Why We Keep Kosher When we read about a mitzvah in the Torah, our contemporary brains usually conjure up a spiritual, behavioral/psychological, or sociological reason for the commandment. It is easy to explain that certain seemingly obscure prayers, for example, connect one to a very abstract and deep spiritual realm, or that the laying of Tefillin or many time-bound commandments are to harness Man’s unruly nature, and that many civil laws or unique mitzvot, such as sending home certain types of troops before warfare, are good for the group as a whole. When it comes to keeping Kosher, many thinkers have grappled with understanding these unique laws. We have explanations by people of all backgrounds, from one side of the reasoning spectrum to the other. Some claim dietary benefits, others explain that these foods are spiritual poison and the like, and, of course, we have a tradition that the Kosher laws are the type of laws that do not have rational explanation nor would we have thought of them on our own(1). This category of law is called a chok, which is in contradistinction to a mishpat, something we can make sense out of or perhaps we’d have thought of it on our own (e.g. civil law). However, we often forget that the Torah itself gives a reason for keeping Kosher! Both in our Torah Portion and in Vayikra/Leviticus (Ch. 11) the Torah says in reference to the prohibition of eating certain animals, that we should not consume them

“…because you are a people that are kadosh to Hashem your G-d…”

(Deut. 14:21)

Kadosh means ‘separate’(2), not ‘holy’, the latter being a term that was borrowed from another faith. The Torah is telling us that by eating certain animals we are going against our kadosh quality, and, conversely, if we refrain from eating certain animals, we are a kadosh people. We keep Kosher to be separate – how interesting. We eat different foods, have many Torah laws, rabbinic injunctions, and customs surrounding food to prevent not being separate – to prevent, specifically, intermarriage and intermingling to excess with another people and their culture. This intermingling is often caused by the closeness that is created between parties who partake in eating specific foods together. In fact, the sentence I brought above says that “a carcass that was not slaughtered properly, to the Gentile in your gates shall you give it”. If you do that, your neighbor will really know that you are different than he! You keep bringing him your fouled up cows that he can eat and you can’t! It’s rather reminiscent of the way we are shown to be separate, when we bring our brown-bag Kosher lunch to a business meeting at a fancy restaurant or when we request the meeting to be at a Kosher establishment. I can’t say achieving national separateness is “the reason” for the mitzvah. The much explained “because G-d said so” and “it is a chok, we just do it” definitely have a lot of validity here. My point is that mitzvot have many levels of meaning or functionality, and that we ought to do the proper investigation when we study G-d’s Torah (3). It’s important to inspect the original Jewish sources when you come across Jewish concepts and customs. We are inevitably surprised when we find diverse interpretations for the conceptual and philosophical parts of the Torah, and are shown the beauty of the vast array of sources that discuss Jewish Law. But we can only partake of this when we do the proper homework in both written and oral sources. I will end off with a humorous anecdote that relates to this topic. In high school, I lived across from a famous tasty restaurant named Noah’s Bagels. My carpool-mates and I would frequently partake of the food there, both before and after school. According to the store’s Kosher supervision policy, in order for the bagel with egg sandwich to be recommended as Kosher, the Jewish customer needs to push the button on the microwave that cooks the egg patty. We frequently went behind the counter to perform such an act and stay in line with the policy. Once, when I was throwing a ginormous birthday party at my apartment, a friend(4) of mine wanted to invite an employee of the shop who was not a member of the tribe to the get-together, because he found her to be quite pleasant. He was himself a pleasant fellow, and had good odds at finding her to be his date for the evening. However, he was met by a quick (but painless) rejection. It was very hard for the young lady to acquiesce to being asked out by someone who continuously reminds her that he was “different.” Kosher will keep you separate, in a good way. (But that’s not the only reason 😉 … IB PS- read the paragraph below the footnotes for a possible connection to the sefirot.   (1) Rashi  to Num. 19:2 and several places on the Torah, along with many other commentators (from midrash). (2) The verb lekadesh is actually a delocutive verb meaning ‘to say kadosh’, to verbally declare that an object is separate. The temple’s wooden boards are not holy nor do they have white halos or an aura about them. They are separate, as they were separated by verbal declaration to have special restrictions. See Rashi to Vayikra 25:10 for another example. (3) The epitomal chok, the red heifer, is given a certain historical reason in that it is a mother cow which cleans up after the “mess” that the golden calf caused (Rashi to Num. 19:22, from midrash). (4) No, this “friend” was not me.     Sefirot/Seven Ways: If I were to relate the above idea to the sefirot, the sefirah of yesod would come to mind. Yesod relates to connecting elements, both objects and people. Yesod types thrive on relationships and connections -“attachments” – to people and external stimuli. Physical stimuli – especially food – open up peoples’ emotions and psychology to outside connection, but that connection could be something that one is not meant to connect with. Yesods are heavily involved in such physical stimuli.   Interestingly, the contrast between yesod and the other middot/qualities revolve around the same topics as Kosher food and the idea of kadosh. Just as Yosef lived in Egypt surrounded by a foreign culture and did not deviate from the correct moral path, even though he thrived on relationships, so can Yesods can live in the proverbial Egypt of non-culturally Jewish society, though they may be heavily involved in business and social interactions with the non-Jewish world. If yesods forsake their essential morals, they will act just as someone who has had one too many dinner parties with someone outside his faith: they will give in to temptation and connect with the forbidden in a flash. Because of the precarious position that they find themselves in, they force us to deal with the topic of interaction with the greater world that is outside of our own community. A contrasting issue must also be discussed, namely, that different people need different barriers and practices to keep themselves separate and in line with observance. The essential laws of the Torah must be kept, but if people feel that they, personally, need extra boundaries, then they should erect them for themselves. They should just remember that their practices are preventative measures to make boundaries, and not essential components of the law, the yesod would argue.