Spoiled Child (Tazria)

Getting old is getting old.

Stay immature.

Intelligent skin and hair products that refuse to take aging seriously.

This is the advertisement I saw on the subway yesterday for a product called “Spoiled Child.”

I have to say, I was pretty shocked and disgusted.

Appalled. Shocked and appalled (don’t you love that expression?).

Stay immature. Ugh.

Honestly. Isn’t being afraid of aging and fighting against it “getting old?” I thought our culture was changing some.

Naive me.

Ironically, all week I’d been thinking about all the skin afflictions in this week’s parsha, Tazria—and looking for inspiration.

And it in a subway ad!

In the parsha, the afflicted person is kept in isolation until they can safely rejoin community.

This brought me back to the isolation we all entered two years ago when Covid first broke out.

In fact, I realized that it was exactly two weeks ago that it was the anniversary of the day New York City shut down and we all went into isolation. That was also the day I woke up with symptoms of Covid.

And on that anniversary day two weeks ago, I lay in bed recovering from a different virus that made my eye so puffy (a type of skin affliction), I didn’t want to show my face—isolated again, yet not as intensely.

Not as intensely, I say, because the isolation we experienced for more than a year, locked up in our homes, afraid to go out or to interact with others, has evolved.

We have slowly emerged into the world again over the past year, but we’ve also come to accept a different way of relating to the world.

While some relished the alone-time from the start, others have learned how to be alone, and they’ve taken the time to get to know themselves better.

We’ve found some new ways of being.

It was also exactly two weeks ago, something else happened for me as I lay in bed, discouraged and not wanting to accept my state of being; I began a venture towards a new kind of healing.

For the first time, after years of looking for alternative health doctors, I really began to find my inner strength and determination.

I discovered Wim Hof.

Maybe you’ve heard of him. He’s quite famous, with millions of followers around the world. He likes to call himself the “Crazy Dutch guy.”

The media calls him “The Ice Man.” (You can also watch him on The Goop Lab. Highly recommended).

Wim Hof has shown the world the capacity of the human body.

Through his breathing methods, exposure to extreme cold, and mind-set, thousands of people have been healed of all kinds of serious illness and disease.

Commitment is the most important, perhaps. If you don’t stick to it, it won’t work—just like everything else.

Wim Hof has helped me really believe in the miracle of my body—the miracle that the body not only wants, but knows how to heal itself by connecting to the Universal Energy (call it God, if you want—that mysterious energy).

Wim Hof is not a freak of nature. He can train anyone to do what he can do—and he does.

And he doesn’t worry about what his skin looks like, or his aging white hair. He doesn’t want to “stay immature.”

Of course, it’s way easier for a man, as we know. But shouldn’t we be taking men as an example in this (one) way, at least this time? Shouldn’t we, as women, strive to overcome the ridiculous standards society sets for us in terms of how our body looks, and go instead for the inner strength and power?

My daughters are turning 22 and 29 today and tomorrow, respectively. My greatest wish and prayer for them on their birthdays is that they put their inner strength, health and happiness above their outward appearance to face the challenges of this world, and that they continue to bloom and mature in ways that will shift the paradigm.

As a matter of fact, I wish the same for you as well.

With commitment, we can all learn to face the challenges of this crazy world in new ways, with inner strength, health and, yes, maybe even happiness.

Because who wants a society full of immature, whiny, spoiled children?

And let us say Amen.