Kashrus — Dietary Laws
Hebrew: כַּשְׁרוּת
The dietary laws (kashrus) govern what Jews eat and how food is prepared.
The Inner Dimension
Food and Consciousness
The Alter Rebbe and Chabad masters emphasize that forbidden foods (assur) affect the mind and heart, not just the body. The spiritual dimension of a non-kosher animal’s life-force, when consumed, subtly affects the person’s sensitivity to holiness.
Tahor and Tameh: Purity and Impurity
Kosher animals share two signs: split hooves and chewing their cud (geirah). In Chabad’s inner reading:
- Split hooves = the ability to distinguish between holy and mundane, to separate what should be separate
- Chewing the cud = the capacity to return, to review and refine what one has taken in (analogous to hitbonenut — returning to ideas until they are fully digested)
Shechita: The Inner Dimension of Slaughter
The kosher slaughter (shechita) must be done by a trained expert with a perfectly smooth knife, minimizing pain. Chabad: this represents the principle that even when the animal soul must be “slaughtered” — its drives restrained — this must be done with precision, care, and the minimum necessary force.
Sources
- Tanya, Chapter 7
- Alter Rebbe