Do not impurify yourselves with them, lest you become impure through them. (Shemos 11:43)
If you impurify yourselves with them on earth, I will also impurify you in the World to Come and in the Heavenly Yeshivah. (Rashi)
There is an important point here that we need to consider. The Torah is telling us something about keeping kosher, and many people seem to miss the point.
We commonly think that the Torah must be talking about someone else. After all, who would consume forbidden foods? Who would eat treif? Obviously, frum Jews don't do that.
So who does?
When we hear the Torah warning about the negative effects of eating treif, we probably picture a person who has drifted so far from Torah observance that he doesn’t even keep kosher. That’s awfully far from where we are holding.
So we tend to just let this admonition of the Torah to just go by. Because it’s talking to “the other guy.”
So we think.
But in truth, “I will also impurify you in the World to Come” is not a statement addressed to Jews far from Torah observance. If a person doesn’t even believe in Torah, will he have a portion in Olam Haba?! For sure not. And it goes without saying that he won’t be sitting in “the Heavenly Yeshivah.”
Yet, Rashi describes someone who in fact is in Olam Haba, it’s just that he has tumah. Then he speaks of someone who is even in the Yeshivah Shel Maalah, it’s just that he has tumah.
This obviously can’t be talking about someone who denies the basic principles of Jewish faith, because that disqualifies him from Olam Haba.
And even for those privileged to enter Olam Haba, they won’t be sitting in the yeshivah there unless that’s what they were doing here on earth. So who is this warning addressed to, then?
It must be addressed to good, Torah-observant Jews who will go to Olam Haba. And it also addressed to Gedolei Torah who will be sitting in “the Heavenly Yeshivah.” It is warning them that they might be impure and suffer disgrace there due to having consumed forbidden foods.
How is this possible?
Because avoidance of forbidden foods is a very delicate matter and spreads out over many fields.
It says in the parshah regarding kosher and non-kosher animals that we are “to distinguish between the impure and the pure.”
But Chazal point out that distinguishing between cows and donkeys surely requires no special admonition. It’s pretty self-explanatory.
So what is the Torah telling us to distinguish between?
We need to distinguish between an animal that was slaughtered by a proper, clean cut across the majority of the windpipe, and an animal slaughtered by a cut across only half of the windpipe. And how much is the difference between majority and half? A hairsbreadth.
The Baal Mesilas Yesharim writes on this as follows:
Chazal at the end of this teaching said, “And how much is the difference between them...” to show how wondrously powerful is of the mitzvah. A hairsbreadth actually separates between impurity and purity.
This has special significance in our generation. Most of the food we eat comes from factories and we can’t oversee the processing of it from close up. So we need to be really careful that anything that goes into our mouth truly bears a known and reliable hechsher.
As we see from the above-quoted Chazal, a minuscule error can produce a giant difference. It’s the difference between forbidden and permitted, between impure and pure. And that’s a big difference. This is why we need to look out for proper Rabbinical supervision on any food product we consume, and not take chances or just assume everything is probably okay.
Here’s more from the Baal Mesilas Yesharim on being careful about what we eat:
Forbidden foods bring real tumah into a person’s heart and soul, to the point that Hashem’s holiness leaves him and distances from him. This is what Chazal said: “‘Lest you become impure through them’ – Don’t read it as ‘become impure (ונטמאתם)’ but as ‘become stopped up (ונטמתם).’”
The sin “stops up” a person’s heart and mind, because true knowledge, and the spirit of intellect that Hakadosh Baruch Hu gives to His pious ones, will depart him. For it says כי ה' יתן חכמה – ‘Hashem gives wisdom.’
Thus the person [who has lost these lofty qualities] remains animalistic and material, sunk in the coarseness of this world.
And forbidden foods do more to cause this than do all other prohibitions, because they enter a person’s very body and become part of his flesh....
Anyone who has a brain in his head should think of forbidden foods as poisonous foods or as food in which poison was mixed. Because if poison actually got mixed in, would a person treat it leniently, and eat it, if he had such a suspicion, even a slight one?
He surely would not treat it leniently.
And if he does, he will be considered a total fool. Yet, we have already explained that forbidden food is actual poison for the heart and soul. If so, who would treat it leniently when there is suspicion that the food is prohibited, if he is a person who possesses the faculty of intelligence?
Regarding this it was said יןִּכַׂשָּתְמַׂשְו הָּתָאׁשֶפֶל נַעַּם בִאָךֶעֹלְּב – “Better to put a knife to your cheek, if you care about your soul”.
