#21 Why Kosher?

#21 Why Kosher?

Different dimensions to Kosher:

1)      Select animals from among mammals, birds and fish categories (all insects are forbidden--locust are a notable exception.) Not everything is permitted--self control.

A) No predatory animals or birds of prey or vermin. “You are what you eat.” Characteristics are transferred through eating the animal. The story of Elisha ben Avuya’s mother and timtum halev through eating non-Kosher.

2)      Treifa and neveila are disqualified from these select animals.—possibly for health reasons or for human dignity. Fatally wounded animals and carrion are for scavengers--not for civilized people.

3)      Processing the kosher mammals and birds. Through slaughter and blood removal--Letzaref es Habrios: to slaughter animals trains us in kindness and minimizing cruelty. The point is not to be kind to animals, but to acquire a kinder character in general.

4)      Prohibition of eiver min hachai even applies to non-Jews. Basic minimum decency is required for all humanity. Eating from a live animal is simply savagery.

5)      Mammals need the gid haneshe removed as a symbol of the struggle between Yaakov and Eisav. Domesticated mammals require its sacrificial fats removed to maintain the special honor dedicated exclusively to divine Temple service.

6)      Separation between meat and milk——unnatural blending when you mix kindness and maternal nurturing with slaughter and selfish consumption.

7)       Torah only prohibits domesticated meat and milk--Wild game and fowl permitted with milk and prohibited rabbinically. See Rambam about likely intellectual confusion about the principle which determines the prohibition. Not an issue of physical similarity.

#20 Why Tefillin, Tzitzis, Yarmulkah, and Mezuzah,....?

#20 Why Tefillin, Tzitzis, Yarmulkah, and Mezuzah,....?

There is common characteristic which ties all these mitzvos together: They are distinct outer objects  which have no practical function for the life of a human being and must be affixed to where there is a very important function for the human being. They involve the prominent positioning of objects which are purely symbolic in nature.

The Rambam in הל' תפילין ומזוזה וס"ת סוף פרק ז' quotes a Chazal which actually puts Tefillin, Tzitzis and Mezuzah in one category and explains the theme:

"חייב אדם ליזהר במזוזה מפני שהיא חובת הכל תמיד  וכל עת שיכנס ויצא ויפגע בייחוד שמו של הקב"ה ויזכור אהבתו וייעור משניתו ושגייתו בהבלי הזמן וידע שאין שם דבר העומד לעולם ולעלמי עולמים אלא ידיעת צור העולם ומיד הוא חוזר לדעתו והולך בדרכי מישרים.

אמרו חכמים כל מי שיש לו תפילין בראשו ובזרועו וציצית בבגדו ומזוזה בפתחו מוחזק לו שלא יחטא שהרי יש לו מזכירים רבים והן הן המלאכים שמצילין אותו מלחטוא"

בפרק ד' הל"כה- קדושת תפילין קדושה גדולה היא שכל זמן שתפילין על ראשו של אדם ועל זרועו הוא עניו וירא ואינו נמשך בשחוק ובשיחה בטילה ואינו מהרהר במחשבות רעות אלא מפנה ליבו לדברי האמת והצדק.

Rav Wolbe in Alei Shor Vol. II in the שער רביעי מערכה ראשונה: יראה  (page 475 and onward) points out that the outer world in which we live in, is naturally in a state of unawareness of Hashem's existence. The world is made very “smooth”. One can cruise through life in this world with no speed bumps, no roadblocks, all the way to Gehinnom. One main function of these symbols is to put something in our external world to remind us that we exist in the presence of a Supreme Being. Without this periodic—or better yet, constant--awareness, we would be wasting the enormous investment that has been put into every single Jew to achieve a significant amount of closeness to Hashem.

Mitzvos which involve physical objects or activities in general serve to give some kind of religious structure and to the external world of a Jew. If all there was to Judaism was thinking and contemplation about Hashem, and it didn't matter what you did in action, there would be no realm where a person's fear and love of God could be adequately expressed. The realm of physical action is part of the reality of every healthy, fully functioning human being. To leave this realm out of his religion and religious expression is to cut off a part of one's reality from Judaism which is a total anathema to the Torah's entire philosophy.

