All of the worms and snails and oysters and all the other delicacies that the gentiles are so happy to pay big money to eat; they sit and eat in a restaurant to the sound of music as they’re ingesting worms and slimy things that look like – did you ever see an oyster? An oyster and milk? A man once described the experience to me. It was something slimy, he said. It was nauseating. It looked like somebody had emptied the contents of his nose into the milk.
The disgusting things that the nations eat – and even the less disgusting things – for them it’s all right but not for us. ם≈ה יםƒכָל¿מ י≈נּ¿ב ל≈‡ָרׂ¿̆ƒי לָּכ – All Jews are princes, and therefore what the common multitudes eat is not our diet. It means that every time you eat kosher food, every time you check for a hechsher, it’s a demonstration of your greatness; a reminder of your elevated status.
That’s what the Gemara says, ם∆כ¿̇∆‡ ה∆לֲﬠַּמַה, it’s a great aliyah for them that they’re forbidden to eat sherotzim. It’s such an elevation that Hakadosh Baruch Hu says (Gemara ibid.), “If I took you out of Mitzrayim only for one thing, that you shouldn’t eat these things that goyim eat, it’s worth it.” It means that’s the whole business! Although there’s a whole Torah waiting for us but for this alone it would be enough – if no other purpose was achieved by taking you out except this one, to put this stamp of royalty on you that you cannot eat these things, it was worth coming out of Egypt.
And therefore the Jew realizes that kosher is everything to him. יםּƒמַﬠָה ןƒמ ם∆כ¿̇∆‡ לּƒ„¿בַ‡ָו – I have separated you from the nations. That’s said in our parsha of forbidden animals. You cannot eat these forbidden animals because I have separated you from the nations. That’s your greatness. That’s your mark of distinction.
