The Importance of Exercise

Yeah, I’ve heard what they say about me. Not only is it disparaging, untrue, and unfounded… It is actual hotza’at shem ra, plain and simple. Lashon hara is one thing, but to literally malign me and spread blatant lies…

Well, today I plan to prove them all wrong. Not only am I very much in favor of exercising, I am, in all truth, a huge proponent! And not only exclusively for myself either. In fact, I vocally urge others to get out there and exercise as well. After all, it’s their civic duty, and like they say and I sincerely believe, “Every vote counts!” Especially in a tiny country like ours.

My friend Ellen takes it one step further, “Vote early, and vote often!” she urges me. But I do not recommend going that route. Although, I must admit that in previous elections, people have not only heeded my good friend’s tongue-in-cheek advice and voted often; others even ostensibly returned from the dead to cast their votes!

So, while I definitely do not support either of those scenarios, I am 100% unequivocally in favor of going to your local polling station and exercising your G-d-given right to vote. I won’t tell you who to vote for; I often sadly find myself having a difficult time deciding… And I admit to sometimes voting “against” rather than having a firmly-established and passionate reason to vote “for” any given candidate or party.

Still, I conscientiously and proudly vote in every major election, both in my native alter heim, the U.S. of A, and in my adopted beloved home, the Holy Land. Today is one such opportunity to show my community and country that I do not take this patriotic right and privilege lightly; and exercise it I will!

In fact, with all of my children now old enough to vote, we plan to make a family outing (i.e. exercise session) out of the experience, hopefully in the next hour or so, when the guys have returned from shul and finished their election day breakfast. We will trek together (family hike?) to our nearby polling station, previously and soon to once again be known as Gan Gilat, and wait in a long line with like-minded patriotic citizens. There we will present our teudat zehut to the volunteers manning the polling station, and one by one, step into the makeshift booth, choose one of the twenty-nine slips of paper (ostensibly earmarked to be recycled into toilet paper! Enough said...), carefully insert it into an envelope which we then seal, and proudly cast our vote.

And come November 2028, you can rest assured that I will, b’ezras Hashem, again be sure to exercise my right to vote (for or against once more) in the United States presidential election. This time I won’t even have to walk two blocks to the local gan, and spend the next twenty minutes admiring the art projects and marveling at the miniature chairs. Instead, I receive the mail-in ballot directly to my mailbox!

In either scenario, in under half-an-hour from the moment we leave our home until our return, or from the comfort of our dining room table, we may arguably be zoche to the most crucial exercise session of our lives! So please don’t knock exercise, and definitely do not propose that I am anything but totally committed to it!

As far as the, ahem, perhaps more conventional type of exercise is concerned, however, that entails way too much physical torture, sweat, and lingering muscle aches and pains for yours truly to even consider it… So, while the local polling station merits a resounding yes in my book, please don’t expect to bump into me at the local gym anytime soon...