Fear is primarily expressed in refraining from action and discipline-- love is primarily expressed in positive action and display of affection. But certain positive mitzvos have fear as their theme. Their point is to bring the awareness of God's presence before you in such a way as to be incapable of succumbing to sin in such a state. You become awake to all the futility of this-worldly pursuits and make yourself re-focus on the transcendent existence that can be a part of you if you would concentrate on using this world to achieve it.

These mitzvos are able to make the concept of discipline into an external reality: You literally bind yourself in leather straps. You tie knots of thread on your clothing and wrap them around itself in between the knots-- which make them look like a whip. They proclaim that the body is not a free entity that will be allowed to follow its whims and cravings. They are harnessed into the service of the Creator.

Te Rambam elsewhere goes as far to say that the inverse is blasphemous. If one will use the transcendent spiritual power inherent in these mitzvos as merely a device to further his advantage and security in this world, he loses his portion in the world to come. He is actively trading his potential transcendent existence in for a fleeting one. He is “cashing in” on mitzvos. 

#16. What is the Source of Jewish law? God or Man?

#16. What is the Source of Jewish law? God or Man?

This is a very interesting question because, like many areas of Jewish theology there was/will be two distinct phases in history. The Beis Halevy in Drush 18 explains that the original plan for the Jewish People in receiving the Torah was embodied by the first set of tablets given to Moshe at Sinai. The first set of Luchos contained –-miraculously—everything that anyone would ever need to know regarding Hashem’s will. All the answers to any questions that would ever be asked in the future were all written down in the first set of Luchos. Furthermore, Chazal say that before the sin of the Golden Calf, there would not have been any forgetting of any Torah that was learned. Very little effort would be necessary to retain the enormous amount of Torah information that were written on the Luchos. The Jewish Heart would be naturally attuned to the direct word of Hashem and the Jew would serve as a perfect vessel for living out the Torah in this world.

After the sin of the Golden Calf, all this changed. It was a form of re-enaction of Adam’s eating from the Tree of Knowledge and his subsequent descent from his lofty spiritual condition described at length in the works of the Ramchal.

From that point onward, there would be two levels of Torah—the Written and the Oral. The written is a fixed, static text directly dictated by Hashem to Moshe word-for-word, but not nearly enough detail is provided to make it stand alone and executable in the real world. For proper implementation, there was the necessary recourse to oral information. This information did not have any fixed text! There was no dictation word-for-word to Moshe from G-d to be preserved in Moshe’s memory, and to be retrieved later. The instructions and concepts and principles of the Oral Law were all given by Hashem to Moshe, (some say every fine detail and future development of halacha as well) but not in any fixed textual form. Now suddenly, man is allowed to play an essential role in the transmission of Torah law-- by having to formulate the instructions and articulate the concepts in his own language and his own human terms of understanding and comprehension.

To make this responsibility real, Hashem abstained Himself from the halachic process and foreswore any direct intervention in the decision-making of the Sages. (We do however believe that Hashem does have a powerful hand in the overall development of Torah understanding throughout the generations, but it is extremely subtle and mostly imperceptible at the time it is happening. Rabbis throughout history have pointed out this Providential influence after the fact when looking in hind-sight.)

This shows an amazing level of trust that Hashem put in the integrity of the Sages to properly receive and then convey the Oral Torah from one generation to the next. Those who question the trustworthiness of the Sages or consider them to be prejudiced towards some cultural or psychological preference are undermining the tradition and are considered blasphemers.

Some modern (really post-modern) philosophers assert that the minute any form of information gets filtered through a human being living in a particular time and place, it becomes distorted and its original intent cannot be accurately preserved--by definition.

