The Bnei Akiva Nechalim yeshiva has decided to take seriously the issue of health awareness among youth and decided to devote a whole month of activities to the issue. During the course of the month the students learned about nutrition, fitness, harmful factors and addictions. Arutz Sheva visited the yeshiva on the final day of this month-long project, which was made up of a school-wide marathon run. “This past month we’ve been studying about ‘a healthy soul in a healthy body,’” Shmulik Zilberzweig, Director of Social Education at Bnei Akiva Nechalim, told Arutz Sheva . “We started at the beginning of the month with a healthy meal for all the students. Afterwards, we held together with the Lev El Lev Association sessions on what should be eaten, what should not be eaten, what damages can be caused by smoking, etc.” The special month ended with a marathon run, in which all the students in the yeshiva, their rabbis, the Rosh Yeshiva and the administration took part. “A person should know that maintaining the body is part of his worship of G-d,” Rabbi Shmuel Lawrence, Rosh Yeshiva of Bnei Akiva Nechalim, explained, adding, “We dealt with health, we dealt with how to eat, what’s good and what’s bad, addictions, things that are bad to do even as a joke, and explained each thing is part of a whole system which says that if a person wants to truly worship G-d there is a whole complex of working the soul and working the body.” Avichai, a twelfth grader at the yeshiva, said that students learned a lot during the month. He added that the learning also constituted a sort of preparation for the IDF, where he and many of his friends hope to serve in a combat role, for which fitness is extremely important.
