{"id":899,"date":"2011-07-20T17:37:46","date_gmt":"2011-07-20T21:37:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/windowsanddoors\/?p=899"},"modified":"2011-07-20T17:37:46","modified_gmt":"2011-07-20T21:37:46","slug":"gupta-v-asha-enterprises-blurring-the-line-between-physical-and-spiritual","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/windowsanddoors\/2011\/07\/gupta-v-asha-enterprises-blurring-the-line-between-physical-and-spiritual.html","title":{"rendered":"Gupta v. Asha Enterprises: Blurring the Line Between Physical and Spiritual"},"content":{"rendered":"

A New Jersey court, in the case of Gupta v. Asha Enterprises<\/a>, upheld the right of Hindu vegetarians to sue, and seek monetary damages from, a restaurant which, apparently, served them non-vegetarian samosas.\u00a0 The reason?\u00a0 What the court called \u201cspiritual injury\u201d.\u00a0 You gotta love it \u2013 seeking material gain to compensate for a spiritual loss!<\/p>\n

In truth, the court\u2019s ruling is important for two reasons.\u00a0 First, what it called spiritual injury was simply a subset of emotional distress, already a non-physical category for which people can get money.\u00a0 Why should spiritual distress or injury be any less significant than the emotional variety?\u00a0 In fact, is there any difference between the two, other than the language used to describe them?<\/p>\n

Second, by upholding the possibility of physical payment for what the plaintiffs describe as spiritual harm, the court demonstrated that \u201cphysical\u201d and \u201cspiritual\u201d are not clearly defined and separable categories.\u00a0 In fact, the physical and the spiritual are deeply intertwined.<\/p>\n

Do we not feel physical symptoms when experiencing great spiritual joy or pain?\u00a0 Don\u2019t primarily physical acts, ranging from intense exercise to great sex, just to name two, sometimes induce altered states of spiritual awareness?\u00a0 Of course they do.\u00a0 The physical and the spiritual are, if separable at all, two sides of the same coin of human experience.\u00a0 We can call them different things, and choose to focus our attentions on one more than the other, but both are always present and inter-dependant.<\/p>\n

The lawyers will fight over the Samosas, but the court has taught us all a valuable lesson.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A New Jersey court, in the case of Gupta v. Asha Enterprises, upheld the right of Hindu vegetarians to sue, and seek monetary damages from, a restaurant which, apparently, served them non-vegetarian samosas.\u00a0 The reason?\u00a0 What the court called \u201cspiritual injury\u201d.\u00a0 You gotta love it \u2013 seeking material gain to compensate for a spiritual loss!…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":133,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,2,3,4,6],"tags":[145,147,146,17,144,143],"class_list":["post-899","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-judaism","category-news","category-pop-culture","category-religion","category-spirituality","tag-hindu","tag-hinduism","tag-jewish","tag-judaism-2","tag-kashrut","tag-vegetarianism"],"yoast_head":"\nGupta v. Asha Enterprises: Blurring the Line Between Physical and Spiritual - Windows and Doors<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/windowsanddoors\/2011\/07\/gupta-v-asha-enterprises-blurring-the-line-between-physical-and-spiritual.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Gupta v. Asha Enterprises: Blurring the Line Between Physical and Spiritual - Windows and Doors\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"A New Jersey court, in the case of Gupta v. Asha Enterprises, upheld the right of Hindu vegetarians to sue, and seek monetary damages from, a restaurant which, apparently, served them non-vegetarian samosas.\u00a0 The reason?\u00a0 What the court called \u201cspiritual injury\u201d.\u00a0 You gotta love it \u2013 seeking material gain to compensate for a spiritual loss!…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/windowsanddoors\/2011\/07\/gupta-v-asha-enterprises-blurring-the-line-between-physical-and-spiritual.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Windows and Doors\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2011-07-20T21:37:46+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Brad Hirschfield\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Gupta v. Asha Enterprises: Blurring the Line Between Physical and Spiritual - Windows and Doors","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/windowsanddoors\/2011\/07\/gupta-v-asha-enterprises-blurring-the-line-between-physical-and-spiritual.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Gupta v. Asha Enterprises: Blurring the Line Between Physical and Spiritual - Windows and Doors","og_description":"A New Jersey court, in the case of Gupta v. Asha Enterprises, upheld the right of Hindu vegetarians to sue, and seek monetary damages from, a restaurant which, apparently, served them non-vegetarian samosas.\u00a0 The reason?\u00a0 What the court called \u201cspiritual injury\u201d.\u00a0 You gotta love it \u2013 seeking material gain to compensate for a spiritual loss!…","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/windowsanddoors\/2011\/07\/gupta-v-asha-enterprises-blurring-the-line-between-physical-and-spiritual.html","og_site_name":"Windows and Doors","article_published_time":"2011-07-20T21:37:46+00:00","author":"Brad Hirschfield","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/windowsanddoors\/2011\/07\/gupta-v-asha-enterprises-blurring-the-line-between-physical-and-spiritual.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/windowsanddoors\/2011\/07\/gupta-v-asha-enterprises-blurring-the-line-between-physical-and-spiritual.html","name":"Gupta v. Asha Enterprises: Blurring the Line Between Physical and Spiritual - Windows and Doors","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/windowsanddoors\/#website"},"datePublished":"2011-07-20T21:37:46+00:00","dateModified":"2011-07-20T21:37:46+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/windowsanddoors\/#\/schema\/person\/dec8532a46bb6f29d8866269e398424d"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/windowsanddoors\/2011\/07\/gupta-v-asha-enterprises-blurring-the-line-between-physical-and-spiritual.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/windowsanddoors\/2011\/07\/gupta-v-asha-enterprises-blurring-the-line-between-physical-and-spiritual.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/windowsanddoors\/2011\/07\/gupta-v-asha-enterprises-blurring-the-line-between-physical-and-spiritual.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/windowsanddoors"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Gupta v. Asha Enterprises: Blurring the Line Between Physical and Spiritual"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/windowsanddoors\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/windowsanddoors\/","name":"Windows and Doors","description":"Beliefnet Voices - Rabbi Brad Hirschfield","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/windowsanddoors\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/windowsanddoors\/#\/schema\/person\/dec8532a46bb6f29d8866269e398424d","name":"Brad Hirschfield","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/windowsanddoors\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/windowsanddoors\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/612\/612c840fab7383fcd474af006f999c1fx96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/windowsanddoors\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/612\/612c840fab7383fcd474af006f999c1fx96.jpg","caption":"Brad Hirschfield"},"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/windowsanddoors\/author\/brad_hirschfield"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/windowsanddoors\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/899","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/windowsanddoors\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/windowsanddoors\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/windowsanddoors\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/133"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/windowsanddoors\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=899"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/windowsanddoors\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/899\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":900,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/windowsanddoors\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/899\/revisions\/900"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/windowsanddoors\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=899"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/windowsanddoors\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=899"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/windowsanddoors\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=899"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}