Back to THE TORAH CONNECTION Table of Contents<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n Deu 23:12-14 Thou shalt have a place also without the camp, whither thou shalt go forth abroad: And thou shalt have a paddle upon thy weapon; and it shall be, when thou wilt ease thyself abroad, thou shalt dig therewith, and shalt turn back and cover that which cometh from thee: For the LORD thy God walketh in the midst of thy camp, to deliver thee, and to give up thine enemies before thee; therefore shall thy camp be holy: that he see no unclean thing in thee, and turn away from thee.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n Special direction was given to the armies of Israel that everything in and around their tents should be clean and orderly, lest the angel of the Lord, passing through the encampment, should see their uncleanness. Would the Lord be particular to notice these things? — He would; for the fact is stated, lest in seeing their uncleanness, he could not go forward with their armies to battle. <\/i><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n He who was so particular that the children of Israel should cherish habits of cleanliness, will not sanction any impurity in the homes of his people today. God looks with disfavor on uncleanness of any kind. How can we invite him into our homes unless all is neat and clean and pure?<\/i> RH 06-10-02<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n An interesting historical note–<\/b><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n When the Black Death (Bubonic Plague) ravaged Europe in the 14th<\/sup> century, the entire Kingdom of Poland was spared. One explanation for this is the following:<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n (from http:\/\/history.stackexchange.com\/questions\/16699\/why-was-poland-spared-from-the-black-death)<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n Another explanation regarding Poland is that it had a lot of Jews, particularly in urban settings; now, why were Jews Less Affected? \u00a0I<\/span><\/span><\/span>f Jews died at a lesser rate, it can be attributed to the sanitary practices of Jewish law. \u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/span>For instance, Jewish law compels one to wash his or her hands many times throughout the day. In the general medieval world a person could go half his or her life without ever washing his hands. According to Jewish law, one could not eat food without washing one\u2019s hands, leaving the bathroom and after any sort of intimate human contact. At least once a week, a Jew bathed for the Sabbath. Furthermore, Jewish law prevents the Jew from reciting blessings and saying prayers by an open pit at latrines and at places with a foul odor. The sanitary conditions in the Jewish neighborhood, primitive as it may be by today\u2019s standards, was always far superior to the general sanitary conditions.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n Jewish law also prescribes certain sanitary conditions related to burial of the dead. Leaving corpses unburied not only abetted the conditions that spread the bubonic plague but typhus and other diseases as well. The Jews, on the other hand, had a unique sense of community that not only led them to feel a responsibility to attend to the sick and dying, but caused them to always maintain a formal burial society (chevrah kadisha), whose responsibility it was to make sure that any Jew who died was treated according to Jewish law, including washing the body before it was buried.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n These are only a few examples how Jewish law preserved the Jewish people through this terrible dark period of plague. It imposed a sanitary standard on the Jew far above the ordinary sanitary standard that medieval Europe had.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n