(ב) בָּרוּךְ אַתָּה ה' אֱלֹהֵינוּ מֶלֶךְ הָעוֹלָם, אֲשֶׁר יָצַר אֶת הָאָדָם בְּחָכְמָה, וּבָרָא בוֹ נְקָבִים נְקָבִים, חֲלוּלִים חֲלוּלִים. גָּלוּי וְיָדוּעַ לִפְנֵי כִסֵּא כְבוֹדֶךָ, שֶׁאִם יִפָּתֵח אֶחָד מֵהֶם, אוֹ יִסָּתֵם אֶחָד מֵהֶם, אִי אֶפְשַׁר לְהִתְקַיֵּם לפניך. בָּרוּךְ אַתָּה ה', רוֹפֵא כָל בָּשָׂר וּמַפְלִיא לַעֲשׂוֹת:
(2) Blessed are You, Hashem, our God, Ruler of the Universe, Who formed humanity with wisdom and created many openings and cavities within them. It is obvious and known before Your throne of glory that if any one of them were opened or if one of any one them were closed, it would be impossible to exist before you. Blessed are You, Hashem, Who heals all flesh and does wondrous things.
Rama: "who does wonders" can also be understood as the Eternal guards the humanly spirit inside of them, and connects a spiritual thing with a physical thing. All if this is because God is the 'healer of all flesh', for then the person's body is healthy and one's soul protected within them.
(ו) (ו) דבר רוחני - ובכוונת כתוב דהנשמה נהנית מרוחניות המאכל והגוף נהנה מגשמיות המאכל ומכח זה קשורים זה בזה ע"י המאכל:
A spiritual entity - the idea is that the soul derives benefit from the spirituality of food, and the body derives benefit from the physicality of food and thus both are connected by way of the food.
זאת החיה. לְשׁוֹן חַיִּים, לְפִי שֶׁיִּשְֹרָאֵל דְּבוּקִים בַּמָּקוֹם וּרְאוּיִין לִהְיוֹת חַיִּים, לְפִיכָךְ הִבְדִּילָם מִן הַטֻּמְאָה וְגָזַר עֲלֵיהֶם מִצְוֹת, וְלָאוּמוֹת לֹא אָסַר כְּלוּם, מָשָׁל לְרוֹפֵא שֶׁנִּכְנַס לְבַקֵּר אֶת הַחוֹלֶה כּוּ' כִּדְאִיתָא בְּמִדְרַשׁ רַבִּי תַנְחוּמָא:
(2) זאת החיה THESE ARE THE ANIMALS — the word חיה is an expression denoting life and is purposely used here in preference to בהמה to express the following idea: because Israel cleave to the Omnipresent and therefore deserve to remain in life, [זאת החיה is thus taken to mean: This, O living nation (or, nation that lives), is what ye may eat!]. God therefore separated them from what is unclean, and imposed commandments upon them, whilst to the other nations who do not cleave God prohibited nought.
A parable! It may be compared to the case of a physician who goes to visit a sick person: one who is incurable he permits to eat whatever he chooses, while to the patient who may recover he gives directions as to what he may eat and may not eat.
(3) any animal that has true hoofs, with clefts through the hoofs, and that chews the cud—such you may eat. (4) The following, however, of those that either chew the cud or have true hoofs, you shall not eat: the camel—although it chews the cud, it has no true hoofs: it is unclean for you; (5) the daman—although it chews the cud, it has no true hoofs: it is unclean for you; (6) the hare—although it chews the cud, it has no true hoofs: it is unclean for you; (7) and the swine—although it has true hoofs, with the hoofs cleft through, it does not chew the cud: it is unclean for you.
ואת אלה תשקצו מן העוף...והסימן הגדול בעופות היא הדריסה שכל עוף הדורס לעולם טמא כי התורה הרחיקתהו מפני שדמו מחומם לאכזריותו ושחור וגס ומוליד המרירה השרופה השחרחורת ונותן אכזריות בלב ואין בכל העולם עוף שידרוס מלבד הנזכרים בפרשה.
An illustration of this point can be found in the list of non-kosher birds. These are all birds of prey... and include all the birds of prey in the world. These birds are all cruel. Through consuming their flesh and blood, the soul absorbs the attribute of cruelty. Therefore it is appropriate that the Jewish people, who are commanded to be merciful and to love one another, be forbidden from these things.
(44) For I the Eternal am your God: you shall sanctify yourselves and be holy, for I am holy. You shall not make yourselves unclean through any swarming thing that moves upon the earth. (45) For I the Eternal brought you up from the land of Egypt to be your God: you shall be holy, for I am holy.
