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Chumash Series

Teaching Materials

Goal: Demonstration that the laws of kashrut teach us essential lessons about the need to set boundaries.

Secondary Goal: The laws of kashrut enable us to transcend ourselves and connect with something greater.  We cast ourselves as a reflection of G-d (and restore the “tzelem”) by following His directions.

Summary: This class is about “chukim” in general.  Kashrut is an excellent application for beginners.  "Chukim" means laws without clear rationale. "Chukim" also means boundaries. (cf. Job 28, 26--Hashem made a boundary (chok) for the sea.) The chukim of kashrut create boundaries for the appetites and teach us the need to set boundaries.

I. Teacher's introduction: The problem explaining kashrut is that it is extremely hard to give meaning to the particulars: What is wrong with eating a pig, meat and milk etc. Most approaches try to rationalize the details, for example by quoting the midrash that pigs represent hypocrisy (kosher on the outside and treife on the inside), or that milk and meat is about the blending of life and death etc. The explanations are generally forced and unconvincing, but there is a bigger problem with this kind of explanation. Hashem could have made the laws of kashrut -- mishpatim, laws whose reason was rationally apparent. Instead He made the laws of kashrut-- chukim, laws whose logic is obscure. Understanding and explaining the mitzvot of kashrut should center around the question of why the Almighty made chukim about what we could eat, not try to treat the laws as mishpatim by rationalizing the details. You're not supposed to intuit that the laws of kashrut are specifically appropriate. On the contrary, the Talmud suggests a man's attitude toward forbidden foods should be "I'd love to . . . but G-d said 'no'" (see Rashi, Vayikra, 20:26).  By contrast, you're not supposed to say "I'd love to commit murder but G-d said it's assur." You're supposed to intuit that murder is wrong. There is of course underlying meaning to G-d's prohibitions. (The Rambam in Moreh Nevukim says this clearly.) I mean to say only that since the salient aspect of the chukim is their obscurity, the first question with kashrut is not what's wrong with pigs, but why G-d gave us intentionally obscure mitzvot regulating what we eat.

II. Starting the class.  If you have a class with regular attendees, consider giving them the story by Tolstoy: How Much Land Does a Man Need. The story demonstrates the unlimited nature of human greed, which is a perfect set-up for this class. It's also good to have the point made by a secular non-Jewish authority like Tolstoy.

1. If your class read the story ahead of time, ask them: "What did you think of that story?" The story will definitely invite comment. Let them talk and respond. Ask them: "Do you think it's true that the appetite for money is unlimited?" Once again -- give them ample opportunity to respond. Don't get in the way. Someone will probably challenge you: "Do you have to be poor then? Is it better to have nothing?" Avoid the question. Focus them back to your question: "Is there any point at which a man knows he has enough?"

2)  Once they've hashed it around themselves, say: "The Jewish point of view is that the appetites are endless.
Illustrations: (1) King Solomon said "no man dies with half his appetites satisfied." Someone with $50,000 wants $100,000. Someone with $100,000 wants a million. Someone with a million wants ten etc. (2) An extremely wealthy man I know went on a cruise with Harry and Leona Helmsley (in the days when people thought there was something to envy about the Helmsleys.) My friend came back green with envy, his enjoyment of his hundred million dollars destroyed, because he had met someone with a billion. (3) There is an advertisement which shows a guy in a Mercedes looking enviously at a guy in a Rolls.

3)   Ask your class: "What would happen to someone who had no boundaries for their appetites--for food, for sex, or for money?" They will recognize on their own that someone without boundaries will a) destroy themselves and b) destroy the world. You can offer some illustrations:
Illustrations: (1) Once you start eating potato chips it's hard to stop eating them before you make yourself sick. (2) People struggle to control their eating--they suffer from obesity, heart disease etc. because they can't control themselves. (3) In the days when Kings had absolute power (like the Roman emperors), kings were inevitably perverts. When you can have anything you want you have to go further and further out for a thrill.

