"The Image of an Animal on Your Forehead": 10 Facts About Kosher Food

1. Those who observe kashrut merit a holy soul - The more a person is meticulous about kosher food, the more their intellect and soul become sanctified, and they become elevated in holiness and purity.

2. Forbidden foods cause irreversible damage, unless one repents - Besides the prohibition against eating forbidden foods, this consumption causes irreversible damage that harms a person's soul and intellect, and therefore their desire and reverence for fulfilling the Torah and mitzvot is greatly weakened.

3. Sin dulls a person's heart - In the verse prohibiting forbidden foods, it states: "Do not defile yourselves... and become impure through them." The Sages asked: Why is the word "v'nitmetem" (become impure) written without an aleph? In Tractate Yoma, Rabbi Ishmael's words are brought: 'Sin dulls the heart of a person.'

4. Forbidden foods defile the soul - In Sefer HaChinuch (Mitzvah 362), the reason for the commandment of kosher food is explained: "The root of this commandment is that the matter of impurity is known to the sages to weaken the intellectual soul and confuse it, separating it from the perfect supernal intellect, and it remains separated until it is purified, as written regarding impurity (Leviticus 11:43), 'Do not defile yourselves with them and become impure through them,' meaning that the springs of intellect become dulled through impurity."

5.He went astray because his mother ate forbidden foods - How serious is the matter of eating forbidden foods? It is brought in the Jerusalem Talmud (Chagigah 2:15): "When Elisha ben Avuya's mother was pregnant with him, she passed by an idolatrous temple and smelled that type of food, and ate it, and that food pulsated within her body like a serpent... Consider this: after Elisha ben Avuya grew up and became great in Torah, and was one of the four who entered the Pardes, and was the teacher of Rabbi Meir Baal HaNes, nevertheless the poison of that food remained in him, even though it wasn't his eating but his mother's, and even though it was permitted eating (based on what is stated in Yoma about a pregnant woman who smelled food on Yom Kippur, etc.). Nevertheless, the poison mixed with his blood and soul, was born with him and grew with him, until he went astray and was called 'Acher' (the Other)."

6. Being careful with baby food - In the book "Pri Chadash" it states: "Even though a minor who eats non-kosher food, we are not commanded by strict law to stop him, nevertheless one should stop him, because it harms him in his old age. It creates a bad nature in him and he will eventually go astray." The "Pri Chadash" adds these alarming words: "Because in our times, people are not careful about these matters, most of the children go astray, and most of them are the insolent ones of the generation, and the fear of Hashem doesn't touch their hearts, and even if they are rebuked to their faces, they don't accept discipline."

7. Rabbi Chaim Kanievsky to a professor: This is why you don't understand the Gemara – The following story was told by Rabbi Y. Zilberstein: A senior engineer, a great professor in his field, came to the home of Rabbi Chaim Kanievsky. The professor told Rabbi Chaim with terrible grief that he, a senior professor of mathematics, could not understand a page of Gemara, even after attempts spanning decades.

Suddenly, the professor told Rabbi Chaim that at that moment, he remembered an incident from his childhood when he studied in a cheder in a European town. The professor related that when he was a nine-year-old boy, he saw at his non-Jewish friend's house some "other thing" meat (pork), and suddenly he was overcome with a craving and couldn't control himself, until he tasted that meat despite knowing it was a serious prohibition. "And from that moment I tasted the non-kosher meat, all the fountains of my knowledge were blocked and I couldn't understand the Gemara I was learning in cheder," the elderly professor related tearfully, and asked Rabbi Kanievsky how he could atone for this sin.

Rabbi Chaim suggested that he fast for one day to purge the non-kosher meat he had eaten. The professor replied that it would be very difficult for him to do this because of his advanced age, and even on Yom Kippur he found it very difficult to fast. Nevertheless, Rabbi Chaim responded that he should try to fast anyway.

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8. Rabbi Chaim Kanievsky to a young man: "On your forehead is the image of an animal" – It is told about a young married scholar and a yeshiva student who were studying together, but one day the student stopped understanding the Gemara. The two went to Rabbi Chaim Kanievsky to receive advice and a blessing. Rabbi Chaim heard the matter and told the student to be careful with forbidden foods, because on his forehead appeared the image of an animal.

After they left the Rabbi's house, the student revealed that once when they were studying at the married scholar's home, he was offered a dairy refreshment. The student, who was very tempted by the smell, ate the cake despite having eaten meat shortly before. Since then, he had failed several times by consuming dairy after meat, and he could not understand the words of the Gemara.

The student committed himself to be more careful and repented for this. Indeed, since then things changed, and the student began to understand the Gemara as before.

9. Kosher food is essential for success in Torah and children's education – The Chida in his book "Birchei Yosef" notes that one who wants to succeed in his Torah study, wisdom, and fear of Heaven, as well as in the education of his sons and daughters, should be extremely careful about the kashrut of food, "and should not rely easily on any certification, because it affects his soul and the souls of his descendants."

10.Pay attention to what you put in your mouth - Rabbi Yaakov Tzemach in his notes wrote: "It is proper for a person to focus deeply while eating, and not to eat like animals... And the God-fearing person should always keep before his eyes what our Sages said, 'Before a person prays that words of Torah should enter his body, he should pray that delicacies should not enter his body,' and the God-fearing person should tremble when contemplating this deeply."