Shmini - Chicken Soup for the Soul

Hi, this is David Wolowsky with Parsha in 5 where in 5 minutes we try to give you insight into the parsha and this week's parsha is parsha Shmini because it starts with the eighth day, not the musical group, but rather the eighth day of the Miluim. Rashi tells us is Rosh Chodesh Nisan when Aaron and his children begin now to serve in the Mishkan. The Mishkan goes up now to stay and uh until of course they disassemble it to travel around, but no more practice. This is it. This is the eighth day. This is the way everything's coming together. And when we finish that, there's a few other sections and why these sections are in parsha Shmini are important to discuss, but right now I only got 5 minutes. So, I'm going to focus on one thing and we talk about the animals that are kosher and the animals that are not kosher. Of course, we don't say kosher and not kosher. We say tameh and taharah. There's a behema teme'ah and a behema tahorah. And so, a behema tahorah is of course an animal that chews its cud and has split hooves. All the animals that I eat must chew their cud and have split feet. Kosher food just can't be beat. I eat only kosher. Now, why these animals? And we have those animals, we have the fish, we have the birds. What determines Oh, so we know there are signs. It needs fins and scales. It's a kosher fish. Birds we're told which birds are not kosher and all the rest are kosher. So, how do we determine what is a behema teme'ah or a dag tameh or a of tameh? So, it's very tricky. I was once in a question and answer and another rabbi tried to answering this by explaining that well, when they have split hooves and chew their cud, they're more they're more docile. And one of the people said, "What? Did you ever see a bull charging at somebody? They're vicious." He says, "Well, you know, fish that have fins and scales, they tend to be more calm." He goes, "What are you talking about? You know, a pike, a salmon, these things can be vicious, you know." Anyway, he wasn't he wasn't getting anywhere. >> [laughter] >> So, I said it's really very simple. It says behema teme'ah. What does that mean? That means that everything in this world has energy. A positive energy and a negative energy. And Hakadosh Baruch Hu tells us certain animals have a positive energy and certain animals have a negative energy. It's teme'ah. And if you eat that, that negative energy is going to affect you. You're going to experience what's called timtum halev. It's going to close your heart off to spirituality. I have a friend of mine who's a armchair cabalist and when he's talking to a group, you know, a kiruv group, so he does his little parlor trick at the end. He goes around and tells everybody who keeps kosher and who doesn't and he's always right. And they said, "How did you know?" And he says, "Cuz I threw in one advanced idea and these people understood it and these people did not cuz they don't keep kosher and they're closed off to a certain understanding of spirituality. There are certain diets that are good for your brain function. There are certain diets that are supposed to be high energy and good for your energy. There are certain ones that help you digestion, help you sleep. There's different diets. Kashrus is a diet that is a spiritual diet that opens you up to ruchniyus. If you eat the wrong food, it closes you off. I remember there was a time when there was a scandal where a particular place that was supposed to be kosher was not serving kosher and people ate it. They had no idea. And they asked the shailah and they said you have to kosher your dishes and kosher your pots. They said, "But am I going to suffer timtum halev?" And they said, "Yeah." Because it's a reality. It's not a punishment. When you eat these foods, it will seal your heart off to spirituality. And so, when we eat kosher, we're eating a a diet that opens us up to ruchniyus and makes us more receptive. And when we eat non-kosher, it closes us off and makes us not receptive to the same level of holiness that we could otherwise experience. And may Hashem everybody here should have the zchus to be able to have that level of kedusha.