Why Roll in Mud?

~ This email is dedicated to the lives of our holy brothers and sisters who passed on during the holocaust, many of whom kept kosher throughout their time in the camps. May their souls bask in eternal joy and tranquility ~

KFC, McDonalds, Taco Bell, La Marais.
From cheeseburgers and shrimp to fine steak and lobster, many Jews know that one of the hardest commandments of the Torah to keep is kosher. While every mitzvah, in essence, is simply the will of G-d, we also know that each mitzvah of the Torah contains hidden & revealed reasons for why we keep it. But why kosher? Is it just a law in place to test our loyalty? Perhaps it's in place to keep Jews eating together? Or maybe it's because of the famous theory that it's a health issue?


I once learned a very beautiful and profound idea in relation to this question. Many of us, if not all, look at Torah & Judaism in the wrong light. Backwards even. As simple human beings on earth, we tend to look at the world as the beginning of all things, of all of reality. But by doing this, we forget that there was, and is, spiritual worlds - a higher reality, that preceded and supersedes the one we find ourselves in. That there is a deeper wisdom that infinitely transcends our earthly plane - that caused its existence. That wisdom is the Torah.

In other words: Many of us look at the commandment to eat kosher food as something that came along to provide us with a healthier way of living. Bacteria inhaling crustaceans and fatty pork isn't exactly paradise for your cholesterol. But while it's true that kosher animals are healthier, and while it is also true that no kosher animal is a predator - but rather an herbivore, we have to make sure we don't only perceive kosher as a byproduct of our earthly reality. What do I mean?

The truth is, Judaism's perspective on Kosher is the opposite. Unhealthy animals aren't unkosher because they're unhealthy. Rather, it is because these animals were deemed not kosher for consumption that they were created unhealthy! In G-d's will and wisdom (the Torah in its pristine, original state) it was decided before the creation of the world that certain animals would be unkosher. Therefore - since the Torah is a "blueprint for the creation of the world" - those particular animals had to be created in a state of impurity, both spiritually and physically. Physically, many of these sea creatures were placed in the very bottom of the seabed. Pigs roll in mud. But that is all merely a byproduct of the fact that they are not kosher, not the cause!

Examples of this underpinning principle of Judaism can be found with everything.Jewish mysticism teaches that the reason why parents instinctively love their children, is because G-d loves his creations. The reason why a seed must be nurtured in earth for a long period to become a tree which can bear fruit ad inifinitum, and a human seed must be nurtured in a womb for a long period of time in order to become a human being who can bear knew children ad infinitum, is only because the masculine spiritual faculty of wisdom (chochman) must give to the feminine faculty of understanding (binah) in order to give birth to our emotions (middot) - see here for more on that.

May you and your family have a Shabbat Shalom, full of delicious kosher challah and other goodies!

-Daniel