Kashrut: Finding Meaning in Ritual

What is Kosher?

The word kosher means proper or acceptable, and it has informally entered the English language with that meaning. But kosher laws have their origin in the Bible, and are detailed in the Talmud and the other codes of Jewish traditions. They have been applied through the centuries to ever-changing situations, and these rulings, both ancient and modern, govern kosher certification.

The Bible lists the basic categories of food items which are not kosher. These include certain animals, fowl and fish (such as pork and rabbit, eagle and owl, catfish and sturgeon), most insects, and any shellfish or reptile. In addition, kosher species of meat and fowl must be slaughtered in a prescribed manner, and meat and dairy products may not be manufactured or consumed together.

Why do so many foods require kosher supervision? For example, shouldn’t cereals and potato chips be inherently kosher since they are not made from meat, fowl, fish or insects? The answer is that all units and subunits in a food item must be kosher as well. Thus, for example, a cereal may be non-kosher because it has raisins which are coated with a non-kosher, animal-based glycerin. Potato chips can be non-kosher if the vegetable oil used in the fryer has been pasteurized and deodorized on equipment used for tallow production. In fact, equipment used for hot production of non-kosher products may not be used for kosher production without kosherization (a hot purging procedure).

Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch

Just as the external temple, which represents your holy mission and to which you should sanctify yourself, becomes desecrated by impurity...so are these foods impure and unfit for your spirit, as far as they are all of them the living place of activity for your own being which is summoned unto holiness. If you have eaten them. not only touched but absorbed them into your system- you may be more nourished and better fed: but the animal instinct will be aroused more strongly within you, and your body becomes more blunted as an instrument of the spirit. Your heart, instead of being holy, instead of only striving for holiness- namely, your sublimity over everything animal-like, is drawn down to the animal- or become the more apathetic and dulled. Your spirit is now faced with a fiercer battle. and is less equipped for the fight" (Horeb, 317).

Rabbi Shneur Zalman of Liady

The great Kabbalist, Rabbi Isaac Luria (the "Ari", 1534-1572) taught that every created thing possesses a "spark" of divine energy that constitutes its essence and soul. When a person utilizes something toward a G-dly end, he brings to light this divine spark, manifesting and realizing the purpose for which it was created.

In all physical substances, a material "husk" (kelipah) encases and conceals the divine spark at its core, necessitating great effort on the part of man to access the spark without becoming enmeshed in the surface materiality.

No existence is devoid of a divine spark -- indeed, nothing can exist without the pinpoint of G-dliness that imbues it with being and purpose. But not every spark can be actualized. There are certain "impregnable" elements whose sparks are inaccessible to us. The fact that something is forbidden by the Torah means that its husk cannot be penetrated, so that its spark remains locked within it and cannot be elevated.

Thus, one who eats a piece of kosher meat and then uses the energy gained from it to perform a mitzvah, thereby elevates the spark of divinity that is the essence of the meat, freeing it of its mundane incarnation and raising it to a state of fulfilled spirituality. However, if one would do the same with a piece of non-kosher meat, no such "elevation" would take place. Even if he applied the energy to positive and G-dly ends, this would not constitute a realization of the divine purpose in the meat’s creation, since the consumption of the meat was an express violation of the divine will.

This is the deeper significance of the Hebrew terms assur and mutar employed by Torah law for the forbidden and the permissible. Assur, commonly translated as "forbidden," literally means "bound", implying that these are things whose sparks the Torah has deemed bound and imprisoned in a shell of negativity and proscription. Mutar ("permitted"), which literally means "unbound," is the term for those sparks which the Torah has empowered us to extricate from their mundane embodiment and actively involve in our positive endeavors.

The "bound" elements of creation also have a role in the realization of the divine purpose outlined by the Torah. But theirs is a "negative" role-they exist so that we should achieve a conquest of self by resisting them. There is no Torah-authorized way in which they can actively be involved in our development of creation, no way in which they may themselves become part of the "dwelling for G-d" that we is charged to make of our world. Of these elements it is said, "Their breaking is their rectification." They exist to be rejected and defeated, and it is in their defeat and exclusion from our lives that their raison detre is realized.

