#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
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.
