Parshas Re'eh: You Are What You Eat

This week's parsha is Re'eh, in Sefer Devarim. As we learned last week, Devarim is Moshe Rabbeinu, before he passes on, going back over things Bnei Yisrael already know, adding new nuances, and reminding the Jewish people of what is most important. This week, one of the highlights of the parsha is something that comes up every single day of our lives: kosher food, and how we know which animals, fish, and birds are kosher.

Before getting into it, Rabbi Adi shared a story about his father-in-law, a baal teshuva. Both of his in-laws grew up in Philadelphia, both went to Harvard Business School, and later, living in Westchester, New York, they became more and more observant. When they started keeping kosher, friends asked them: how do you do it? It is so complicated, and for years you ate whatever you wanted.

His father-in-law liked to answer: the truth is that every Jewish person keeps kosher the majority of the time. How many hours a day does a person actually spend eating? Most of the day you are sleeping, working, drinking water. So most of the time, every single Jew is keeping kosher perfectly. Kosher is not a burden that fills your day; it is a perspective on the small part of the day when you eat.

Now to the parsha itself. The Ramban, in this week's parsha, was probably the first person in history to say the idea we all know as “you are what you eat.” He explains that we must be careful with what we take into our bodies, because it shapes who we become. There is a famous discussion around the Rambam about whether we should try to give reasons for the mitzvos at all, and kosher is one of the classic examples of a chok, a mitzvah whose full reason we do not know. We keep it because Hashem commanded it. But the commentaries still offer suggestions about what the kosher signs can teach us, and Rabbi Adi took three of them.

The first sign: chewing the cud

A kosher animal must have split hooves and chew its cud, meaning it brings its food back up and chews it again. Everything in the Torah has a deeper meaning, so what is the meaning of chewing the cud?

To answer, Rabbi Adi brought a different halacha entirely: kilayim, the prohibition of forbidden mixtures. The Torah says an ox and a donkey may not plow a field together. Why would that be forbidden? The Chizkuni explains: the ox chews its cud, and the donkey does not. The donkey eats its food once, swallows, and it is finished. But the ox next to it swallows, brings the food back up, and chews again, and again. The donkey will think the ox keeps getting more food, and it will become jealous and distressed. The Torah forbids putting them together to spare the donkey that pain.

Look at what is hiding inside this. The reason the donkey is jealous is that the ox is enjoying something it already had. It ate once, and then it savors that same food over and over, again and again. Chewing the cud is the trait of savoring.

This is a real challenge for all of us. When we buy something new, how long do we actually enjoy it? Rabbi Adi told about taking his kids to 7-Eleven for Slurpees. Every kid agonized over which flavor, and of course nobody wanted the small size. He bought them the second smallest, which for them was enormous, and after a bunch of sips they were done; it was too much to finish. And the next time, they wanted the same giant size again. That is human nature: always more, more, more. The Torah's answer is the cud: take the small bite you have and savor it, again and again.

The Lubavitcher Rebbe used to say that we can learn many things from little children, and Rabbi Adi listed a few. When a child falls, she bounces right back up; his two-year-old daughter Kaya falls, pops up, and has a huge smile on her face. Kids do not hold grudges; watch any gan (kindergarten): two kids fighting over the same toy will be hugging and playing together one minute later. Kids insist on doing things themselves, even if putting on their own shoes takes ten minutes and a tantrum. And, the point he was building to: kids love the same thing over and over. Finish reading a book to a three-year-old and she does not want a new book; she wants that book again, four or five times. Swing a child in the air between you and her grandfather once, and be ready to do it twenty more times. Children have not lost the midah (character trait) of chewing the cud: they do not just love the moment, they love it again, and again, and again. That is the first lesson of kosher food.

The second sign: fins and scales

A kosher fish must have both fins and scales. Here the Gemara says something remarkable: every fish that has scales also has fins. And it is true; of the roughly two million marine creatures known, not one has ever been found with scales and no fins. Aish HaTorah's Discovery seminar actually uses this as one of its proofs of the truth of the written and oral Torah, because whoever wrote that rule was betting against every fish in every ocean.

But this creates a question the Gemara itself asks: if scales guarantee fins, why does the Torah list both signs? Say scales, and fins come for free. The Gemara answers: “l'hagdil Torah u'l'ha'adir,” to make the Torah great and glorious, to give us more Torah to learn, discuss, and debate.

