Have you ever closed a deal, celebrated your marriage, or simply spent time with a good friend – without eating something together? When you think of home, is it not in your taste buds that the most elemental memories reside? Tell me what, how, where and with whom you eat, and I’ll tell you who and what you are.
Numerous explanations have been offered for the Torah’s kosher dietary laws. Some point out the health benefits. Others dwell on the unifying effect these laws have on a dispersed people, and their role as a shield against assimilation. The Ramban explains that “the birds and many of the mammals forbidden by the Torah are predators, while the permitted animals are not.”
The kosher-observant shopper will differentiate between a piece of meat from an animal that was slaughtered by a certified shochet, and a piece of meat from an animal that was simply killed in an abattoir. No laboratory will discover any physical difference between the two. But the Jew accepts the first and rejects the second. And if he unwittingly brings the second into his kitchen, he will blowtorch the pan that cooked it and discard the china on which it was served.
Morality is the capacity to accept that there are things to be embraced and things to be rebuffed. Sometimes the desirability or undesirability of a thing is obvious; sometimes we can smell the difference, and sometimes we can understand it. But if that’s where it stops, we’re nothing more than cows avoiding the poison.
