Becoming Kosher Minus the Cud

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Becoming Kosher Minus the Cud

The joy of a poor person who is content with his circumstances, is much better than the satisfaction a rich man gets from all his possessions. I believe the Torah can show us that YHVH concurs with this idea by the animal kingdom. One of the signs of a “kosher” animal is that it chews its cud like a cow. This fact that the animal regurgitates and re-chews the food already in it’s stomach, demonstrates that it is satisfied and doesn’t look for more. In contrast, the “non-kosher” animal immediately seeks more food as soon as it has digested what it has just ate. This continual desire for more is an inherent sign in the non-kosher animal. In the “sod level” of thinking, YHVH makes this animal non-kosher for us to consume, so we don’t assimilate this bad characteristic into our beings. Let’s take a look at a stork for another example.

The stork is a very compassionate bird. It displays much kindness by sharing its food with others of its species. It makes you wonder why it would earn the title of non-kosher. The problem is, it only shows kindness to its own species. It refuses to show kindness to “strangers.” So it shows us here that kindness is not something that is to be shown only to family and friends, but to strangers and everyone we associate with in life. It is like the story of the poor man coming to the wealthy man’s home on a Monday morning begging for food. The rich man looks at him and says, “I’m so sorry, but I hand out food on Sundays only.” “It’s a shame you did not come to my door yesterday”, says the wealthy man. You see I do a good deed each day of the week.

On Mondays I go visit the sick, and on Tuesdays I visit prisoners in jail. “I am so sorry I cannot feed you today”, he said. This is a bad form of “hypocrisy” to let one’s self get into. By doing this you are determining ‘what’ type of kindness (chesed) you want to do, ‘when’, ‘where’, and ‘to whom.’ This is merely satisfying one’s own conscious and is not Torah based. Torah tells us to be concerned about our fellow man, everywhere and at all times. The stork only performs his acts of kindness at “his” convenience and at “his” times. Going to see a sick friend is great, but we need to reach out more and in different ways. There are so many lonely people out there. It’s like the statement made by General George S. Patton, “A lot of people die at forty, but they aren’t buried until thirty years later.” It’s like the lady in Jerusalem who believed strongly in showing kindness to the elderly. The year was 1983 and she was outraged at the number of elderly beggars on the streets of Jerusalem.

She was determined to change the status quo. She sat up a small workshop. After some prodding she convinced the beggars to come work for her. Her next subjects she worked on were the people in the nursing homes who just sat and stared out the window all day. She started a bookbinding workshop. Her “Lifeline project” soon spread to ceramics, leathercrafts, and woodworks. She opened a store called, The Elder Craftsman, where she sold Lifeline products. By 1988, Lifeline employed over 500 elderly people from all walks of life. Many of these were Holocaust victims, who had given up on life and were just waiting to die. She had taken elderly, depressed, dejected people and gave them a new lease on life. So we can get two lessons from these animals. One is to be thankful for what you have. Even though the grass looks greener on the other side remember, it’s greener over the septic tank too!

The other lesson is, “always” show kindness to “everyone” no matter what. Let’s work on being a “kosher” person who is beautiful on the “inside”, besides our outward appearance. After all, the stork is a graceful and beautiful bird, but that doesn’t make it “kosher” in YHVH’S eyes! However I guess it’s ok if you want to skip the “cud chewing” part while you’re becoming kosher.J Shalom-Shalom