שו”ע או”ח ב:ו ויבדוק נקביו, הגה וירגיל עצמו לפנות בוקר וערב שהוא זריזות ונקיות
Outer Action
One should go to the bathroom in the morning and throughout the day as soon as one needs to. This is part of the middah of quickness and cleanliness.
Inner Intention
Last week, we explained that when we eat, we are filling ourselves with spiritual energy. The klippos, however, want to draw life from that energy as well, and so they attach onto the food, and try to get us to think that there is nothing G-dly or spiritual in our eating. When we go to the bathroom, we are ridding ourselves of those klippos, and that is why it is important to go to the bathroom right away whenever we need to, and why we want to start our day by going in the morning.
This concept explains many fascinating aspects of food and our relationship with food:
Indigestion/Constipation: When we digest food, we are separating the spiritual component of it from the klippah around it. For this reason, the stronger the klippah is on a particular food, the harder it will be to digest and get rid of. One who understands the function of every food will understand why each food does what it does.
Maintaining Cleanliness: In Halacha, we are taught that it is very important to clean oneself thoroughly after using the bathroom. The pnimiyus of this is because we want to get rid of the klippos as thoroughly as possible. That being said, one should not become overly obsessive, constantly worrying about whether there is a drop of klippah that he needs to get rid of, or the like. Perfectionism is also the middah of ga’avah (haughtiness), and you can’t effectively get rid of a klippah using ga’avah!
Foods without Klippos: Because of the gashmiyus part of foods, every single food has a klippah, so even one who eats with the highest holy intention will still ingest some amount of klippah that they will need to get rid of. The only food that had no klippos was the mann that Hashem gave the Jewish people in the desert. This is why the Yidden in the midbar did not need to go to the bathroom after eating the mann.
Nursing Babies: A mother’s milk is made out of food that the mother already ate and separated the klippos from. This is a reason why it is so important for a Jewish mother to nurse her babies, as opposed to using formula, so that the babies don’t get klippos in their system. [This emphasis is for mothers who are able to nurse but choose not to out of convenience. For those who don’t have enough milk or the like they should not be concerned with the fact that they need to give their baby food with klippos, because this is obviously the will of Hashem.] This also helps explain the pnimiyus of the halacha that when a nursing baby goes to the bathroom it does not create the same halachic ramifications — for example, as it relates to davening nearby it — as an older kid’s or adult’s, because the mother nursed the baby from her nutrition which already had the klippos separated from it.
Food Sensitivities:
Sometimes one might feel that eating certain foods makes him feel very spiritually heavy, and after eating it he has a hard time connecting to Hashem and doing mitzvos. That is a sign that the klippos within that food are too much for him to handle. That being so, it is best for him to avoid that food entirely.
This article was found in Nekuda Tova Issue 87.
