Among contemporary Jews, the traditional dietary laws (kashrut) are a perplexing challenge. The biblical rules about which foods can and cannot be eaten seem arbitrary and meaningless. Why would God care whether we eat cows or pigs, sheep or shrimp? Why is it a blessing to eat some animals and a sin to eat others? How do these laws bring us closer to God? Even among Jews who observe these laws, there is confusion about their purpose and meaning.

There are a few popular notions about kashrut that should be dismissed immediately. Many Jews believe that the prohibition against eating some animals, especially pigs, is rooted in an ancient concern about health – as if it was dangerous to eat pork before science understood the parasites that cause trichinosis. This is patently false. The necessity of cooking meat thoroughly was known to the ancients. The laws of kashrut have nothing to do with physical health.

Many people believe that the purpose of the biblical dietary laws was to keep Jews separate from non-Jews. Keeping kosher requires Jews to use special facilities for the slaughter of animals and the preparation of food under close supervision. As a result, traditionally observant Jews today must live near sources of kosher food and stay away from markets and restaurants that do not adhere to their standards. However, those requirement are the creation of post-biblical rabbinic law. The laws of kashrut as they appear in the Hebrew Bible are not so stringent. Moreover, they  come from a time when the Jewish people were unified as a nation and had no need to separate themselves from non-Jews. The laws of kashrut did not originate to keep Jews separate.

So, what is the purpose of these laws? What spiritual meaning do they convey?

There is one thing that is clear from the dietary laws in this week's Torah portion (Shemini): they force us to notice carefully the characteristics of the animals we eat. We must divide the animal kingdom into categories – animals with cloven hooves and without, animals that are ruminates and those that are not, water animals with fins and scales and those without. Kashrut is primarily about noticing and categorizing. 

The ability to notice is certainly a spiritual practice. When we take the time to look at and consider what we put into our bodies, we are striving toward a way of eating that is not just about satisfying bodily desires. Kashrut elevates eating above a brutish and animalistic act and turns it into an act of appreciation, discernment and gratitude. Kashrut reminds us and makes us accustom to curbing our impulses. It teaches us to discipline our desires according to boundaries, to notice which desires are worthy of acting upon and which are not.

The obvious application of this discipline lies in the area of sexuality. You may have noticed that human beings are not always good about observing boundaries concerning sexual impulses. Too often, we fail to put the people we desire sexually into their appropriate categories – those who are permitted to us and those who are prohibited. Teaching people to exercise discipline about the foods they put into their bodies is one way to teach them also to exercise discipline regarding sexuality. Our bodies are sacred and the choices we make with them matter a great deal.

Of course, there are other, less obvious applications to the principle. Every day, we encounter temptations in life that we have to negotiate. Making choices in how we spend our time, how we parent our children, how we react to our own fears and anger, require wise discernment and the ability to curb our instincts.

There is biblical support for the idea that the laws of kashrut are intended to teach us to exercise discipline and wisdom in our lives. In one passage from this week's Torah portion, there are laws about the land animals we are permitted to eat and those that are prohibited:

You may eat all [land animals] that have both divided hooves – cloven hooves – and chew their cud. However, you may not eat … the camel, which chews its cud but whose hooves are not divided (it is a source of impurity for you), the hyrax, which chews its cud but whose hooves will not be divided (it is a source of impurity for you), the rabbit, which chews its cud but whose hooves were not divided (it is a source of impurity for you).
–Leviticus 11:3-6 (emphasis added)

Most English translations do not reflect the change in verb tense in the highlighted phrases, but they are obvious in the original Hebrew. The Hebrew verb to "divide" in this passage (mafris, yafris, hifrisah) is presented in the the present, future and past tenses, suggesting that making distinctions requires an awareness of past, present and future. When we make choices about how we respond to our impulses, we must think about how our choices are a reflection of our own past history, what they say about our present situation, and how they are likely to affect us in the future.

