Parshat Shmini: Soul Food - Rabbi Yaakov Asher Sinclair

[Music] there aren't a lot of similarities between the worki and the sound recording studio and refueling jet aircraft in a studio you get a chance to meet a lot of very ordinary people who famous made their breakfast cereal the subject of serious media analysis and in an airport you get to meet a lot of large metal airplanes they do have one thing in common however working in both can cause you to lose your hearing it's a slow process but it's inevitable the advantage of working in an airfield however is that you can wear sound excluders in a studio the band would be most insulted to find their producer working on their latest masterpiece with large yellow mufflers much as their masterpiece may deserve mufflers in the larger the better eventually after many hours sitting in front of giant loudspeakers listening to electric guitars with enough treble on them to part your hair at 6 feet you'll start to lose the sensitivity of the high frequencies of your hearing then you start to lose the ones lower down and so on the interesting thing however is that you don't notice that you can't hear those frequencies anymore in a sense that's the saddest kind of loss a loss that you don't even know about it's not true that what you don't know can't hurt you eating tray food is the spiritual equivalent of losing your hearing it cuts you off from life's higher frequencies the higher things in life the Torah in this week's portion when talking about non kosher food uses the word when it mason which means lest you become contaminated the spelling of this world is unusual it likes an Aleph and thus it can also be read as when it tomten which means lest you become dull in our search for holiness and meaning in this world one of our greatest assets and aids are the laws of kashrut kosher food is soul food food for the soul food that feeds our spirituality and gives us the ability to receive holiness spirituality is a delicate thing it doesn't take much to jam the broadcast from upstairs on the other hand a little bit of holiness goes a long way as the Torah teaches you shall sanctify yourselves and you shall become holy when we sanctify ourselves by controlling what goes in and comes out of our mouths God will elevate us to become his holy nation [Applause] [Music] [Applause]