What If It Is All Supposed to Make Sense?
We often seem to assume that the commandments are meant to be obeyed without understanding.
But is this right? Doesn’t the nishma of na’aseh v’nishma suggest that we are indeed commanded not just to do mitzvos, but also to always seek to understand them?
If this is correct, then how might we understand the commandments of kashrus, of why certain animals are acceptable to eat, but others are not?
We could start with the concept of eating: “you are what you eat” may or may not be true in a physical sense (since the body has a capability to convert food into other things) – but might it be even more true in a spiritual sense?
This might explain the fruit of the Tree of Good and Evil – eating the fruit changed Adam and Chava, did it not? And had we eaten of the fruit of the Tree of Life, the Torah tells us we would have become immortal (G. 3:22) Isn’t that a spiritual result from what we eat?
Which all seems to suggest that the food we eat matters in a spiritual way to us. But how?
Might the answer be in the Torah?
Shasah – Split?
“Split” hoofs (Lev. 11:3) use the same word, shasah, that is first found to refer to a bird offered as an elevation offering, an olah. That bird is split, shasah in two. And then it is used to elevate toward heaven, an offering made by fire, of a sweet savour to the Lord.
Could this word, first used to connect earth with heaven (an olah) via a bird, a flying creature, suggest that there is a parallel with the animals that have split hooves?
Might shasah be a requirement for land animals specifically because they are supposed to remind us that we are supposed to be like that sacrificial bird: in death as in life, elevating toward heaven?
Is this not an underlying purpose of our existence? Might it make sense that the animals we eat are selected because that helps us always keep this mind?
Parass – Hoofs?
The same verse (11:3) commanding us to eat animals that only have split (shasah) hoofs uses a specific word for hoof – paras. Could this also be explained by its use earlier in the text?
The first use of paras in the Torah similarly refers to animals that are supposed to serve as sacrifices to bring the people closer to G-d – but in a very specific (and otherwise odd) phrasing:
Our cattle also shall go with us; there shall not a hoof (paras) be left behind; for of them must we take to serve the Lord our God. (Ex. 10:25-6)
Again we have this connection to sacrifices in the commandments for the animals we can eat – hoofs have something to do with offerings. But could it be that paras is mentioned in this verse because finding our purpose and meaning in life is connected to leaving Egypt to serve G-d?
In other words, might the animals that have paras (hoofs) that are shasah (cloven) supposed to remind us, as we select and slaughter and eat them, that what we choose to eat is specifically to remind us of our purpose in this world – to serve G-d away from an Egyptian mindset, and toward a consciously Jewish mindset of serving G-d by connecting heaven and earth and trying to grow a closer relationship with our Creator?
After all, we are characterized as a people both by elevation (the olah), and by leaving Egypt to go toward Sinai. Might the commandments about kosher animals be meant to teach us that there is spiritual meaning and consequence from internalizing animals that remind us of those pillars that help define us as a people?
Tamei – Un-Elevatable?
The animals we are refused to eat are called tamei. What does this word mean in the text?
Before this sefer (Vayikra/Leviticus), the word is only found three times in the Torah – and each refers to Dinah:
And Jacob heard that he had tamei Dina his daughter … And the sons of Jacob answered …with cunning, because he had tamei Dina their sister, … The sons of Jacob came upon the slain, and plundered the city, because they had tamei their sister. (G. 34:5/13/27)
What does this word mean in the above? It seems to mean, does it not, that Dina was, in some respect, ruined? That the proper elevation for a body and soul that are used only for holy matrimony was denied to her because she was violated? That she would never be able to spiritually rise as high as she might have done, had Shechem not treated her as he did?
Does this meaning extend to animals that we are forbidden to eat? That there is something about those animals that remind us of Dina’s situation? That those animals are spiritually limited, and that is why they are forbidden to us?
Fish?
Might we extend the analogy? Fish that have fins and scales have two elements: because of scales (bones), they are distinct from the water, not entirely assimilated within it. And because they have fins they can propel themselves – and in any direction including (and especially) upward.
Might these twin features also have symbolic meaning for us? That we are supposed to only eat water animals that are capable of changing us in spiritually healthy ways – to be distinctive from nature (not mere animals), but also aim to swim upward, to reach for heaven, even if only for fleeting spiritual moments?
Might fish also represent that we are – spiritually – what we eat?