GEN239 The human being is an integrated whole, combining all aspects of our being. Western philosophical thought and Christianity have been heavily influenced by the Greek and Gnostic bifurcation of body and mind (or soul). In these systems of thought, the body is seen as the inferior part of human beings, either because it is what we share with animals, in contrast to the mind, which is distinctively human (Aristotle), or because the body is the seat of our passions and hence our sins Paul in Romans 6-8, esp. 6:12, 7:14-24, 8:3, 10, 12-13 and Galatians 5:16-24; see also 1 Corinthians 7:2,9,36-38. Even though the Greeks glorified the body in their art and sculpture, it was only because developing the body was seen as a means to an end, a necessary prerequisite to cultivating the mind (as, for example, in Plato’s pedagogic program in The Republic). Similarly, Paul regarded the body as “the temple of the Holy Spirit,” 1 Corinthians 6:19 but only because it serves to sustain the soul so that it can accept faith in Jesus; the body per se “makes me a prisoner of that law of sin which lives inside my body.” Romans 7:23  Such classical views have shaped Western and Christian traditions from ancient times to our own. In Christianity, Augustine, Luther, and Calvin followed the lead of Paul and maintained that the body’s needs are to be suppressed as much as possible; indeed, asceticism and monasticism have been important themes in Christian ideology and history. In secular philosophic thought, the “mind-body problem” continues to be a stock issue in philosophic literature, which asks how the two, presumed to be so different and separate, are related in some ways to each other. While some Jews (in particular, Philo Lewy et al. (1960), part 1, esp 42-51, 54-55, 71-75. He calls the body a “prison house” (72); and Maimonides Guide of the Perplexed, part 3, chap. 33) were heavily influenced by the doctrines of the people living around them, biblical and talmudic literature does not share in this understanding of the human being as divided into parts. In the Talmud and Midrash, our soul is, in some senses, separable from our body. For example, when the Torah describes God as breathing life into Adam’s body, rabbinic sources understand that to mean not only physical life but consciousness. God repeats that process each day by taking our souls away during sleep and returning them to us again when we awake. Moreover, at death, the soul leaves the body only to be reunited with it again at the time of resurrection [this verse, B. Ta’anit 22b, and Genesis Rabbah 14:9.]. Rabbinic sources conflict, however, as to whether the soul can exist apart from the body, and even those who say it can exist separately depict the soul in physical terms, capable of performing many of the functions of the body [footnotes omitted].  In any case, in sharp contrast to the Greek and Christian traditions, classical rabbinic sources maintain that the soul is definitely not superior to the body. Indeed, one rabbinic source speaks of the soul as a guest in the body here on earth: One’s host must accordingly be respected and well treated. Leviticus Rabbah 34:3  Moreover, since the Rabbis regarded the human being as an integrated whole, the body and the soul are to be judged as one.  B. Sanhedrin 91a-91b  Furthermore, the Rabbis’ recipe for life and their method for moral education reflect this integration of body and soul. Thus, although the Rabbis emphasized the importance of studying and following the Torah, even placing it on a par with all of the rest of the Commandments, M. Pe’ah 1:1, B. Kiddushin 40b they nonetheless believed that the life of the soul or mind by itself is not good, that it can, indeed, be the source of sin: “An excellent thing is the study of Torah combined with some worldly occupation, for the labor demanded by both of them causes sinful inclinations to be forgotten.  All study of Torah without work must, in the end, be futile and become the cause of sin.” M. Avot 2:1 Thus, while the Rabbis considered it a privilege to be able to study Torah, they themselves – or at least most of them -- earned their livelihood through bodily work, and they also valued the hard labor of the field worker who spent little time in the study of Torah. B. Berakhot 17a. DORFFLOV 23-4