The Signs of Kosher Animals and Their Deeper Meaning
2-3 The creatures that you may eat: One of the reasons we are instructed to abstain from eating certain animals is in order not to internalize their deleterious behavioral traits. Permitted animals, on the other hand, are characterized by traits that we are encouraged to adopt as our own.
Furthermore, the signs by which the Torah identifies kosher animals contain profound insights into the way we should lead our lives. Some authorities even suggest that these signs are not only the means by which we can identify kosher animals but the traits that make them kosher. Even if they are merely incidental, it is certainly significant that these signs are those of the kosher animal.
The first sign of the kosher animal is its split foot. The foot, being the part of the animal that touches the ground, signifies our contact with the physical world. The division of the foot into two completely separate “sub-feet” indicates that our contact with the physical world should be twofold.
In general, by eating an animal, we are supposed to be elevating it from the animal kingdom into the human kingdom. In order to accomplish this, however, it is essential that we not act like animals ourselves, for then the animal merely moves from one animal state to another when we eat it. The test of whether we are acting like people, rather than animals, lies in the way we approach our Divine mission. Our ascendancy over animals is our ability to imitate God, transcending the limitations of nature. Thus, if we are able to incorporate normally opposing means in fulfilling our mission (e.g., kindness and severity, love and awe), it indicates that we have risen beyond our inborn, natural (i.e., animal) tendencies to reflect the paradoxical harmony of opposites that characterizes Divinity. Only when our “feet”—our involvement with the physical world—are “completely split”—two-dimensional—do we know that we have risen beyond being animals, and can thus elevate the animals we eat to the human level.
Just as the foot is our point of contact with the physical world, it is also our separation from it, the cushion that keeps us aloof in our dealings with materiality, signified by the earth. As Rabbi Shalom DovBer of Lubavitch remarked to a distinguished student of his who had apparently become overly immersed in his boot business: “I have seen feet in boots, but a head in boots...?”
In this context, the fact that the foot must be split indicates that there must be an aperture in this barrier, meaning that we must make the light of holiness permeate even the most mundane aspects of creation, and make sure to retain Divine consciousness even when we are involved in the mundane aspects of our lives.
In light of our previous remarks about the necessity of embracing both Moses’ and Aaron’s approaches to applying the absolute truth of the Torah to the relativity of human life, the split in the foot can be additionally understood to signify this duality, the necessity of lovingly embracing those who are estranged while resisting the urge to dilute the Torah’s message into a form that we imagine will be more appealing. As the sage Hillel said of Aaron, “He loved people and brought them close to the Torah”—them to the Torah, not the reverse.
The other kosher sign is rumination, which alludes to the necessity of deliberating before engaging the animal, mundane aspects of life. We must weigh firstly our intentions, ensuring that they are purely toward elevating the world and purging them of any desire to simply indulge in sensuality for its own sake. Secondly, we must weigh our methods, ensuring that they conform to the guidelines set forth in the Torah.
3 any whose feet are not only partially cloven but completely split into at least two sub-feet, and that regurgitates its cud. The prohibition against eating animals that do not meet these requirements, couched later as a restrictive commandment, is here also subject to an active commandment: You must only eat such animals. If there is a fetus inside such an animal, once you slaughter the mother you may eat the fetus without having to slaughter it separately; even if it could survive on its own, you may kill it without ritual slaughter.
4 But you must not eat—of those animals that regurgitate the cud or have split feet—the camel, because it regurgitates its cud but does not have completely cloven feet; eating it renders you spiritually defiled,