Where we eat: Rabbi Yochanan and Reish Lakish teach that a person’s table has taken the place of the Temple of ancient times in atoning for that person. One understanding of their statement is that when a person eats in holiness at their own table, they have made proper use of their table in a way parallel to the altar of the Temple (Chagigah 27a). This underscores the significance in Jewish thought of eating at a table, and not while standing or walking. Today some of our eating takes place at a desk or even in a car! We will eat more healthfully and with more holiness if we take wholesome meals at a table.
Sharing food and wisdom: In Pirkei Avot we learn that Rabbi Shimon would say: Three who eat at one table and speak words of Torah, it is as if they have eaten at God’s table… A shared opportunity for blessing before and after one eats also serves to connect the act of eating to a higher purpose. These practices elevate our bodily needs and can help transform our eating to become an act of holiness and devotion.
From My Jewish Learning, "Sustainable Jewish Eating"
How do these practices align with kashrut? Are there any disconnects?
(My Jewish Learning, above)
Ukrainian farmers have been forced to neglect their fields as millions flee, fight or try to stay alive. Ports are shut down that send wheat and other food staples worldwide to be made into bread, noodles and animal feed. And there are worries Russia, another agricultural powerhouse, could have its grain exports upended by Western sanctions.
While there have not yet been global disruptions to wheat supplies, prices have surged 55% since a week before the invasion amid concerns about what could happen next. If the war is prolonged, countries that rely on affordable wheat exports from Ukraine could face shortages starting in July, International Grains Council director Arnaud Petit told The Associated Press.
It reads, to modern eyes, like a cookbook. The Torah portion of Shmini begins by telling us to bring beef, mutton, and pancakes to the sacred altar at the transcendent moment of its dedication. It ends by making sure that on any ordinary day we do not eat whales, hawks, camels, or shrimp. For even in our ordinary lives, some foods are sacred.
And between these two celebrations of the sacredness of food, we witness the deaths of those who brought “strange fire” to the Holy One [the sons of Aaron, Nadav and Avihu].
How did biblical Jews get in touch with God? By eating and choosing what to eat. Not by murmuring prayer; when Hannah did that (I Samuel 1:13), the priest Eli though she was drunk.
Why by eating? Because in the deepest origins of Jewish life, the most sacred relationship was the relationship with the earth. For shepherds, farmers, orchard-keepers, food was the nexus between adamah, the earth, and its closest relative, adam, the human. So ancient Jews got in touch with God by bringing food to the Temple. With our bodies we affirmed, “This food comes from a Unity of which we also are a part: from earth, rain, sun, seed, and our own work. It came from the Unity of Life; so we give back some of it to that great Unity.”
....Today, most of us have shrugged away the bringing-near of sacred food, the sacred choice of foods we do not eat, the sacred pausing so that one-seventh of the time we do not grow our foods. We think that resting is a waste of time that could be used to make, invent, produce, do.
Indeed, in the last few hundred years, the human race has invented the most brilliant act of work in all of its history. We have affected the planet–its very biology and chemistry–in ways no species ever has before. And we have invented the Holocaust, the H-bomb, global warming. Strange fires, all of them. Fires through which a few people can now kill billions, a few corporations can now kill thousands of species.
What can we learn by renewing the ancient text? For shepherds and farmers, food was what they ate from the earth. For us, it is also coal, oil, electric power, paper, plastics, that we take from the earth. For shepherds and farmers, kashrut was the way of guiding their eating toward holiness. For us, eco-kashrut should do the same.
We should ask: Is it eco-kosher to eat vegetables and fruit that have been grown by drenching the soil with insecticides? Is it eco-kosher to drink Shabbat Kiddush wine from non-biodegradable plastic cups? Is it eco-kosher to use 100 percent unrecycled office paper and newsprint in our homes, our synagogues, our community newspapers? Might it be eco-kosher to insist on 10 percent recycled paper this year, 30 percent in two years, and 80 percent in five years?
Is it eco-kosher to destroy great forests, to ignore insulating our homes, synagogues, and nursing homes, to become addicted to automobiles so that we drunkenly pour carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, there to accelerate the heating of our globe? Strange fire indeed!
We can light a blaze to consume the earth. Or we can make a holy altar of our lives, to light up the spark of God in every human and in every species.