Think about the choices you have made that you have come to regret in your life. (Everyone has at least a few.) Consider, in retrospect, how you might have made a better choice if you had thought about how you were influenced by your previous history. Consider how you could have saved yourself from some suffering if you had better understood where you stood at that moment. Finally, think about how consideration of your future may have helped you make a better decision.

Kashrut is not just about lists of foods on the permitted and prohibited lists. It is about mindful awareness of the ways that we respond to our own hungers and desires. It is about making wise choices. It is about noticing where we have been, where we are, and where we would like to go in life.


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Sh'mini: Eat. Pray. Kashrut.
​Sukkot: Reconnecting to Our Food

Mary Douglas wrote a book that changed the way we think about religion. Purity and Danger (1966) is an anthropological study that examines the way human societies simultaneously fear and venerate the things that don't fit our preconceived categories.

Douglas wrote that societies divide the world up into classifications: clean and dirty, fit and unfit, etc. Invariably, some objects and experiences do not fit the scheme. Is the soil in which plants grow a source of life, or is it dirt that is seen as a source of contamination and death? Wherever there are things that don't match the pigeon holes – or have an ambiguous relationship to the categories – society tends to push them into two realms: the sacred and the taboo. 

If you think this just sounds like the primitive thinking of pre-modern people who instinctively fear or venerate anything they don't understand – if you think it is far from the scientific approach of our society – think about the way our modern, science-based world thinks about things that are on the boundaries of our categories. Doesn't our culture treat sexuality as being simultaneously "dirty" and sublime? Don't we venerate the violence we love to watch on the football field or in the movies, while we cringe in horror at the thought of violence in our neighborhoods? We, too, are caught in the love-hate response to things that do not comfortably fit into our social scheme.

This week's Torah portion (Shmini) describes in loving detail the practices of the offerings the Israelite's made to God in the Tabernacle as they wandered in the wilderness, and which they later would offer in the Temple in Jerusalem. The Torah describes how the sacrifices brought blessing on the people and how they caused the Presence of God to "appear to all the people" (Leviticus 9:23). The Tabernacle offerings helped to purify the people and made them worthy to have God dwell among them.

But the sacrifices also were a source of danger and death. In the only extended narrative story in the book of Leviticus, we read how Aaron's two eldest sons, Nadav and Avihu, made a fire offering on the altar that was, in some unspecified way, inappropriate and improper. The text tells us that, "Fire came from before Adonai and consumed them, and they died before Adonai" (Leviticus 10:2). Even more confounding and enigmatic, Moses tells his brother Aaron after the death of his two sons, "This is what Adonai has said, 'Through those who come close to Me am I made holy. Before all the people shall I be glorified'" (Leviticus 10:3). 

What, we wonder, is so sanctifying about death of two men who made a mistake? How is God glorified by incinerating them? Jewish tradition has many – often contradictory – explanations for the death of Nadav and Avihu. I think that Mary Douglas would have seen it as an example of the convergence of purity and danger. 

The sacrificial altars of ancient Israel were the place where the contradictions were resolved. The Israelites saw newly born domestic animals and harvested crops as being miraculous (and so, I add, should we). To whom did they belong? To the farmer who cultivated them? How could any human being take credit for such a miracle? Did they belong to God? If so, how could human beings have the audacity to use them for food? 

By offering a portion of God's miracles back up to God, things with no clear categories were made comprehensible. Food was made suitable for eating through a rite that purified both the food and the consumers of the food.

The story of the death of Nadav and Avihu reminds us of the flip side of purification. Wherever categories are violated, there is also danger. In the ether-world where categories are blurred, one false step can end in death. The immolation of Nadav and Avihu is another kind of sacrifice – one in which the consumer becomes the consumed. As we – body and soul – are also miracles of God, we also are liable to become the offering.

