Why do we keep kosher

Thus one can undoubtedly say that Kashrut is certainly conducive to better health. Modern medical science has nothing but praise for its laws, from the point of view of physical hygiene. By way of psycho-physical interaction, the observance of these laws definitely also has a beneficial effect of the moulding of the human personality and the acquisition of desirable character traits.

From the national point of view, too, there is no question that Kashrut has formed a defensive wall around the Jew and guarded him or her against assimilation. Over the millennia of Jewish history, the observance of Kashrut has played a major role in preserving the separate identity of the Jewish people. This has been especially true in the Diaspora, during the many centuries of living in a non-Jewish environment. There are some wonderful sayings in the writings of our sages, as well as in the books of non-Jewish thinkers, praising the vital contribution of Kashrut to Jewish survival under antagonistic social and environmental pressures. Thus, to paraphrase a well-know statement made by a famous Jewish thinker, one can say that more than the Jew has done for Kashrut, Kashrut has done for the Jew.

However, in the Torah itself, none of these reasons is mentioned in connection with the commandment of Kashrut. Undoubtedly the Torah has all of this in mind (and much more), but what it explicitly says encompasses and transcends everything else. The verse which sums up the chapter in which these laws are set forth reads: “For I am the Lord your God; sanctify yourselves therefore and be holy, for I am holy; neither shall you defile yourselves with any manner of swarming thing that move upon the earth.”(Leviticus 11:44). The idea is repeated later (Lev.20:25-26). In the repetition of the Dietary Laws in Deuteronomy (14:21) the same rationale is given: “Because you are a holy people to the Lord your God.”

The Torah, it seems, views the Dietary Laws first and foremost as a discipline of holiness. They raise the process of man’s eating from its animal level and introduce into it a note of spirituality. Man’s own status is thereby raised beyond measure. Eating becomes not merely an animal-like act of satisfying the bodily appetite and craving for food, but also an exercise in holiness for the soul. Through Kashrut, Judaism takes the crude processes of eating and drinking and ennobles them. It elevates them and weaves them into the fabric of religious living.

The control exercised by the Laws of Kashrut, teaches the Jew to make a sacrament of that which would otherwise remain a mere survival-need. It turns eating into a mitzvah and one’s dining table into an altar of God. The Kashrut-observant Jew’s whole life-style is transformed. God is brought into one’s ordinary and mundane life. Kashrut teaches one to be conscious of the Divine presence not only in the Synagogue but also in the home, in the kitchen and wherever else one goes.

This constant exercise in holiness has uplifted Jewish life and sanctified it. The Jew has learnt to serve God with the crude materials of his earthly existence and to come closer to Him in ordinary daily life.