GEN695 The body belongs to God. For Judaism, God, as creator of the world, owns everything in it, including our bodies. See, for example, Exodus 19:5; Deuteronomy 10:14; and Psalms 24:1. See also Genesis 14:19, 22, where the Hebrew word for “creator” (koneh) also means “possessor,” and where “heaven and earth” is a merism for those and everything in between, and Psalms 104:24, where the same word is used with the same meaning. The following verses have the same theme, although not quite as explicitly or as expansively: Exodus 20:11; Leviticus 25:23,42,55; and Deuteronomy 4:35,39,32:6.  God loans our bodies to us for the duration of our lives, and we return them to God when we die. Consequently, neither men nor women have the right to govern their bodies as they will; God, as creator and owner, asserts the right to restrict how we use our bodies in ways articulated in Jewish law. Some of God’s rules require us to take reasonable care of our bodies, just as we would be obliged to protect and clean an apartment that we rent. Rules of good hygiene, sleep, exercise, and diet in Jewish sources are, therefore, not just words to the wise designed for our comfort and longevity, as they are in American thinking; they are, rather, commandments that we owe God. Bathing, for example, is a commandment according to Hillel (Leviticus Rabbah 34:3). Maimonides summarized and codified the rules requiring proper care of the body in M.T. Laws of Ethics (De’ot), chaps 3-5. He spells out there in remarkable clarity that the purpose of these positive duties to maintain health is not to feel good and live a long life but rather to have a healthy body so that one can then serve God. So for example, American ideology and law would permit me to eat a half gallon of ice cream every night of the week; I might be stupid to do so because I will look and feel terrible and endanger my life, but that is my choice. In Jewish law, though, I do not have that right, because I have a fiduciary duty to take care of my body since it belongs to God. Just as we are commanded to maintain good health, so we are obligated to avoid danger and injury. B. Shabbat 32a; B. Bava Kamma 15b, 809a, 91b; M.T. Laws of Murder 11:4-5; S.A. Yoreh De’ah 116:5 gloss; S.A. Hoshen Mishpat 427:8-10.  Indeed, Jewish law views endangering one’s health as worse than violating a ritual prohibition. B. Hullin 10a; S.A. Orah Hayyim 173:2; S.A. Yoreh De’ah 116:5 gloss. Conservative, Reform, and some Orthodox authorities have thus prohibited smoking as an unacceptable risk to our God-owned bodies. Bleich (1977a); Freehof (1977), chap. 11; and Rabbinical Assembly (1983), 182.  Judaism also teaches that human beings do not have the right to commit suicide, for doing so obliterates something that belongs not to us but to God. Genesis 9:5; M. Semahot 2:2; B. Bava Kamma 91b; Genesis Rabbah 34:19. (states that the ban against suicide includes not only cases where blood was shed but also self-inflicted death through strangulation and the like); M.T. Laws of Murder 2:3; M.T. Laws of Injury and Damage 5:1; S.A. Yoreh De’ah 345:1-3. In contrast, the laws of most American states permit suicide (although most prohibit aiding and abetting a suicide). See Savage (1996).  DORFFLOV 21