What makes an animal kosher?
Parshas Re’eh teaches us how to tell which animals are kosher: they must have split hooves and chew their cud. But what do those signs mean, and how do they work in the animal world? Animals that chew their cud have special stomachs with multiple chambers. They swallow their food almost whole, then bring it back up, chew it again, and swallow it into another stomach. This slow, repeated digestion helps them get every bit of nutrition out of grasses and leaves. Split hooves help these animals walk steadily on rough ground, like hills or rocky paths. Goats, sheep, and deer use their hooves to grip uneven terrain. These two signs are clues that the animal is peaceful, not a predator or scavenger. These are the types of middos we want to absorb from our food.
