This shiur is generously sponsored by Eliana Schwartz liilui nishmas her grandfather Michoel ben Chana and her great grandfather Avraham ben Yisrael Tzvi To sponsor a shiur please email us at Nitzotzos@gmail.com And the Lord spoke to Moses and to Aaron, to say to them: Speak to the children of Israel, saying: These are the creatures that you may eat among all the animals on earth: Any animal that has a cloven hoof that is completely split into double hooves, and which brings up its cud that one you may eat. We do not keep kosher because it is healthier. We do not keep kosher because it is a cleaner lifestyle. Were this the case one could argue that if we discovered that pork were healthy perhaps it would be permissible to eat. The Torah does seem to give us any reason for upholding this standard. Many years ago there was a commercial on television (though for the life of me I cannot remember what it was for) that said you are what you eat and then had different people proclaiming what they were. One person said "and I'm a slice of pizza" while another said "and I'm a frozen yogurt." While I am not convinced that our humanity is defined by the food we eat, from a spiritual perspective it does have an impact on us. The Gemara (Yoma 39a) in discussing the issur of eating sheratzim (creepy crawlers) derives from the spelling of "v’nitmeitem bam" (you will become defiled) that it causes not just tumah but also timtum halev. Rashi explains timtum halev to be a condition where the h
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