I am thinking about all of this because, this week, I visited my doctor because some of the pieces of my miraculous body (specifically, the C5 and C6 vertebrae) are not working correctly. While I stood in the x-ray room, I tingled slightly with fear as the technician walked out of the room to zap me with a tiny bit of radiation. It's hard to keep that experience from feeling slightly dangerous. But, of course, it is a "sacred danger" – a moment to recognize that healing and destruction go hand in hand. Life and death are not opposites – they are playmates. 

The doctor pointed out the areas of the image that show the problem. (Without the guidance of this latter-day priest, the image would make no more sense to me than the entrails of a sacrificial goat.) The experience launched me into the mindset of Mary Douglas and the ambivalent world of things that are outside of the usual categories. Am I well or am I unwell? Is the doctor who irradiates me a healer or a destroyer? Will the sacred rites of the examination room lead to purification and wellness, or is it a prelude to further danger and deterioration?

Before you send me your sympathy and prayers for healing, please know that my condition is not serious. I am in no mortal peril. I am just going through one of those moments that we all know about – that time when you have to pass through the uncomfortable place of being "a patient" – a person who is somewhere along the journey between illness and health. You've been there, too.

It is an experience that can bring us close to God. It reminds us of our frailty and vulnerability. It puts us in touch with our mortality and our dreams of being touched by Eternity – even though we know the danger of "meeting your Maker." We gain new insights into why Moses would tell his brother that God is made holy by those who come close to God, both in purity and in danger.


Other Posts on This Topic:
Shemini: The Thing
Nadav and Avihu

We are finally back to the regular cycle of Torah readings this week after two weeks of special readings related to the holiday of Passover. With this week's portion, Shemini, we resume the story of the book of Leviticus where we left off, with Aaron and his sons about to be ordained as priests. 

The portion begins:

It was on the eighth day that Moses called Aaron, his sons, and the elders of Israel. He said to Aaron, “Take a calf of the herd for a sin offering and an unblemished ram for a burnt offering and offer them before Adonai. Tell the Israelites, '…Today Adonai will appear to you.'" They brought the things Moses commanded to the front of the Tent of Meeting and the whole community came forward and stood before Adonai. Moses said, “This is the thing that Adonai commanded you to do so that Adonai's Glory will appear to you.” (Leviticus 9:1-6)

The great Chasidic commentator, Menachem Mendel of Kotzk (known as the "Kotzker Rebbe"), wonders what is "the thing" is that the Israelites must do to cause God's Glory to appear to them. The Kotzker argues that it cannot be just the sacrifices, because that would be redundant. The Israelites already had brought the required sacrifices. Why, asks the Kotzker Rebbe, does Moses again have to say, "This is the thing that Adonai commanded"? What is "the thing" that will cause God's presence to appear?

Don't pretend that you don't want to know, too. If there was something you could do that instantly would cause God's presence to be revealed before you, wouldn't you do it?

I don't think we're talking about a parlor trick here. I don't think the Kotzker Rebbe imagines that there is some abracadabra that will pull a divine revelation out of a hat. I think it actually is something much more simple than that. There are things we can do, simple things, that allow us to experience God in our daily lives. What are they for you?

For me, it can be as simple as holding the hand of my wife or my child and saying what is in my heart in that moment. It can be as simple as taking the time to listen to a friend or a congregant who is going through a difficult time and letting the words enter deeply into me. 

Last Friday evening I had the pleasure of leading the congregation in a Shabbat service on the beach, and that reminded me of another way to make God's presence instantly available. Looking out over the ocean, watching the low angle of the sun's last beams brightening the clouds, made me feel that I could discover the revealed presence of God all around me. 

It is not just that I have the fortune of living in a very beautiful place and that I had a wonderful group of people with whom I could share the moment (although those things don't hurt). It is also that the moment reminded me of how infrequently we give ourselves the luxury of just stopping to notice the beauty that surrounds us all the time. We can allow God's presence to be revealed to us whenever we want, just by taking the time to appreciate the wonders of the world around us, the miracle of our own bodies, the amazing good fortune we have just to be alive in a world filled with wonders.

This is the thing that God has commanded you to do so that God's Presence will appear to you.

