From the Rabbi's Desk

“You are what you eat…” or so the saying goes. The idea behind the saying has to do with our bodily health being impacted by the foods we eat. Perhaps we could look at the saying as having to do with the styles of foods we eat. Some of us like different ethnic foods and it demonstrates our adventurous nature. Some of us like to have “fancy” food and it demonstrates that we enjoy elevating the ordinary. “You are what you eat…” One thing that we as Jews overlook and take for granted is that we are, perhaps, the originators of the “you are what you are eat” concept of the world.

The idea of keeping kosher has created centuries of people who are connected to each other and God. Many times, we don’t see the inherent value in our food. We look at the ways the food costs more or limits our options. The reality is, that as a people, we have a collective mission of elevating the חול/chol/ordinary to the קודש/kodesh/holy. Jews take a world that’s ordinary and make it special. One need not be in a specific sacred space or doing a specific sacred thing in order to make the world holy. In fact, Jews elevate the world through our sacred acts.

Eating is a simple act. We do it over and over every day. While we think of our daily food intake as being three meals a day - breakfast, lunch and dinner - that’s only part of the story. We eat throughout our days and thus have the minute by minute opportunity to turn the ordinary into sacred. Kashrut is not necessarily an absolute binary. It’s not an all or nothing scenario where you need to be all in or all out. Keeping kosher is a continuum and one we need to be aware of, and appreciative of, at the same time. It’s a journey we need to be on as people, a community and a worldwide population. A number of Jews abstain from certain foods, i.e. pork and/or shellfish. Some Jews stay away from milk and meat together. Some only have kosher meat. Some have kosher homes and eat what they want outside their homes. Some wait 90 minutes, some three hours and some six between eating meat and dairy. All of these are sacred acts that elevate the individual and the community.

We read פרשת ראה/Parshat Re’eh this week. There’s so much to talk about in this parasha, but the main emphasis of ראה is found in a retelling of the laws of kashrut and the holidays. It’s curious that the laws of kashrut appear in so many places throughout the תורה and perhaps the reason is that kashrut is part of the backbone of our people. The תורה speaks about the institution of kashrut so many times because it’s who we are as a people. It speaks about it so much because we elevate the world, and our lives, through this simple changing of the mundane into the sacred.

Embracing the laws of kashrut is one of the most meaningful actions a Jew can bring into their lives. Kashrut elevates our eating to a place where God is a part of our most mundane action we perform each day. We can all be in a conversation with the Divine on a more regular basis through embracing our “you are what you eat” philosophy.