What do the laws concerning kosher animals have to do with anything? Why do they matter?
I think the explanation is quite simple, and offered within the text itself. It can be summarized as follows:
Everything about kosher animals is to remind us of our mission – to seek to elevate ourselves and the natural world, infusing spirituality into everything we contact.
And here’s the textual support for this statement:
Key Assumption: Food Changes Us. Eating the fruit changed Adam and Eve, by giving them knowledge of good and evil (and other dualities). The Torah tells us that had we also eaten of the fruit of the Tree of Life, we would have become immortal (G. 3:22) Thus it is clear that our diet has the power to change who we are and how we relate to G-d.
Fish: 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.
Thus, 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. Broadly speaking, fish that can be found near the top of the water (which excludes shellfish), and also are not fully integrated into the water (which excludes jellyfish), are much more likely to be kosher – and also closer to the skies.
Hooves: The word for “hooves” is paras.
The first use of paras in the Torah 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)
Ah! So hooves, paras, connect us to the concept of leaving Egypt to serve G-d! This is both the idea of leaving the Egyptian mindset (which was earth-centric and harmonized with nature and death), and toward a Jewish mindset of serving G-d by connecting heaven and earth.
After all, we are characterized as a people both by elevation (the olah), and by leaving Egypt to go toward Sinai. So it makes sense that the commandments about kosher animals be meant to teach us that there is spiritual meaning and consequence connected to consuming animals that remind us of those defining pillars.
Split Hooves: While physically a split hoof shows an incomplete connection with the earth – suggesting that the animal is already partway separated from the earth, with airspace under its feet, there is a more textually grounded argument.
“Split” hoofs (as the word is found in L. 11:3) use the same word for “split”, shasah, that is first found to refer to a bird offered as an elevation offering, an olah. That bird is split, shasah in two (L. 1:17). And then it is used to elevate toward heaven, an offering made by fire, of a sweet savour to the Lord.
This word shasah is thus first used to connect earth with heaven (an olah) via a bird, a flying creature. The connection is made, because of the same word, to animals that have split hooves. Thus, animals with shasah hooves remind us of elevation!
Chewing the Cud: The Hebrew for this phrase is olah gerah, translated as “chewing the cud.” But the simple meaning of these words is quite different: olah is “elevation,” and gerah is connected to connection between people!
How? Because gerah is used first in the Torah when talking about the national census:
This is what everyone who is entered in the records shall pay: a half-shekel by the sanctuary weight—twenty gerahs to the shekel—a half-shekel as an offering to G-d. (Ex. 30:13)
This conversion seems to be entirely extraneous and irrelevant, unless we link it to the only places in the text it is used elsewhere: defining a kosher animal.
There are two ways to connect with G-d: by reaching directly upward, and by investing in the divinely-gifted souls of other people.
The split hoofs part of the definition illustrates elevation in service of G-d.
The olah gerah tells us that elevating the connection with other people, through the shared census (and equivalents) is a way to emphasize our commonality with others, to lift that shared connection.
What about the animals we are forbidden from consuming?
The animals we are barred from eating are called tamei. What does this word mean in the text?
Before Leviticus, (Vayikra), 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 that Dina was, in some respect, ruined. The opportunity for a full elevation for her body and soul, in holy matrimony, was denied to her because she was violated. Because of her rape, Dina would never be able to spiritually rise as high as she might have otherwise.
So when the Torah calls animals we are forbidden to eat, “unelevatable,” tamei, the text is telling us that there is a connection between those animals and Dinah. Like Dinah after she was taken, non-kosher animals are limited or crippled in their ability to realize a high spiritual potential.
P.S. Many other commandments (e.g. connecting the blood of a slaughtered animal to the earth) also support the theme of adding spiritual energy to the physical world.
Creativejudaism.org