. What do the early chapters of the
Book of Genesis teach us about mystery?
3. What is the relationship between awe
and mystery?
company to its eventual downfall.
In the ultra-Orthodox Jewish community in
Belgium where I grew up, we were always careful not to desecrate God’s name through improper behavior. Keeping kosher connects me to
the ancient community that established a
covenant with God to uphold responsibilities toward both God and humanity. Kiddush haShem,
the sanctification of God, can be put faithfully
into practice only when the ethical and the ritual
are inextricably connected.
Ethics continued from page 20