We reject this view—at least regarding Jewish intellectual history as it applies to the transmission of the Torah. We say the Torah has a unique ability to connect its very essence to a person who properly prepares himself to receive it without personal agendas. This doesn’t mean that we would therefore expect every properly prepared individual to arrive at an identical or even compatible understanding! The wide ranging diversity of views within Torah comes from the multifaceted nature of the Torah itself-- as it is integrated into the unique constellation of traits of each individual. What we reject is the notion that extraneous influences of culture and historical contexts are strong enough to frustrate the attempt to transmit the Torah in complete faithfulness.

The fall from the lofty first set of Luchos to the second diminutive set is actually a mixed blessing. The fact that essential Torah information now resides within the intellect/instinct/personality of the human being and no longer exists externally on a fixed objective written medium, means the human being is capable of merging himself intimately with Torah than he otherwise could have. The Beis Halevy compares it to difference between a scroll contained within an ark and the ink written on the parchment. The human being is no longer an outer compartment containing a self-contained book but rather he becomes the very parchment upon which the words are written. 

There are a few incidents reported by the gemara to illustrate this reliance on the human element for transmission of the Torah:

1)      Tanur Shel Achnai

2)      Yannai’s Hamelech’s heresy

3)      Hillel’s response to the convert who rejected the Oral Law

There are some statements in rabbinic literature that go as far as asserting that the decision of a Torah sage actually alters and define the reality. The spiritual power of the Torah channeled through a Torah Sage is more compelling than the power of nature and forces of human history.

#14. What is the role of the Jewish woman, and are why are women different than men in Jewish life?

#14. What is the role of the Jewish woman, and are why are women different than men in Jewish life?

When you look at the sweep of rabbinic literature, there is no one single unified approach to women. For every statement that declare women inferior to men, you have another statement that makes them superior. As a direct result of this, you have feminists scouring the literature and indeed finding all kinds of horrible statements by rabbis against women. They quickly come to the conclusion that Orthodox Judaism is misogynist. That’s what happened in the Sixties.

Then you have the Orthodox apologists scouring the literature and finding all kinds of wonderful statements by rabbis declaring how great and wonderful women are. That’s what happened in the Seventies and Eighties.

So which view is the correct view? The typical Jewish answer applies here: “They’re both right.”

For a partial explanation of this contradictory view of womankind we start with Parshas Bereishis.

We have the creation of Woman—before the sin of the Tree of Knowledge. Chazal say that Adam Harishon was man and woman in one being--fused in the back. The creation of woman “from man’s side” was simply a separation of the female side of Adam from the male side. The separation was made so that woman can serve the role of “eizer kinegdo”. Chazal say there are two roles here: eizer and kinegdo. A helper if man is on the right path and an opponent if he is on the wrong path. The direct implication is that man might be right and man might be wrong, but the woman is ALWAYS right. She has the more accurate moral compass and can judge if man’s direction is positive and needs to be encouraged, or negative and be discouraged.

Then comes the sin of eating from the tree of knowledge. Here we see the weakness in Woman’s character. She is susceptible to seduction and can be blinded by jealousy and the threat of being replaced.

The curses of Eve are an existential reality for womankind, but they are not obligatory or mandatory. Whenever possible, the halacha tries to relive the woman (and man) from the negative effects of a curse. Women are allowed to take medication to reduce the pain of labor and childbirth. They are given favored halachic status and protection to avoid being taken advantage of due to their vulnerabilities.

Judaism sees the differences between men and women as a part of the reality of mankind, but this reality views women as more morally developed and mature and less in need of refinement through the mitzvos. Men are more morally loose and dangerous and require more regulation and safeguards to refine them. This can explain women’s reduced level of obligation in Jewish ritual law.

To debunk a few myths about Jewish Women in Jewish Law:

·        Marriage in Jewish law does not mean the husband acquires the wife’s body as a personal slave. The unique method of acquisition of slaves' bodies--Chazaka-- is completely inapplicable to the marriage acquisition process.

• Women are disqualified from court testimony not because they are less trustworthy than men. Even Kings and High Priests are barred from public testimony because it is beneath their dignity. Even brothers who are personally unaffected by the testimony are disqualified. Women are completely trusted to testify informally regarding extremely grave matters of purity and kashrus.