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Parshat Shmini:

Who knows eight? I know eight. Eight are the days before a brit milah. We all know this
line from the haggada, though I am more familiar with it from the Uncle Moishy tapes
that seem to be playing constantly in the car, especially on long drives from here to
Boston. And back.

But in this week’s parsha, eight is something else. First, it is the name of the parsha.
Shmini means the eighth. On the eighth day, the inauguration of the mishkan was
completed with the official channukat hamizbeach, the consecration of the mishkan,
performed by the kohanim, Aharon and his sons.

As I am sure I have mentioned before, this Yom Hashmini is the most talked about single
day in all of chumash. The events of this day are described in three separate books of
chumash: Shmot, Vayikra, and Bamidbar. And just to be fair, it couldn’t appear in
Breishit or Devarim because the stories of Breishit end long before it happened, and the
events of sefer Devarim begin long after.

But that is not all. There is another eight in the parsha. Does anyone know what it is?
This one is harder. The number is not explicit here, but it is in the gemara.
It is the number of shratzim, creepy crawlers, which are forbidden to eat, and, which also
impart tumah. The shmoneh shratzim.

So if we have the number 8 appearing twice in the parsha, once for the yom hashmini,
and once for the shratzim, perhaps we could suggest then, that there should be some kind
of connection between these two sections.
But the truth is, I would suggest that anyway. The parshiot were not divided randomly.
So it does seem strange that the events of the most important day in Chumash, the day
when God’s presence is finally brought into the mishkan, would be followed up by …the
technical laws of which animals are kosher and unkosher, the last of which are the eight
creepy crawlers. Quite a contrast.
Yet, their inclusion in the same parsha implies a thematic relationship between what seem
to be vastly different portions of the chumash.

Just to make the question a bit sharper: aside from the thematic differences, the parsha
does seem to follow a relatively common pattern in the Chumash. And that pattern is a
story, followed by a mitzvah. Frequently, the Torah will tell a story, often one which
involves sin or punishment, and then follow it up with some relevant mitzvah which
would typically be meant to help Bnei Yisrael, and us, learn the proper lesson so as not to
fall prey to such behavior in the future.

One classic example occurs in Parshat Shlach. The meraglim, the spies were sent out by
Moshe to bring back a report on the Land of Israel. They returned, and proceeded to
discourage the people, claiming that the Land was unconquerable.
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Bnei Yisrael were completely disheartened, and they complained to Hashem, resulting in
the punishment that none of that generation will enter the land, condemned to wander the
desert for forty years until the entire group dies out.
Later in the same parsha, we receive the mitzvah of tzitzit. What is the connection
between the mitvza of tzitzit and the story of the meraglim? The spies were swayed by
what they observed. When they saw strong nations occupying the land, they became
afraid that they would be unable to defeat them. They were so demoralized by what they
saw, that they forgot about, or perhaps even ignored Hashem’s promise to bring them into
Israel.
As an antidote to that failure, come the tzitzit. The primary purpose of tzitzit is ‫ולא תתורו‬
‫"אחרי לבבכם ואחרי עיניכם‬- that you should not be swayed by your eyes and your heart. When
we see the tzitzit we are to remember Hashem and realize what the proper mode of action
is. Not coincidentally, the word use "‫ "ולא תתורו‬is the same used to describe what the spies
did "‫"וחתורו את הארץ‬.

So when we look back at our parsha, what then is the relevance of the mitzvoth of kashrut
to the events of the eighth day?

Let’s examine our story. On the yom hashmini, Aharon and his sons offer a final few
korbanot in order to complete the consecration of the mishkan. The climax is "‫וירא כבוד ה' אל‬
‫"העם‬. At long last, the prsence of God was revealed to the nation. This is a monumental
day in the experience of the Jewish People.
But then things turned drastically wrong. Aharon’s sons, Nadav and Avihu attempted to
offer ketoret, incense, but they did so improperly, and without warning, a fire shot out of
the kodesh kodashim, instantly killing the two young men.