4)   Explain to them that in Judaism we have laws called "chukim." "Chukim" means boundaries. The chukim create boundaries for a man's appetites.
Illustrations: (1) The laws of kashrus say you can eat, but you can't eat whatever, whenever, and wherever you want. There are boundaries and that establishes a measure of discipline. Furthermore it teaches the general need to set boundaries for our appetites. You are likely to be asked "but what is the logic of not eating a pig etc." Whether or not they ask that, tell them, "this leads to our next point: e. Tell your class that in addition to meaning "boundaries," "chukim" also means those laws which are apparently without intrinsic logic. Explain this as follows: Some of the mitzvot are obvious and rational: All societies have prohibitions of murder and stealing. Some of the mitzvot have no apparent logic: It's not clear why it's bad to eat a pig. (Emphasize: We believe that there is logic for the chukim as well -- in Moreh Nevukim the Rambam makes this point explicitly but although there is some deep logic, this is not their obvious aspect. The obvious aspect of the mitzvot is that they are without apparent logic.) Ask your class: What is the connection between "chukim," meaning boundaries, and "chukim," meaning laws without apparent logic? Why do laws without apparent logic create more effective boundaries than would laws whose logic is self-evident? They may get this one on their own. If not suggest that the appetites have no intrinsic limits and there is no logic to setting a limit here any more than setting it there. Any explanation why the limit is here and not there is open to challenge. The crucial point is that there must be a limit. Where the boundary is drawn is less important than that the boundary is drawn.

Illustrations: (1) I tell my children "you can have two cookies for desert." They ask me "why not three?" I tell them "I don't know. Why not one?" If I had offered them three cookies they would have asked for four. There is no logic to two. There has to be a boundary and I set it at two. (2) Most people never set boundaries for themselves. They eat until they feel sick. They push for more money until they are exhausted or go broke.
Summary: The laws of kashrut create boundaries for our appetites, and they teach us the general need to set boundaries for our appetites in other areas. (There is eventually a logic to why G-d set the boundary where He did. Solomon understood the logic. For us however the lesson is simply--we need boundaries. You can also point out that left to our own we will almost inevitably rationalize and set the boundaries in a way that legitimizes our comfort.)
We explained in the previous class that human beings became self-centered as a result of eating from the tree.  Setting boundaries stops self-absorption from becoming self-destruction.  Continue to explain that when we impose boundaries that transcend our understanding (i.e. – chukim), we actually begin to move beyond our own ego.   

III. Holiness a. Ask your class to tell you what it means to be "holy." Let them talk about it. They are unlikely to have anything to offer. Suggest to them as follows. 1. Tell your class that one meaning of "kadosh," holy, is separate. We have explored up to now how the laws of kashrut make us holy by giving us boundaries. 2. A second aspect of holiness is that I identify with my soul and not my body. More deeply, I identify with something larger than "I." When I do mitzvot that I understand, I do them because they make sense to me. I don't want to kill etc. When I do mitzvot that I don't understand, I do them because G-d commanded me. I identify my will with G-d. That makes me holy. Emphasize: In approaching Judaism as a whole, we reject commitment based on faith. Once however, I've rationally convinced myself that there is a G-d and that the Torah is true, it is reasonable and fitting to trust G-d that his commandments are for my good. This doesn't mean I stop looking for understanding, or don't attempt to understand for example what is really wrong with a pig, it means I don't make my observance dependent on understanding.
In summary, the mitzvot of kashrut make boundaries for the appetite and teach us the need for discipline.  They make us holy and teach us to trust G-d. Not a bad haul for giving up cheeseburgers.

IV. Questions you are likely to be asked:  Isn't the reason for kosher that non-kosher food is more prone to disease: hepatitis for shellfish, trichinosis for pork etc. No. Rav Mathis Weinberg suggests in Levias Chen that if anything these foods are not healthy because they're not kosher, not the reverse. In any case, the justification of the mitzvot is their spiritual benefit. Any physical benefits that accrue are gravy.

 

Rabbi Nachum Braverman studied philosophy at Yale University. For many years he served as Educational Director of Aish HaTorah Los Angeles, and is now Executive Director of Aish HaTorah's Jerusalem Fund for the Western Region. He lives in Los Angeles with his wife and children.