Let Hashem Owe You Instead of You Owing Hashem
Someone pledged to give money if a certain close relative would be healed from an illness. The Rashab said to him, “give the money before that person is healed, so that Hashem will owe you, instead of waiting until after he is healed, and you owe Hashem.”
The Rebbe Rashab P498
Beis Nisan (1920) Yom hillula of the 5th Chabad Rebbe Admor Shalom Dov Ber – Rashab.
UFARATZTA
Land animals that are permitted, or kosher, for Jews to consume are identified in this week's Torah portion by two distinct characteristics.
Firstly, the animal must bring up its cud and chew it. This means that after swallowing its food, the animal must regurgitate it from the first stomach to the mouth to be chewed again. This regurgitated food is called "cud."
Second, the animal must have completely cloven hooves. For example, the cow, goat, sheep, and gazelle possess both these characteristics and are thus kosher. The donkey and the horse, on the other hand, which lack both of these features, are defined as non-kosher animals. The pig, which has split hooves but does not chew its cud, and the camel, which chews its cud but has no split hooves, are non-kosher animals.
Why do these particular characteristics cause an animal to become kosher?
The Power of Food
Judaism teaches that the physical attributes of an animal reflect the distinct psychological and spiritual qualities of its soul.
Another point expounded by Judaism is that the food a person consumes has a profound effect on one's psyche. When a person eats the flesh of a particular animal, the "personality" of this animal affects, to some degree, the identity of the human consumer.
The split hooves and the chewing of the cud represent two qualities of the soul of these animals that are crucially necessary for the healthy development of the human character. When the Jew consumes the substance of these animals, he becomes a more "kosher" and refined human being.
Moral Self-Discipline
Cloven hooves -- the division existing in the coverings on an animal's feet -- are symbolic of the notion that one's movement in life (reflected by the moving legs) is governed by a division between "right" and "left," between right and wrong, between the permissible and the prohibited. A split hoof represents the human capacity to accept that there are things to be embraced and things to be rebuffed.
This process of moral self-discipline is the hallmark of living a wholesome life, physically, psychologically, and spiritually. A violin can produce its exquisite music only when its cords are tied, not when they are loose and "free." Similarly, a human being who allows himself to do whatever he wants, whenever he wants, wherever he wants and with whomever he wants, robs himself of the opportunity to experience the inner music of his soul.
And when we have no clear differentiation between right and wrong, in a short time we tend to lose the very foundation of civil life. Nothing is a given, nothing is important, nothing is sacred, because nothing is even real. We end up in an endless wasteland, trying to numb our pain and anxiety through every possible distraction. The very core of the "I" gets lost in world where nothing matters besides the fact that nothing matters. Semantics, rather than conviction, becomes the stuff our soul is carved of.
Challenge Yourself
The second quality that characterizes a "kosher" human being is that it always chews its cud.
Even after a person "swallows" and integrates into his life certain values, attitudes, and behaviors, he must never become totally self-assured and smug about them. The spiritual human being needs to continually regurgitate his ideas to be chewed and reflected upon again.
Man must never allow himself to become fully content in his own orbit. Contentment breeds smugness; smugness breeds boredom, arrogance, and judgmentalism. A person ought always - till his last breath - challenge himself, examine his behavior, and refine his character.
Or as Rabbi Adin Even Yisroel-Steinsaltz once said: How do you know if you are alive or dead? If something hurts you, it means you are alive.
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The important part of Torah learning is the effort put in to the learning. It’s not the getting there, it’s the going
-Reb Shlomo Freifeld