This story leaves us with mixed emotions. The mishkan is the center of kedusha, a place
where we can commune with God. God Himself dwells there! This certainly must be
THE place to be for a mamlechet kohanim vgoy kadosh, for a holy nation such as Bnei
Yisrael.
But there is a problem. How can we expect to get close to Hashem when we witnessed
what happened to Nadav and Avihu? They were two tzaddikim, certainly much greater
than most of us could ever hope to be. And when they approached Hashem, in an honest
attempt to further their relationship with Him, they were struck down.
If that is the fate of a tzaddik who tries to get close to God, then what can we hope for?
Obviously, there was some mistake that they made, and the mefarshim debate the
different possibilities. But that doesn’t solve our dilemma.

From this story, one might conclude that kedusha is something very far away from us,
something unattainable. But at the same time, it is something we yearn for. Human
beings long to feel close to their Creator.

So how do we bridge that gap? How can we effectively access kedusha? How can we
infuse our lives with that closeness to Hashem when penetrating the inner sanctum of the
mishkan is an impossibility?
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That is why the Torah introduces the laws of kashrut at this point.

The laws of kashrut seem so random, so detailed, yet so difficult to understand.


And many great rabbinic figures have attempted to find the meaning in those laws.

The Rambam writes in the moreh nevuchim, the Guide for the Perplexed, that :
“the food which is forbidden by the Torah is unwholesome. There is nothing
among the forbidden kinds of foods whose harmful character is doubted…no
doctor has any doubts about this.”

While we may now question the scientific accuracy of the Rambam’s assertion, the Sefer
Hachinuch accepted the idea, despite the lack of scientific evidence:

‫ על תתמה עליהן כי הרופא הנאמןשהזהירנו בהם חכם יותרממך ומהם‬,‫"ואם יש מהם שאין נודע לנו ולא לחכמי הרפואה‬
If there is a forbidden animal that is not known to you or to medical science to be
harmful, do not be puzzled, since the true Doctor who commanded us about these
foods knows more than we do.

And there is something to be said for that. Who knows the physical or perhaps meta-
physical effects non-kosher food has?

But other mefarshim disagreed strongly with this explanation.

Abarbanel argues that there are many plants which are poisonous and the Torah never
commands us not to eat those. We are expected to learn about the world, and that
discovery includes determining what is healthy and what is harmful. “Do not turn the
Torah into a mere medical textbook!” admonishes the Abarbanel.

Some claim the point of kashrut is to separate us from the nations of the world. If we
cannot eat the same food as them, then we will be unable to socialize and assimilate their
values.

But the explanation I find the most spiritually meaningful, and the one which I think
helps answer our question about kedusha, is found in the midrash.

The midrash focuses on an interesting philosophical question regarding mitzvoth. Should


one teach oneself to find non-kosher food distasteful so that one will never come to
violate the prohibition? NO, claims the midrash. :
‫אפשי אבל מה אעשה שאבי שבשמים אסרתני‬- I want the food, but what can I do? My father in heaven
has declared it forbidden.

Whenever I give an example in school about kashrut, I use Arby’s. I would love to cash
in on the well-known Arby’s Five for Five deal. 5 roast beef cheese melts for five dollars.
But what can I do? Hashem said I can’t, so I won’t do it.
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According to this approach, the reason for the mitzvah of kashrut is to train us in self-
discipline for the sake of God. God has endowed us with an amazing ability. And that is
to take something mundane, something so physical, and to transform it into something
holy.
The kedusha, which may seem difficult to access properly in the mishkan, ironically,
Hashem shows us that that kedusha is attainable right at your own kitchen table.

Amazingly, when we look at the explicit reason given by Hashem in our parsha for these
mitzvoth, we read:
‫כי אני ה' אלוקיכם והתקדשתם והייתם קדושים‬.
The reason, pure and simple, is for us to become kadosh.

This is the greatness of Judaism. Everything can be holy. Everything has the potential to
bring us close to God. The opposite is certainly true as well. Even in the mishkan, one
can have difficulty achieving that closeness, as evidenced by the events of our parsha.
But with the mitzvah of kashrut, we come to understand that when accessed properly,
kedusah is attainable everywhere.

There are certainly limits on what we can and can’t do. But it is precisely those limits,
which allow us to attain unlimited heights in our relationship with Hashem.

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