(Based on Tanya chapters 7-8)

Louis Jacobs on Maimonidies

Maimonides (Guide of the Perplexed III:48) understands the dietary laws chiefly as a means of keeping the body healthy. The meat of the forbidden animals, birds, and fishes is unwholesome and indigestible. Maimonides refuses to see the signs for the permitted animals and fishes as anything more than simple indications of the types of animal and fish that are permitted. An animal is not kosher because its chews the cud and has cloven hooves, nor is a fish kosher because it has fins and scales. These are only the means of identifying which species are wholesome and which unwholesome. The prohibition of eating meat cooked in milk is similarly seen by Maimonides to be because such a mixture constitutes gross and very filling food.

Louis Jacobs on Nachmanidies

Nahmanides, in his commentary to the Pentateuch [the Torah], tends to see the dietary laws as beneficial to the soul rather than the body. Nahmanides observes that the forbidden animals and birds are predators, so that for man to eat of their flesh will have an adverse effect on his character, whereas the permitted animals and birds are calmer and far less violent. As for fishes, those that have fins and scales are able to swim nearer to the surface of the water where they can inhale the fresher air, whereas the other fish lurk in the murky waters of the deep, and their flesh is less clear and refined.

Biblically prohibited foods include:

• Non-kosher animals and birds. Mammals require certain identifying characteristics (cloven hooves and being ruminants), while birds require a tradition that they can be consumed. Fish require scales and fins (thus excluding catfish, for instance).
• All invertebrates are non-kosher apart from certain types of locust, on which most communities lack a clear tradition. No reptiles or amphibians are kosher.
• Carrion (nevelah): meat from a kosher animal that has not been slaughtered according to the laws of shechita.
• Injured (terefah): an animal with a significant defect or injury, such as a fractured bone or particular types of lung adhesions.
• Blood (dam): blood of kosher mammals and fowl is removed through salting, with special procedures for the liver, which is very rich in blood.
• Particular fats (chelev): particular parts of the abdominal fat of cattle, goats and sheep must be removed by a process called nikkur.
• The twisted nerve (gid hanasheh): the sciatic nerve
• Limb of a living animal (ever min ha-chai):
• Untithed food (tevel): produce of the Land of Israel requires the removal of certain tithes, which in ancient times were given to the Kohanim (priests), Levites and the poor (terumah, maaser rishon andmaaser ani respectively) or taken to the Old City of Jerusalem to be eaten there (maaser sheni).
• Fruit during the first three years (orlah): according to Leviticus 19:23, fruit from a tree in the first three years after planting cannot be consumed (both in the Land of Israel and the diaspora). This applies also to the fruit of the vine - grapes, and wine produced from them.^[17]
• New grain (chadash): in Leviticus 23:14 the Bible prohibits newly grown grain (planted after Passover the previous year) until the second day of Passover; there is debate as to whether this law applies to grain grown outside the Land of Israel.
• Wine of libation (yayin nesekh): wine that may have been dedicated to idolatrous practices.

Biblically prohibited mixtures include:

• Mixtures of meat and milk (basar be-chalav): this law derives from the broad interpretation of the commandment not to "cook a kid in its mother's milk" (Exodus 23:19, Exodus 34:26, and Deuteronomy 14:21); other non-kosher food may be used for other benefit (e.g. sold to non-Jews), but mixtures of meat and milk are prohibited even with regards to other benefit.
• Plants grown together (kilayim): in the Land of Israel plants are to be grown separately and not in close proximity according to Leviticus 19:19 and Deuteronomy 22:9-11. A specific subdivision of this law is kil'ei ha-kerem, the prohibition of planting any grain of vegetable near a grapevine; this law applies to Jews throughout the world, and one may not derive benefit from the produce.

Rabbinically prohibited foods include:

• Non-Jewish milk (chalav akum): milk that may have an admixture of milk from non-kosher animals (see below for current views on this prohibition).
• Non-Jewish cheese (gevinat akum): cheese that may have been produced with non-kosher rennet.
• Non-Jewish wine (stam yeinam): wine that while not produced for idolatrous purposes may otherwise have been poured for such a purpose or alternatively when consumed will lead to intermarriage.
• Food cooked by a non-Jew (bishul akum): this law was enacted for concerns of intermarriage.
• Non-Jewish bread (pat akum): this law was enacted for concerns of intermarriage.
• Health risk (sakanah): certain foods and mixtures are considered a health risk, such as mixtures of fish and meat.