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Cleanliness in Judaism – All You Need To Know


Rashi says “Keeping clean brings honor to Hashem for man was created in God’s image.” This is just one of the numerous sources that highlight the undeniable importance that good hygiene and cleanliness have in Judaism. Rabbi Yossi himself was cited in the Tosefta with an interesting explanation regarding laundering requirements. Find out what this explanation is and more on cleanliness in Judaism from the lines below, whether talking about personal hygiene, assisted Shabbos home cleaning with expert help like the one provided by the rugcleaningnyc.com team, or laundering.

The Spring Dilemma

Rabbi Yossi talks about the case of a water spring that originates from within a certain city and thus belongs to the city’s residents, and a neighboring city does not have enough water from the same spring. This means both cities cannot be supported by the same water source, thus the dilemma and choice that the residents who live in the first city are given: to fuel the residents of the second city with water from their spring, or to handle their own laundering needs using the same water. Rabbi Yossi further explains that residents’ laundering needs take precedence over the lives of the residents belonging to the second city.

This is explained through the theory according to which there is a great deal of distress caused by a person refraining from doing his own laundry, which is regarded as a life-sustaining matter. The Gemara in Nedarim 81a says that a man who wears unlaundered clothes can suffer from dementia, because of the insanity and boredom experienced wearing the same dirty clothes every day. This would make the need to wear clean and freshly laundered clothing items is a vital thing into the life of any Torah scholar.

Other Interesting Cleanliness Teachings To Consider

The Masechet Shabbat introduces us to Rabbi Yochanan’s claim that a man whose clothes are stained with grease is “liable to death at the hand of Heaven”, due to the correlation with Mishlei 8:36 that says “All those who hate me love death”. However, the right interpretation is that of “those who hate me” and not “those who cause others to hate me”.

This means that Torah scholars wearing stained clothes will denigrate themselves in the eyes of others scholars, which, in turn, would cause the actual Torah to be hated.

Cleanliness is, therefore, essential in the life of an individual and this is even more visible when looking at the link between the dignity that is tied to our Creator and the dignity of any human being human as seen in the Beraita cited in Masechet Shabbos. According to this Beraita, a scholar needs to wash his “face, hands and feet” on a daily basis as a means of honoring HaShem, since “HaShem does everything for His sake.”

Home Cleaning In Judaism From Old Times To Modern Days

There are a series of interesting bye-laws governing new Jerusalem neighborhoods built outside the walls of the Old City, with special emphasis on the obligation to preserve the cleanliness of the new towns both in private and on the public domain. All Mishkenot Sha’ananim residents were asked to purge their homes every day and take out all the garbage and unclean matters, while also sprinkling clean water on the floors of all the rooms at least once a day.

Today, with the help of an expert Karastan rug cleaning company, your beloved flooring and carpeting are easier to maintain clean than ever, making daily cleaning rituals a walk in the park. If you have bever hired such a service before, you should familiarize yourself with the type of work they do and the products and equipment they use and schedule a deep cleaning job for your home with them.



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