Rabbi Yisrael Meir Lau, the former Chief Rabbi of Israel, gave a deeper answer. Rabbi Akiva taught in the Talmud that the Jewish people are like fish: just as a fish cannot survive out of water, a Jew cannot survive without Torah. And there is an age-old question, still playing out in Jewish communities all over the world today: what is the ideal way for a Jew to live? Should we live in insular communities, a shtetl, keeping to ourselves to preserve the beauty of our values? Or should we go out into the open world and show those values to everyone, to be an or la'goyim, a light to the nations? There are real advantages and real dangers on both sides.

Rav Lau said: the fish already answered. The scales are armor, a vest. First a Jew must learn to protect himself: build your institutions, your shul, your beis midrash (house of study), surround yourself with good friends. And then, once you have grown your scales, you must use your fins: swim out across the whole world and spread the beauty of Judaism. Not one or the other; both, and in that order. That, he said, is why the Torah insists on naming both signs.

The Queen and the plate

Rabbi Adi told a famous story, attributed to a few different rabbis; he heard it about Chief Rabbi Mirvis of England and also from Rabbi Marvin Hier, the head of the Simon Wiesenthal Center. A rabbi was invited to a formal party with the Queen of England. He was nervous beforehand because of his strict kosher requirements, but the palace staff assured him everything would be taken care of, and indeed, at his seat he found a beautiful meal, plate and cutlery wrapped in layers of plastic, prepared especially for him and his wife.

Then the lights flickered, which at these parties is the signal for all the guests to get up and move to the next table. What could he do? He picked up his plate and carried it with him to the next table. The lights flickered again; he carried it again. Another Jewish guest, a judge, came over and rebuked him: I know you keep kosher, but this is embarrassing to the Jewish people, walking around the Queen's party holding your food. The rabbi smiled and kept carrying his plate.

Eventually the Queen herself noticed and came over to ask why he was walking around with his plate. He explained: I keep kosher, and you were so kind to prepare this special meal for me, so as I change tables, I carry it with me. She loved the conversation, and they spoke for a long time. Seeing this, the judge grew a little jealous, came over, and told the Queen: I am also Jewish. The Queen turned to him and said: If you are also Jewish, why aren't you also carrying your plate?

That is the fins and the scales in one story. Go out into the world, sit at the Queen's table, but carry your values with you, openly and without shame. The world does not respect the Jew who hides his plate; it respects the one who carries it.

The third sign: the ra'ah bird

For birds, the Torah does not give signs; it lists which birds are not kosher, and the commentaries have fascinating discussions about each one. Rabbi Adi took one: a bird called the ra'ah, which today is commonly identified as the kite. The Gemara says it is called ra'ah, from the word “to see,” because it has incredible vision: standing in Bavel (Babylonia), it can see all the way to Eretz Yisrael. The Midrash adds that flying high in the sky, it can spot a small earthenware vessel on the ground, just a few inches wide.

But that is a question. Amazing eyesight sounds like a beautiful gift. Why would the bird with the best vision in the world be not kosher?

The Gemara answers: look at what it uses that vision for. The ra'ah stands in Bavel, outside the Land, and what it sees in Eretz Yisrael is the neveilos, the carcasses, the dead things. All that power of sight, and it looks for what is rotten.

Rabbi Adi said he keeps meeting people outside of Israel who tell him: it is so amazing that you live in Israel... but there are so many problems there. This problem, that problem. That is exactly the ra'ah: sitting far away, outside the Land, with excellent vision, using it to see only the negative. The Torah is telling us that this trait is not kosher. Yes, Israel has its fair share of challenges, and we do not ignore them. But look at the strength of the economy, the strength of the army, the perseverance of the people, and what happens in the moments when the Jewish people find unity. When we speak about Israel, especially from far away, we have to be the opposite of the ra'ah: eyes that look for the good.

The takeaway

Three traits, straight from the kosher signs. From the animal that chews its cud: savor what you have, not just for the moment but again and again, the way a little child wants the same book five times. From the fish with fins and scales: first grow your scales, protect your values and build your foundations, and then use your fins to swim out and carry those values proudly into the world, like the rabbi carrying his plate past the Queen. And from the ra'ah: never use good eyes to hunt for the bad, especially about Eretz Yisrael. See far, and see the good.

The Ramban said you are what you eat. Rabbi Adi showed us it goes further: even the signs of what we eat are teaching us who to be.