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Why keep kosher?
Keeping kosher often tops the list of things that differentiate Jews from other people. When Jewish communities began to break away from Orthodox practices in the early 1800s, the continuity of kashrut was one of the first items nominated for the chopping block (pun intended!). Although led by American Reformers (who eventually would lead the Reform movement) and traditionalists who wanted to conserve certain religious practices, when the first American “non-denominational” rabbinical school held its first graduation exercises in 1883, the banquet included Little Neck clams, soft-shell crabs, shrimp, frog’s legs, beef, ice cream, and cheese. Since the, now appropriately named, trefah banquet kashrut in the conservative movement has taken many turns and our understanding of kashrut and how we follow its laws has changed. The reason for following it, however, has not.
This week, in Parshat Shemini, we receive guidelines for which animals we can and cannot eat. (any animal that has split hoofs and that chews the cud; fish that have fins and scales; a list of forbidden birds; four-legged insects are forbidden unless they have a pair of jointed legs with which they can leap) At the end of the section, we are told “For I, Adonai, am the One who brought you up from the land of Egypt to be your God: you shall be holy, for I am holy.” We now just have to figure out what it means to be holy!
We can understand holiness in different ways, especially in the context of the dietary laws. Should we look at kadosh to mean separate or set apart, as in the idea that we should eat differently than those do not have a covenant with God? Should we look at kadosh to mean sacred in its level compared to the rest of the world, acting upon a higher level? Or should it mean that we are to remain as pure as possible?
Nachmanides suggests that the dietary laws are for our spiritual well being over our physical. Many commentators agree with this, some suggesting that eating impure unkosher animals remove the spirit of purity and holiness, create a blockage in the intelligence, and bring cruelty or that your body becomes more blunted as an instrument of the spirit, your heart, instead of being holy, becomes more apathetic and dulled.
I don’t know if it is something we can define entirely. I don't know if we are supposed to. I think that the more energy we put into understanding the why of keeping kosher, though, the connection we will have with God who asks us to do it. It isn’t just the doing the mitzvah, it is the conversing with God and recommitting our brit that makes us holy.
Shabbat Shalom
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