A universal visceral reaction upon first hearing
about the Coronavirus was, “Of course it came from China; they eat dogs, snakes
and bat soup.” One didn’t have to be religious or Jewish to get nauseated at
seeing animals that we call pets hanging from meat hooks or imagining bats
doing laps in our broth. Our brainless stomachs and rudimentary retch reflexes
just know some things just shouldn’t be eaten. With subtle feelings of
superiority we question, “What kind of person eats things like that?” Certainly
there will be consequences. All of our own health crazes and the billions
society spends on them strongly indicate that we fundamentally believe that we
are what we eat, that healthy items help make us healthy and that bat broth breeds
deadly viruses. How coincidental, it turns out that G-d believes the same
thing. We may deem foods as “gross”; G-d deems some foods as unclean and an abomination.
I tend to trust Him more than the Chinese, W.H.O., or the FDA as to what is
consumable, after all He did create the world and everything in it. I certainly
vouch for His very famous “diet book” that ensures that His people will be not
merely healthy, but also HOLY; a diet that has endured through the millennia.
“For I am the Lord Who has brought you up from the land of Egypt to be your
God. Thus, you shall be holy, because I am holy.” (11:45)
The sages teach that the food we eat affects much more than our bodies. By eating not kosher we sully our souls, distance ourselves from the Almighty and bring on sicknesses. The kabbalists teach that our soul is in our blood and seeing that food feeds our blood it affects our souls as well. The more we learn the depths of our commandments, the more we realize that God is the best diet guru, even if He doesn’t have an infomercial.
The Jewish people are allowed to eat only ten
animals, none of which hunt for prey. They are docile and peaceful. Our sages
have taught that eating animals that lust for blood and go for the kill
affects our characters and personalities. If eating an energy bar gives you
energy, then how hard is it to believe that eating violent and aggressive
animals can transform your energy as well making it ever harder to keep the
Torah's commandments, all meant to elevate our animal soul?
The Torah admonishes that not only eating certain
foods renders us impure but even touching the carcass of some has an effect on
us and contaminates us. But there is no hand sanitizer or alcohol percentage to
counter the effects on our soul. Interesting how we are afraid to shake hands,
touch doors knobs, or come within 6 feet of each other because we fear to be
physically contaminated, but the Torah, which predates our modern-day
germaphobia and virus avoidance protocols, takes this concern even deeper. What
we touch, who we touch and how we touch also results in spiritual
contamination.
People dismissively ask if God really cares what
they eat for lunch? And the answer is a resounding thunderous, YES. So much so
that Adam and Eve were thrown out of the Garden of Eden for eating the
forbidden fruit. The first sin revolved around eating and brought about the
fall of mankind. It is said of Adam that he was the most gorgeous man that ever
lived, but by eating what he should not have, his stature and beauty were
diminished. Simply because God said so, food affects us profoundly. When we sin
with food, and in general, our inner light is diminished and it shows in the
spiritual realm as well as on the earthly plains.
Eating kosher doesn’t just mean avoiding pig and
its non-kosher cohorts, it also means not eating “like” a pig. Be a mensch
in all your appetites. Have restraint and limitations. Don’t listen to the
slithering snake offering you the “forbidden flavors.” One day we will have to
give an accounting for our vast intake, not just as regards our fitness but
before the Eternal Witness who gave us His menu along with the commandment that
we not contaminate ourselves. The next time you pick up your spoon, pause
for a moment and know that G-d is looking at you in the same bewildered and
repulsed manner that we look at those who shop at wet markets and eat bat soup:
“Why would they eat that? It’s killing them on so many levels.” The Master
Chef of the universe, the King of nutritionists specifically commanded his
children, to “distinguish
between the unclean and the clean, and between the animal that may be eaten and
the animal that may not be eaten.” (Vayikra 11:47). Stop being impressed and lured by the fancy French
names on killer menus. They are euphemisms for physical and spiritual “poison.”
“Do not defile yourselves with them, that you should become unclean
through them” thus said the Lord.
Bon Appétit!
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