Eco-Kashrut: Standards for What and How we Eat, by Rabbi Arthur Waskow, My Jewish Learning
- sustainable farming
- humane treatment of animals
-reducing plastic and food waste
- eating locally
(ז) חֲלֵב אִשָּׁה... הַגָּה: וְעַיֵּן בְּאֶבֶן הָעֵזְר סִימָן י''ג אִם חֹדֶשׁ הָעִבּוּר עוֹלֶה לְמִנְיָן. חֲלֵב כּוּתִית כַּחֲלֵב יִשְׂרָאֵל, וּמִכָּל מָקוֹם לֹא יָנִיקוּ תִּינוֹק מִן הַכּוּתִית, אִם אֶפְשָׁר בְּיִשְׂרְאֵלִית, דַּחֲלֵב כּוּתִית מְטַמְטֵם הַלֵּב (ר''נ פא''מ בְּשֵׁם הָרַשְׁבָּ''א). וְכֵן לֹא תֹּאכַל הַמֵּינֶקֶת, אֲפִלּוּ יִשְׂרְאֵלִית, דְּבָרִים הָאֲסוּרִים (הַגָּהוֹת אֲשֵׁ''רִי). וְכֵן הַתִּינוֹק בְּעַצְמוֹ, כִּי כָּל זֶה מַזִּיק לוֹ בְּזִקְנוּתוֹ.
... The wet nurse (even if Jewish), may not feed forbidden things to the baby, this also applies to the child feeding itself forbidden things - for all this causes damage when it get older.
(יט) בעצמו. כלומר אע''פ דקטן האוכל דברים האסורים מדרבנן אין אביו מצווה להפרישו כמ''ש בא''ח סימן שמ''ג היינו מדינא אבל מ''מ יפרישו מפני שמזיק לו בזקנותו שמטמטם הלב וגורם לו טבע רע עכ''ל הש''ך:
Even itself - Ie: even though we say that if a child eats rabbinically-forbidden things the father is not obligated to hold the food back... this is according to the letter of the law, however, the father should hold back this food as it damages the child when it get older as (the food) blocks up the heart and causes the child to develop a bad nature [Shach].
(כו) והמדריגה השלישית אחר הגזל והעריות לענין החמדה, הנה הוא איסור המאכלות, בין בענין הטריפות עצמם, בין בענין תערובותיהן, בין בענין בשר בחלב או חלב ודם וענין בישולי גוים, וענין געולי גויים, יין נסכם וסתם יינם. כל אלה הנקיות בהם צריך דקדוק גדול וצריך חיזוק, כי יש תאות הלב המתאוה במאכלים הטובים וחסרון הכיס באיסורי התערובות וכיוצא בזה. ופרטיהם רבים ככל דיניהם הידועים והמבוארים בספרי הפוסקים. והמקיל בהם במקום שאמרו להחמיר, אינו אלא משחית לנפשו. וכך אמרו (בספרא שמיני): לא תטמאו בהם ונטמאתם בם (ויקרא יא), אם מטמאים אתם בם, סופכם לטמא בם.
והיינו, כי המאכלות האסורות מכניסים טומאה בלבו ובנפשו של אדם עד שקדושתו של המקום ברוך הוא מסתלקת ומתרחקת ממנו. והוא מה שאמרו בש"ס גם כן (יומא לט): ונטמאתם בם, אל תיקרי ונטמאתם, אלא ונטמתם, שהעבירה מטמטמת לבו של אדם, כי מסלקת ממנו הדיעה האמיתית ורוח השכל שהקדוש ברוך הוא נותן לחסידים, כמו שאמר הכתוב (משלי ב): כי ה' יתן חכמה, והנה הוא נשאר בהמיי וחומרי משוקע בגסות העולם הזה. והמאכלות האסורות יתירות בזה על כל האיסורין, כיוון שהם נכנסים בגופו של האדם ממש ונעשים בשר מבשרו.
(26) The sin which comes third after theft and illicit relations in respect to desire is that of forbidden foods - whether those; that are ritually unclean, or an admixture containing them, or a combination of meat and milk, or suet, or blood, or food cooked by gentiles, or the utensils of gentiles, or the wine used in their libations, or their drinking-wine. Cleanliness in relation to all of these requires great scrutiny and self-strengthening because there is a lust in the heart for good foods and because one must sometimes suffer a monetary loss as a result of admixtures and the like. The prohibitions concerning forbidden foods also involve many details, as is reflected in all of the commonly known laws that are treated in the Halachic writings. One who is lenient in relation to these laws when he has been instructed to be stringent is destroying his soul. As is stated in the Sifra (Shemini), " 'Do not sully yourselves with them, becoming unclean with them' (Leviticus 11:43) - if you sully yourselves with them, you will, in the end, partake of their uncleanliness."
Forbidden foods carry uncleanliness itself into a person's heart and soul until the holiness of the Presence Blessed be He departs and withdraws from him, as is also stated in the Talmud (Yoma 39a), " '...becoming unclean with them' - do not read 'becoming unclean with them,' but 'becoming dull with them.' " For sin dulls a man's heart in that it causes to depart from him true knowledge and the spirit of wisdom that the Holy One Blessed be He gives to the Saints (as it is said [Proverbs 2:6], "For God gives wisdom"), and he remains beastly and earthy, immersed in the grossness of this world. Forbidden foods are worse in this respect than all other prohibitions, for they enter into a person's body and become flesh of his flesh.