Freely adapted from an article by Esther Moldauer originally published in the January—February 1983 issue of “The Jewish Woman’s Outlook” (Vol. III / No. 2). Unfortunately, the magazine is no longer published. This essay has been scrutinised by Rabbi Daniel Fabian MA of Berlin, Germany, a highly-qualified microbiologist, to whom many thanks are due. Even though the actual wording is not his choice, the essay has benefited from his sensible advice and guidance concerning the scientific data in this article. If there are any mistakes, they are not his.
For thousands of years, Jews have loyally accepted the Torah and lived by its Mitzvos, often even without understanding why. Now, in the challenging and wonderful days in which we are living, that which has been concealed is gradually emerging into the light. “Chukkim” —"ּחוִקים" is the name that has traditionally been given to those Mitzvos which relate to those things of the world of nature which are subordinate to man, such as earth, plant and animal life, and one’s own body, mind, spirit and environment. Because of man’s ignorance and the concealment of knowledge from him, these “Chukkim” were viewed by many as laws which are beyond man’s capacity to understand. For some people who did not acknowledge the Divine wisdom in all Mitzvos, it was only a slippery step for them to wrongly assert that if no reason is given for a Mitzvah, it meant that there was no reason.
Today, we’re uncovering different layers of meaning to the Mitzvos of HaShem that are remarkably consistent with the world that He has created. Kashrus is a “Chok”—"ָקח" and while it is our duty to observe this Mitzvah even without understanding it, contemporary science is helping to make some aspects of this Mitzvah more comprehensible. The Rambam says that whatever is possible for a person to do to find the reason for “Chukkim” he should do and this has been the challenge that has occupied the author for many years.
The quality we call character, that colander through which emotions and behaviour are strained, allowing certain ones to pass through and others to remain unexpressed, is difficult to explain. Is it produced by heredity or environment? (Rather like that old chestnut, “Nature or Nurture?”) Or is there perhaps something more about both heredity and environment that we have not understood till now? But whether it is formed by nature or by nurture, there is no doubt that character is also moulded through behavioural training and reinforcement. When we stood at Mount Sinai, we promised, "ָעְמִׁשְנוֶׂהֲשַענ"—“we shall do and we will hear,” that is, first we will do and then we will try to understand what we are doing. Keeping to this promise, in this order, has certainly been a major influence in making us into the People we are.
In much the same vein, it is recognized today that positive or negative emotions are major contributing factors to behaviour. A man filled with fear will attempt to control his immediate environment, and even other people’s environment, or, conversely, live the life of a cringing coward. A man in pain may attempt to inflict pain on others to indulge his self-pity, which cripples his function as a member of society. A man filled with rage might destroy everything that gets in his way, often destroying himself along with his victim.
The question is, can these emotions and their resulting behaviours be passed on to the next generation? Dr E. Roy John of New York Medical College has been collecting memory evidence for over 25 years. He says that when animals are taught certain tasks, patterns of brain waves flicker through their brains. As a task is learned better and better, the brain waves become stronger and stronger. Then, when the animal is made to remember the task, the identical brain waves flicker through its brain. This idea is compounded by the work of Donald Heb of McGill University who showed that when a habit pattern is established, actual new cell assemblies are formed in the brain that make the repetition of the habitual behaviour easier and which inhibit behaviour which goes against the new habit pattern. With this we can better appreciate why “the performance of a Mitzvah (a good deed) leads to the performance of another Mitzvah and an Avayroh (a transgression) leads to another Avayroh.”
As said, emotions can effect changes in the behaviour of an individual. But emotions can even create or alter patterns of behaviour in an individual and when those patterns are reinforced, those changes in behaviour can become permanent. These patterns of behaviour, in turn, can physically change the person. (For example, a scared person hunches over and tries to hide himself; eventually he walks with a bowed back and he assumes a frightened, stooping posture, which in time can become permanent.) What has not been so clearly understood before is the fact that under certain circumstances these behavioural and emotional patterns produce permanent changes not only in the individual concerned, but they can produce genetic alterations, that is, they can change future generations, too.
The major source of nourishment for an unborn child is his mother’s blood. All the nutrients necessary to sustain the life of the unborn child are delivered through the mother’s blood. Research by nutrition scientist Paul M. Newberne of M.I.T. shows that the entire immune system of a person can be irreparably damaged by a protein deficiency during the pregnancy of his mother. A lack of Vitamin B lowers resistance to illness in the offspring and a slight deficiency of any part of the B-complex often results in underdeveloped thymuses, spleens and lymph nodes. Viral disease, exposure to certain chemicals or the use of drugs in pregnancy may produce birth defects in the unborn child. The conduit of cause and effect is the mother’s blood through which the unborn child is nourished and sustained for nine months.
According to the Kabbalah, the esoteric teachings of Judaism, “Nefesh” is the animal soul, the life-force, which is common to all life. Its faculties include the attributes of imagination, memory, intelligence and will. Rabbi Mosheh Chaim Luzzatto says that the Nefesh, initially transferred at the time of conception, is reinforced by the blood and is subject to degradation or elevation during the entire lifetime of the organism. The mother’s blood transfers to the unborn child far more than vitamins, proteins, viruses and chemicals. Those are just the physical, material components. The mother’s blood is, in fact, the physical messenger of a whole range of invisible influences and effects, including also things spiritual. Everything that the unborn child needs, spiritual as well as physical, is transferred into it through the mother’s blood. To the unborn child, the mother’s blood is truly,"ֶׁשֶפַּנבַםד",that is, “the blood [that delivers everything] into the unborn Nefesh.”
The Torah, in Vayikroh 7 : 27, commands, “Any person that eats any blood shall be cut off from his people.” But this is not so much a threat as an effect—the Torah warns that eating blood has a deleterious effect upon the one who eats it. In Devorrim, 12 : 23, the Torah says, “[You may eat meat] but be strong not to eat the blood because the blood is the animal life-force and you shall not eat the animal life-force with the meat.” In Shmos 22 : 30, the Torah commands us not to eat the meat that has been torn off an animal in the field [by a predator] nor may we eat the meat of any animal that died of itself or was killed [unless it was slaughtered by a valid Shechitah]. One reason for all this is quite clear. To the Torah-observant Jew, the blood is the medium through which is delivered all those influences and effects that make the Nefesh of the creature, the blood is the conveyor, the messenger, to the Nefesh (possibly in much the same way that the scientist today, too, speaks of “messenger RNA,” the servant of DNA, the genetic code). And the Torah warns that anyone who eats blood, which is this messenger medium, will be “cut off from his people” and will suffer permanent damage, physical and spiritual.
A century ago, the scientific community was engaged in a great controversy over whether or not characteristics which were acquired during the course of the lifetime of a person or an animal could be transmitted to succeeding generations. There was then a creeping atheism in the world, fuelled by that scientific community which put forward various “theories” which said that species could arise
