The Healthy Jew Course

Bring purposeful wellness to your institution, community, or organization.

The purpose of The Healthy Jew Course is to teach the principles and practice of healthy lifestyle and how they integrate with Jewish law, customs, and worldview.

The course is currently geared toward Jewish adults and older teenagers, but much of the content can be adapted for children. The course can be given in English or Hebrew עברית.

(Click here to read this page in Hebrew: לצפייה בדף זה בעברית)

The course is often structured by five topics, each covering one aspect of Jewish wellness. Each topic can be presented in five parts: the general principle, three practical applications, and a summary with suggestions to implement at home.

I've taught the course to a variety of audiences, from kollel students to secular Israelis of all ages. I'm currently teaching the Healthy Jew class most evenings at the Yeshivas Lev Hatorah of Ramat Bet Shemesh, Israel.

Here's some things to consider:

• It’s not all or nothing! The course’s contents can be condensed; some subjects can be skipped altogether

• The course can be taught in person or over Zoom.

• A foraging walk can be added to experience another aspect of Healthy Jewish living, the Land of Israel.

• Light refreshments of healthy and tasty foods can be served at every meeting.

• If funding is available, the course can be presented as a stipend program with mandatory tasks.

Course Overview

Please Note: the articles linked in this outline don’t reflect everything covered in the course, but give general indications of its direction.

Part 1 – Jewish Wellness

1. Principle: Taking our health seriously is where good choices begin. We’ll learn about health as a value, and how to acquire and maintain healthy habits.

2. The effects of lifestyle on life expectancy and quality.

3. Health means balance (Maimonides), not extreme perfection.

4. How do we acquire healthy habits?

5. Summary and suggestion.

Part 2 – Eat Well

1. Principle: we enter good living with good nutrition.

2. Eat real food, not food-like substances.

3. Food categories according to their role in sustaining life.

4. How to eat? Meals, quantity, and more.

5. Summary and Suggestion.

Part 3 – Move Well

1. Principle: exercise is the movement of life out into the world: walking, hiking, running, and more.

2. Formal Exercise.

3. Informal Exercise.

4. Health means strength (Mishnah), both physical and spiritual.

5. Summary and Suggestion.

Part 4 – Be Well

1. Principle: life comes with stress; health includes engaging challenges of life. Rest is an integral part of healthy living, not an escape (Maimonides).

2. Healthy and unhealthy stress.

3. Solutions for stress

4. Sleep - quantity and quality

5. Summary and Suggestion

Part 5 – Relate Well

1. Principle - Character traits (middos) are the ways in which people relate to their environment: other people, the world, and themselves. (Maimonides)

2. Healthy living in modern human society

3. Self-reflection

4. Healthy person in a healthy world.

5. Summary and Suggestion