But rabbits don't carry trichinosis

Occam's razor, attributed to the English logician and Fransiscan friar Willim of Ockham (see Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occam), states that the most simple answer to a problem is usually the best or most correct.

It took me a long time to understand that this applies to Judaism as well. That's not to say that one should ignore the complexities involved in understanding Judaism. It's quite complex. Instead, I think that it applies at a more macro level. That is, all of the complexities in the various texts are driven by a pretty simple set of principles. How those principles get carried out and what they imply are where they complexity comes in. This is where we should focus our energy and studies.

What got me thinking about this was that I've often observed people taking a single discrete law or piece of text and reverse engineering some "practical" purpose for it. It struck me that while one can do that, you wind up with a pretty empty religion. Through this approach Jewish law gets boiled down to a simple set of rules, defined in an overly complex way, to guide your most basic and primitive needs (e.g., not dying from food borne bacteria). I don't think that's what they were going for.

One of the most common examples of this comes from explanations of Kashrut (dietary guidelines). Ask most people on the street why Jews aren't supposed to mix milk and meat. The answer they will generally give will the ability to wash dishes and the ill effects of food-based bacteria. Ask why Jews can't eat pork and you'll hear about pigs and trichinosis.

When I started really thinking more deeply about this, a few things struck me as being odd:

1. The Torah generally seems to focus on how people should interact with one another and with God. There are very few "self-help" or self preservation tips. Why these?

2. There a whole bunch of berries and plants that could probably kill you, why wouldn't those be mentioned?

3. If a dish was covered in bacteria from not being cleaned properly, wouldn't you still get sick if you used that dish whether you used it with milk or meat?

4. In the line that mentions abstaining from eating Pigs, why does it also mention Rabbits and Camels yet no one ever talks about them being carriers of trichinosis.

5. Isn't it short sighted to give a bunch of rules based on a handful of activities or items (pigs, rabbits, etc.). It wouldn't really allow a religion to evolve or adapt to any new circumstances.

There were more things than that. But, this is where my head went.

So, I figured that there must be more to it. The more I read and learned the more it reinforced my belief that there are a few key principles that guide and drive what we read in the Torah. The Torah, like any good teaching tool, applies those principles over and over in varying context so that eventually we can begin to generalize the rules and understand them.

So back to Kashrut. I don't think it's about eating. It talks about eating, but that's really not the point. The word it self comes from the root Kuf-Shin-Resh which means fit, proper, or correct. If they were about eating, Id' think that the laws would be titled "How to eat properly". So, right away, the simple naming of the set of laws implies that it is about something much more than eating.

To me, there are three key ideas in the laws of Kashrut:

1. Being predatory is not holy
Someone once pointed out to me that land animals that meet the Kashrut guidelines cannot be predators. If an animal's hoof is split and it chews a cud it is not designed to eat other animals. Similarly, birds that have talons are hunters and not kosher. 

In Judaism it is not good to prey on others. We aren't supposed to put a stumbling block before the blind. We are supposed to use accurate weights and measures, we aren't supposed to gossip, etc. 

One of our worst enemies in the Torah, Amalaek was a predator - lingering toward the back of the Jews as they wandered in order to pick off the old and weak.

What's so bad about being a predator? I won't address the obvious reasons. What's bad about being a predator is that it moves us further from repairing the world. If the final state to which we are striving is azilut (existence) we are supposed to be trying to eliminate our physical and material desires. Predators are the embodiment of physical and material desires.

How we conduct ourselves, how we interact with others, and even the animals which we are allowed to eat, all remind us that we want to avoid preying on others.


2. We must learn to separate things and to apply enough rigor and discipline to maintain those separations
Separation is a big deal in Judaism. The first thing that God does in the Torah is create light and then the very next thing is that God separates that light from the darkness. Then God separates the sky from the earth, then separates the water on the earth (by creating land). Then God separates day and night through the sun, moon, and stars. This continue in creation up through the point of creating man, who God separates from all other things on the earth.

Right from the start, the Torah focuses on separation. And, it doesn't end in creation. Throughout the Torah we hear about separation. Abraham separates himself (and his offspring) from the rest of the world through brit milah. Issac and Ishmael are separated from one another as are Jacob and Esau. Joseph is separated from his brothers. For a religion that on the surface seems to have a lot more gray than black and white, Judaism seems fascinated with separation.

