Rabbis urged to adopt healthy eating and exercise
AMERICA'S Conservative rabbis are being asked to adopt healthy eating, exercise and lifestyle habits.
NEW YORK — Conservative rabbis are being asked to adopt healthy eating, exercise and lifestyle habits.
Rabbi Julie Schonfeld, the executive vice-president of the US Rabbinical Assembly, is asking her colleagues to join President Barack Obama’s fitness challenge, launched on January 1.
It is the first time that a rabbinic group has issued a fitness challenge, according to the Rabbinical Assembly.
“With so many people facing significant stress, healthy lifestyle habits often fall by the wayside,” said Rabbi Schonfeld in a news release.
“Now, more than ever, we need our leaders to provide a model for investing in our own health as a contribution to our families and communities as well as to ourselves. Rabbis interact with people on so many levels, at every stage of the lifecycle.
“If they model positive values of physical, mental and spiritual health, it will only have a positive effect on members of the community and the public.”
Rabbi Lisa Gelber and Rabbi Aaron Gaber said in a letter to their colleagues: “As rabbis, we are in a unique position to model for our communities, whether we work in a traditional congregational setting, a school, a hospital, an agency — wherever we find our calling — what it means to make fitness a part of our daily (or weekly) lives.
“This means making mindful decisions about how, when and where we’ll exercise; envisioning physical fitness as a personal and professional need, we commit to creating more balance in our bodies and our lives.
“Improving our behaviour in relation to fitness, we take responsibility for what we can control in our lives and practice letting go of what comes with our genes.
JTA
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