I'm on my way home from five amazing days at the Hevraya retreat of the Institute for Jewish Spirituality. We spent our time (not enough of it) in mindfulness practice and text study. The focus of this winter's retreat was the story of Nadav and Avihu, the two sons of Aaron who died while offering "alien fire" on the altar of the Tabernacle. We studied classical midrash, Philo, Zohar and chasidic texts that show different sides of the story. 

Nadav and Avihu are sometimes regarded as terrible sinners who died because they usurped their father and desecrated the Tabernacle through improper offering. However, there are also texts that regard the brothers as righteous men whose personal sacrifice was necessary for the initiation of the sacrificial rites. The Zohar, in particular, loves Nadav and Avihu and has an extraordinary description of them "bringing atonement for the sins of Israel" (Zohar III 57b). Great stuff.

As part of the conclusion of our study, our fabulous teacher, Dr. Melila Hellner-Eshed, had us create our own interpretations and midrashim on the story. Here is mine:

NADAV AND AVIHU

There had to be two of them.
Like Eldad and Medad, who would follow them,
The pairing was a necessity
To reflect the two sides of their story.
They needed to be restrained and bound.
They needed to be recognized as prophets.
In them, the faults of Israel were revealed.
In them, the redemption of Israel was achieved.
And neither side could be true without the other.

The fiery brothers who burned
With zealous piety and selfish conceit
Are the twin offspring
Of a people bred to kiss the divine
With the kisses of their mouth
Their lips scorched and tongue howling.

They would be reborn, those two,
As the goats brought before their father
Just after their death.
Before he drew the lots,
Aaron looked into the oblong pupils and wondered,
"Is that you, Avihu? Is that you, Nadav?
My beautiful and cursed boys?
Must you always be marked for holy death?
In you, Israel finds atonement.
In you, broken bones and scorched soul
Will remind them
Of the price for reaching beyond the bounds."


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Acharei Mot: Facing the Direction of Azazel

The things that the body craves are not always the things that fulfill us. 

I see a candy bar on the shelf by the drugstore register and I have an impulse to pick it up and casually hand it to the woman behind the counter along with the toothpaste and shampoo I actually intended to buy when I walked into the store. Somehow, this time, I stop myself from reaching out my hand to pick up the candy. I remind myself that thirty seconds after eating that candy bar, I would feel no more satisfied than thirty seconds before.

And, yes, there are also times that I don't stop myself.

This week's Torah reading includes rules for eating — what animals may be eaten and which may not. Since I am a vegetarian, these rules don't have much practical impact on me. I don't eat the permitted animals, let alone the forbidden ones, so I have to find another meaning for this text. To me, it's all about making eating a spiritual practice.

We are hard-wired to crave certain foods. We are, in part, still the creatures we were when we had to get our food by hunting and gathering. Like those ancestors, we seek out sweetness — the sugars in a ripe piece of fruit — as a source of quick energy. Only now, in the modern world, sweetness is no rarity; it is all around us in choices that our primeval ancestors never could have enjoyed. Nowadays, if we were to indulge at every opportunity in the foods that we crave, we would destroy ourselves. Of course, many people do just that.

And our unhealthy cravings are not limited to food, either.

The laws of kashrut are not just an exercise in maintaining ancient dietary practices or of blindly obeying God's commands. Kashrut is a practice in making wise choices and protecting ourselves from self-destructive impulses. By forcing us to think about our food, Kashrut teaches us to take care of ourselves and to act courageously in the pursuit of our own happiness.

That is a holy task. When we act thoughtfully and mindfully about how we treat ourselves, we add sanctity to our lives. By thinking about our choices — not just acting on impulse — we raise ourselves up beyond our animal selves and become creatures capable of reaching toward holiness. 

This week, as I take another step on the journey toward Pesach and the time of our liberation, I focus on how I use my freedom to make wise choices that foster my happiness, and avoid the pitfalls of turning myself into a slave of my impulses.