And, this continues with how we approach food. Like everything else, as Jews we must learn to separate and distinguish. Not only that, we must learn to separate and distinguish based on principles rather than some subjective desire that can change on a whim. ("I want to be more healthy so I'm swearing off bacon forever....wait, did you just see that Wendy's commercial? Maybe I should just swear off bacon in the morning")

Kashrut gave us laws to help us practice separating and maintaining separation. That's what we need to do in order to make holiness really work (see #3 below).

So, why the mention of rabbits, pigs, and camels? It's simple. The Torah tells us exactly why it mentions them - they are easily confused as each has one of the two traits of a kosher animal:

1 And the LORD spoke unto Moses and to Aaron, saying unto them: 2 Speak unto the children of Israel, saying: These are the living things which ye may eat among all the beasts that are on the earth. 3 Whatsoever parteth the hoof, and is wholly cloven-footed, and cheweth the cud, among the beasts, that may ye eat. 4 Nevertheless these shall ye not eat of them that only chew the cud, or of them that only part the hoof: the camel, because he cheweth the cud but parteth not the hoof, he is unclean unto you. 5 And the rock-badger, because he cheweth the cud but parteth not the hoof, he is unclean unto you. 6 And the hare, because she cheweth the cud but parteth not the hoof, she is unclean unto you. 7 And the swine, because he parteth the hoof, and is cloven-footed, but cheweth not the cud, he is unclean unto you.(Leviticus 11:1-7)

This is a HUGE point in my mind. We don't get to use the excuse of "Well I didn't know" when we don't properly separate things (e.g., "I am an upfront business man, I didn't know that my supplier was using slave labor in Indonesia"). The rules of Kashrut remind us that we sometimes have to go beyond looks and guesses to make sure that we understand what is what. It comes back again when talking about fish. We aren't allowed to eat anything from the water that does not have find and scales. Why? To give us further practice and rigor at making finer distinctions so we don't jump to incorrect conclusions. (e.g., "It swims so it must be a fish". "She's at a singles bar so she must be looking for a guy")

We see laws of separation appear throughout the Torah. Separation of people, separation of materials for making clothes, separation of the days of the week and sabbath and the holy days from the rest of the year, the priests from the people, etc.

As a people we have to learn to separate and maintain those separations, not because milk and meat when commingled make us sick, but rather because holiness and unholiness when commingled, take us further from repairing the world.

Ironically, I think that while this focus on separation could seem to result in a dogmatic, black and white religion, it has actually had the opposite effect. Because of the additional focus on rigor and subtlety, Jews have had to study, discuss, and debate all of the gray areas in order to determine "what goes where". I think this is why Jewish people tend to question so much. It is through questions that we make sense and discern how things fit together (or not).

3. One of the most important separations is that of holiness. There are things in the world that are holy (good) and things that are not. We must learn the difference and avoid those that are not.
This is really a continuation of the prior point but it is worth pulling out. While the Torah talks a lot about things being separated, the one word that continually comes up is holiness. Things are separated because they are holy (clean) or not. Actions are based on holiness or not. God often uses holiness in making self referential statements. That's the ultimate goal, to separate the holy from the unholy and ultimately eliminate that which is unholy.

I think the most poignant manifestation of this type of separation is through the use of blessings. By stopping to make a blessing, we make a separation. We separate whatever we were doing prior to the blessing with whatever we are doing after. In that moment of separation we create holiness. In moving from automatic, unconscious action, to purposeful intentional action, we become holy. By stopping to reflect upon the world and appreciate it, we become holy. Holiness is the ultimate separation but through holiness we can separate.

I just used Kashrut as an example. However, these principles (I'm sure there are a handful of other key ones that I haven't learned) provide a basis for understanding Judaism and Jewish law. And, they seem to be a more simple answer for "why is that a law".

Of course, this is just my interpretation. But, having these four principles in my mind helps me approach and make sense of Jewish laws.

The Garden of Eden, the World to Come, and self actualization

To me, one of the biggest differentiators between Judaism and Christianity is the nature of the next world. The difference seems to boil down to a simple question: is "heaven" something that exists for which we work to gain access or is it a something that we must create. In my experience, Judaism seems to follow the latter.

