What Do Upper Teeth of an Animal Have to Do With the Torah from Heaven? 5 Points to Ponder

Engravings in the Skin

Most people have three main folds in their palms, varying in depth, continuity, and prominence. Why do we have these lines on our palms and feet? What purpose do they serve?<

Imagine what a hand looks like when making a fist or holding objects. Without the organized lines dividing the hands, every shape we create with our hands would cause excess skin bags on our palms and feet, making it difficult to hold things or climb.

(Photo: shutterstock)

Without these lines, our padded palms would be like an inflated air cushion, making it hard to grasp things properly. The lines essentially "attach" the skin to the flesh in the palm at three more or less equal intervals, spreading the skin across the palm to allow holding objects without excess skin bags.

Every wrinkle, bump, roughness, and line on our bodies is marvelously designed and intended for our benefit!

You are Children of Hashem

Want to know how the Creator feels about us? It's simple: we can learn it from the relationship we, as parents, have with our children. This relationship can teach us how Hashem relates to us, His children:

• Just as every parent loves their child, even if the child does not behave nicely, and even if the child is not the most beautiful baby in the world, so too does Hashem love us unconditionally.
• Just as every parent delights in the incoherent babblings of a baby, Hashem enjoys hearing us speak to Him, even if the words from our mouths are unclear.
• Just as a parent provides everything the child needs for their benefit, so too does Hashem provide for us, as long as it benefits us, and withholds what does not benefit us.
• When the child is happy and calm, the parent is also happy and calm. No parent rejoices when their child is sad or in pain. Similarly, Hashem rejoices in our happiness and shares in our pain when we are sorrowful.
• Just as a baby carried by their parents is calm and not worried about the world, so too does Hashem ask us to trust and rely on Him.

The relationship between Hashem and the people of Israel is akin to that between a father and his child. As it is said, "You are children to Hashem your God" (Deuteronomy 14:1). He loves us unconditionally.This is not ordinary love but the strongest love in the world, the love of a father for his child.

These are our relationships with Hashem – a father and his child. Just as a father fulfills his child's request, so does Hashem answer our prayers. The Creator has given you eyes, ears, intelligence, life...!

See how deep the Creator's love is! If we even have a hint of what Hashem wants and can do for us – wouldn't it be crazy not to maintain a connection with Him, right?

Germ-Free

A mother returns from work. It's summer, she's all sweaty, and her baby is crying to nurse. Wait, if she's sweaty and nurses her baby, isn't there a risk of infection?<\/p>

Notice this incredible phenomenon:<\/p>

In addition to the countless benefits of breastfeeding, the nursing area does not require disinfection. The baby puts its mouth on a completely sterile spot. Why? Because, miraculously, after each feeding, a natural disinfectant is secreted from the nursing organ. The woman's body produces an antibiotic that kills all bacteria to avoid contaminating the baby during nursing.<\/p>

Thus, the baby can nurse whenever it feels hungry, without delay, and without the mother worrying about cleaning the area even if she's sweaty.

How does the organ clean itself, without sterile gloves, without soap, or water? How does it know it needs to disinfect itself to keep the baby healthy from bacteria? Who told it?

Only a supreme intelligence with unlimited capabilities could create something so sophisticated...

Food Detector

If we pour various substances with different properties into a single container, they would likely mix. For instance, if we pour water and cola into one glass, the drink will be a mix of both flavors. Similarly, if we mix two colors, yellow and red, we'll get another color – orange, which contains both. This is generally the case.

But hold on! How is it that when I put various flavored foods in my mouth, such as sweet, sour, spicy, or salty, the flavors don't "blur" in my mouth, and each time I distinctly recognize one flavor?!

(Photo: shutterstock)

The tongue has about 10,000 taste buds, which include receptor cells sensitive to four types of flavors: sweet, sour, salty, and bitter. The perception of sweet or salty flavor occurs at the front and thin edge of the tongue, sour from the sides, and bitter from the back.

If the taste buds and receptors were focused in one area, there would be confusion in the flavors. Who planned these flavors in such an orderly fashion on the tongue?

Additionally, taste receptors send signals to the brain, which interprets what taste the food has – whether it's too bitter, too sweet, etc. Besides enjoying food, it also helps protect against consuming harmful things. For example, too much acid can harm the stomach and cause heartburn; too much sugar isn't healthy, and so on. 

But the mystery deepens, why? Because we would expect that for a person to enjoy food, the sweet taste receptors would be the most numerous in the mouth. Yet, it turns out that the bitter taste receptors outnumber the sweet ones by 10,000 times! Why?

The numerous receptors raise our sensitivity threshold to bitterness, helping us to avoid bitter foods. There is a purposeful reason to avoid bitterness – many toxic substances taste bitter!

Friends, there is logic to the tastes we can perceive. Taste receptors are our "food detectors," as most sweet substances in nature are relatively safe to eat, whereas bitter substances tend to be dangerous.

Overall, imagine how we'd feel eating if we didn't have taste and smell sensors. We wouldn't have the desire to eat! Therefore, in His great mercy, the Creator wished to benefit humanity by providing a variety of tastes to stimulate us to eat the foods necessary for our health. For this purpose, He created taste receptors located on the tongue. Thanks to them, one can discern various tastes and enjoy the foods they consume.

Where are the Teeth?

In addition to the basic signs of purity mentioned in the written Torah, we received additional identifying signs in the Oral Torah to identify cud-chewing and split-hoof animals in cases where there is some difficulty in determining the kashrut of a particular animal.

The Talmud, completed by 500 AD, adds a remarkable identification detail not mentioned in the written Torah – "Any animal that does not have upper teeth is known to be cud-chewing, split-hoofed, and kosher" (Tractate Chullin 59a).

This means that if someone has an animal and cannot check its hooves for kashrut, they can check its teeth. If it lacks upper teeth, its hooves are surely split, and it's a cud-chewer, meaning it's permissible to eat... In other words, any cud-chewing, split-hoofed animal lacks upper teeth (they may have canines, not teeth), while other animals without cud-chewing and split-hoofed features have upper teeth...

It's worth noting, that for over three thousand years since the giving of the Torah to this day, all animals that are not cud-chewing and split-hooved have upper teeth, and those without upper teeth have split hooves and chew cud. Amazing!

Was Moses a zoologist or a hunter? Where did he gather this information? "This answers anyone who says the Torah is not from heaven." This fact proves the truth of the Torah, that it was given to Moses by the Creator and Maker of the world. Only the Creator can declare such an unequivocal statement because every creator knows their creation, don't they?