What Is Kashrut Really All About?

Many people don't know this, but the human body is essential for fulfilling one's purpose in life. Just like any other tool, it can be used appropriately or diverted toward actions that conflict with the divine plan. The Torah obligates us to take care of our bodies: we should always be clean, healthy, and well-dressed, because our body is Hashem's gift to us, a gift that permits the soul to function in the material world. To give tzedakah (charity), we need hands; to pray, we need a mouth, and so on. In fact, there is not a single part of the body that does not have a purpose.

What's vital to remember, however, is that the body is a means toward an end. The body should serve the soul, not the other way around. Too many people think that their "self" is their body, and therefore they despair when the body begins to visibly age. This prompts them to invest huge efforts in preserving their body's youthful appearance. This is what underlies the success of the "beauty industry" and also motivates people to attend gyms and clinics, and even undergo cosmetic surgery.

Kashrut

Maintaining one's health is a mitzvah; destroying one's health is a transgression. But there's much more to health than physical nutrition. Food must be spiritually as well as physically nourishing. Certain non-kosher foods are specifically linked to spiritual contamination that prevents our minds from functioning to their full capacity. Kosher food nourishes the soul and brings us closer to the truth of life. 

The laws of kashrut prohibit all human beings, Jews and non-Jews alike, from eating parts of animals that are still alive ("a limb from a living creature"). For the Jewish People, the laws are more detailed and are discussed at length in the Torah. Only certain animals may be consumed and the slaughtering must be done in a specific manner to minimize the animal's suffering. Dairy and meat may not be eaten together. And much more.

Many have been tempted to explain the Jewish dietary laws as based on health reasons. This is erroneous; kashrut is a spiritual framework that is manifested in physical form.

To understand this, it is important to recognize that objects have several levels of existence, according to the nature of our perception of them and the use we make of them. The closer the use of them is to our fulfilment of the global plan, the higher their level.

Let's take the guitar strings as an example. At first glance, all we see are lengths of string. If we go up a level, we see that the string is made of a material that, when stretched taut and connected to an acoustic device, makes a sound. We go up another level and perceive that several strings together are capable of creating a pleasant melody. If we ascend to an even higher level, we see that this melody is essential for recreating a certain tune that penetrates people's souls. Finally, we see how the guitar strings are an important component in inspiring love for Hashem, which in turn influences people to change their behavior and get closer to their true purpose in life -- which was also accomplished by the singing and music in the  Holy Temple.

If there is a flaw in the physical composition of the strings, it affects all the levels above it: the sounds are not of quality, the melody is not beautiful and pleasant, and consequently the listener may not receive inspiration from it. Here we see that the highest level depends on the integrity of the lower levels that nourish it.

Humans also live according to this dynamic. We have a clear purpose in life, and the means of attaining it is a physical body. For a person to achieve their purpose, the physical composition of the body needs to be at a level appropriate to the goal.

We know that proper nutrition is what allows the cells in our body to renew themselves, as all components of the body are composed of what a person eats. Hence comes the question: what should we eat to allow the soul to be healthy and able to understand and fulfill our true purpose? Kosher food! 

Ramban (Nachmanides) reveals that kosher food takes into account not only the molecular composition of the food, but also its spiritual quality. This includes the emotional experiences of animals during their lives, before they are slaughtered and prepared to be eaten. The simpler the food, the fewer problems it has. Therefore, there are no kashrut issues with minerals and plants, as they have no feelings, but when it comes to the animal world, one must be far more careful, because there are already emotional experiences there.

In general, relatively calm animals – cattle and sheep – are considered "pure" and permitted for eating, while aggressive animals, such as predatory animals, are "impure" and forbidden. The reason for this is the fact that what we absorb from food is not only the physically nutritious material, but also the behavioral characteristics of the substance, and aggression is not consistent with the mission of a Jew. We need the serenity of the sheep or the cow to understand truth and achieve our true goals. By the same logic, most fish are kosher, provided they have scales and fins.

But it is not enough for the animal to be pure. It can only be eaten if it has undergone a very strict slaughter process that does not cause it suffering. The pain that animals feel in conventional slaughter alters their spiritual composition, as they suffer at the time of death.

It is interesting to note that Judaism pays special attention to the prohibition of eating pork, although from a halachic (Jewish law) perspective, this transgression is no more severe than other kashrut transgressions. One of the explanations for this is that the pig has only one of the two signs that must be found in an animal in order for it to be pure: it has a split hoof, but it does not chew the cud. The pig walks with its front hooves tilted forward, in a way that allows one to see that they are split. This behavior signifies insolence, since the pig does not meet the second basic kashrut condition, and yet flaunts the one sign it has. Clearly, the "poor pigs" have no intellect, and they do not intend to deceive anyone. Nonetheless, this behavior is the sign of a spiritual characteristic that must not be incorporated into the Jew.

It is also of note that a human's right to eat animals is not innate, for what right do we have to deprive another creature of its life in order to eat it? We received this right only after Noah saved all kinds of animals in the ark. However, what may be eaten is only the flesh of a dead animal, without spirituality, and therefore it is forbidden to eat parts of animals while they are still alive. Jews also do not eat blood, because it contains the vital energy of living creatures.

Adapted from the book "Dan's Journey in Search of the Meaning of Life", by Roni Dayan.