So, here's what I think.

The Garden of Eden was the original heaven. Adam and Eve lived in a near divine state (after all they were created in the image of God). In Judaism this define state is aztilut (existence).  Aztilut is the culmination of a journey through assiyah (doing), yetzirah (feeling),  and beriyah (thinking).

Unlike the rest of us, Adam and Eve got to jump right to azilut. Through creation, God took care of all of their other needs. Remember, they weren't even supposed to eat from the tree of knowledge - after all they didn't need it.

However, that was the problem. Adam and Even were created in the image of God but they weren't God. They couldn't just be in a state of aztilut. Only one with the true power of creation can eventually reach that state.

I think that Harold Kushner once explained this dilemma in the following way (I'm not positive about the reference, it was something I read). Suppose a successful, wealthy business person is preparing to retire. The person decides to bestow the business to a son or daughter. The problem is that the son and daughter hasn't worked hard a day in their life. His or her entire success and existence is based on the work of the parent. Now that son or daughter is in charge. Chances are, things are not going to work so well. The child isn't the parent. The child cannot simply absorb all of the parent's wisdom and experience and they will ultimately fail. The parent will never really be able to have a peer relationship since the child is devoid of those key experiences.

I think the Garden of Eden was ultimately the same situation. The "children" weren't ready to live in a state of pure existence without having toiled trough the rest of the layers.

Now, because they were created in the image of God but were not actually God, Adam and Eve couldn't possibly go through the entire act of creating the world from an empty universe. While it would be a pretty self actualizing experience, it wasn't really that feasible.

So, God did what any good parent might do. God broke a small part of the world to give Adam and Eve (and all of their descendants) a chance to fix it and thus become creators. Remember? It wasn't until they were kicked out of the Garden of Eden that Eve bore children. In fact, bearing children and working the earth were both part of the prescribed "punishment" of being kicked out. But I don't think it was a punishment. The real punishment would have been to let them stay there attempting to live in a state of self actualization without the necessary life experiences to feel that way.

I also don't think that creation of offspring was all that God intended. To reach true self-actualization, they had to re-create heaven, the Garden of Eden. God broke a small part of the world and left it for human kind to repair (Tikkun Olam). Once we do that, we will return to the garden and live in that state of aztilut (existence). Heaven, the world to come, the afterlife, is something for us to create. It was God's gift to let us experience creation, even in this infinitely more simple way. Because by getting there, we will return and be ready for aztilut.

Amazingly, Adam and Eve somehow longed for this. After all, what got them in "trouble" was eating from the tree of knowledge. Whether intentional or not, they literally reached out for beriyah (thinking). It was only then that they went one step down to yetzirah (feeling) once they realized they were naked. And, ultimately, by being cast out of the Garden of Eden, they returned (or began) to the level of assiyah (doing) as they now had to tend to their own needs and fend for themselves.

But, that's not the end of the story. In fact, it's quite literally the beginning. Because the rest of the Torah became the owner's manual for fixing this broken world. That's what the 613 mitzvot are for. They bring us closer to holiness, closer to God. They bring us closer to creating that perfect time/place that God started with in Eden.

Of course, fixing a tiny piece of a broken world, while simple for God, has turned out to be monumental for humankind. Obviously it was not just a job for Adam and Eve. It is the job of the Jewish people. That's what chosenness is about.  Jews aren't any better than anyone else.  We were just given a job to do. We have our owner's manual, now we just have to execute - over and over until the work is done.

And, this is where Sabbath comes in. It's already been over 3000 and we haven't fixed things yet. Most people would have given up. But, the Jews have the Sabbath. The Sabbath is like a movie trailer for an upcoming film. It gives us that small taste of what it will be like to live in that perfect world. It is one day a week where, if observed properly, we can jump past the first three levels and experience, albeit briefly, aztilut (existence). We act as though our material needs are met. We refrain from doing, and while we may feel joy, we ultimately are trying to come close to God, to just exist side by side with the divine.

Heaven for the Jews is a place that we must create. It is the ultimate Teshuva, returning. We are putting the world back to perfection, but this time, we will understand how to experience that perfection, because like God, we will have created it.