The first Chabad Rebbe, Rabbi Shneur Zalman of Liadi, expressed the following concerning our involvement with the physical:[1]
“The involvement in the corporeal, such as eating and drinking, must be in a manner as expressed in the Talmud (Nedarim 20b), ‘as if compelled by a demon.’
A person should not say, ‘This food I can eat but this [other] food I cannot eat.’
So too with anything similar.”
Based on above statement, a Chassidic mentor once rebuked his pupils after a particular episode:[2]
Once, in the Yeshiva the Shabbos cholent was overcooked and the students refused to eat it. When the Chassidic mentor found out, he chastised them:
“The Alter Rebbe writes, that a person should never say, ‘This food I can eat but this [other] food I cannot eat.’ How then, can a chossid ever express that a certain food in unpalatable?!”
Though in our generation it important to focus on elevating the physical rather than shunning it, it is still important to keep in mind, that the physical is merely a tool to express the G-dly and self-indulgence and hedonism in never an end for itself.
[1] Torah Ohr, Esther, 91a
[2] Otzar Pisgamei Chabad, Vol. 2 Pg. 9
