Interestingly, an ancient text that grasped this underlying meaning of kashrut was also one that argued against its observance. The book of Acts de­picts an early Church divided over the following question: Must all who wish to become Christians convert to Judaism first, and abide by the Mosaic law? Or did the death and resurrection of the Messiah make Jewishness unimpor­tant? The apostle Peter is depicted as receiving a response to this question in a vision in which he is instructed by God to partake in non-kosher food:

Peter ultimately comes to understand this vision as declaring that God’s covenant is no longer limited to a particular people:

And Peter opened his mouth and said: “Truly I perceive that God shows no partiality, but in every nation any one who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him… To him all the prophets bear witness that eve­ry one who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name.” While Peter was still saying this, the Holy Spirit fell on all who heard the word. And the believers from among the circumcised who came with Peter were amazed, because the gift of the Holy Spirit had been poured out even on the Gentiles.⁴⁰

Kashrut, Peter is informed, is no longer important because the distinc­tion between Jew and Gentile no longer exists. This story, perhaps more than any other, indicates an understanding of what the Jewish dietary proscriptions were all about. If the separation of the animals is intended to remind the Jewish eater that he is “a treasure from among all the nations” and a member of a “nation of kingly priests, a holy people,” then kashrut expresses a philosophical untruth to one who believes that “there is no dif­ference between the Jew and the Greek,” and that ultimately “all are one in Christ Jesus.” The Bible scholar Jacob Milgrom, who notes the importance of the verse in Leviticus 20, points out that in arguing for the abrogation of the Levitical dietary rules, Christianity demonstrates an understanding of this central aspect of Jewish observance:

It is also no accident that one of the early acts of Christianity was to abol­ish the dietary laws. Historians have claimed that the purpose was to ease the process of converting the Gentiles. This is, at best, a partial truth. Abolishing the dietary laws, Scripture informs us, also abolishes the dis­tinction between Gentile and Jew. And that is exactly what the founders of Christianity intended to accomplish, to end once and for all the notion that God had covenanted himself with a certain people who would keep itself apart from all of the other nations. And it is these distinguishing criteria, the dietary laws (and circumcision) that were done away with. Christianity’s intuition was correct: Israel’s restive diet is a daily reminder to be apart from the nations.⁴¹

But why should the animal world be utilized as a reminder of our cho­sen status? Milgrom points out that throughout the Bible, animals are de­picted as religious reflections, and ethical extensions, of human beings. An ox that gores a human being is put to death in the manner of a murderer; an animal with whom a human being engages in sexual relations is punished along with its human counterpart; Sabbath rest is required of animals as well as of their masters. (As we shall see later on, this tendency is repeated in the rabbinic tradition.) All this reflects the fact that man, while created in the image of God, is also akin to an animal. Kass observes that according to Genesis, “God himself thought the animals sufficiently similar to man to have fashioned them as his possible companions; and subsequent parts of the biblical story (for example, the expulsion from the Garden; the Noah story) emphasize the common vulnerability and neediness of all that lives, human beings no less than others.”⁴² To observe life—no matter in how lowly a form—is to see a reflection of oneself. By choosing among animals, fish, fowl and insects, the Jew mirrors his own chosenness.

We are now able to understand why the Tora goes out of its way to per­mit some insects even as it prohibits most others. Because man sees himself in his encounter with other living creatures, it is critical that the Bible make distinctions among insect life as well. After all, one who merely refuses to eat all insects will avoid eating the forbidden fly, and bee, and ant, but he will also end up avoiding making the distinctions among insects required by the Tora. God wishes for the Jew, in encountering creation, and most specifically created life, to be confronted constantly by his Jewishness; it is therefore critical that he be permitted to eat some insects among the vast majority of those forbidden.

But even as it is obvious to both Jew and non-Jew that in choosing some animals and not others, we are reminded of God’s choosing the Israelites from among the families of the world, the criteria employed in making these choices—hooves, leaping legs, and scales—remain unexplained. Even as the Jew expresses his chosen status, he remains mystified by the method of expression. In this way, the laws of kashrut inspire not arrogance, but humility; for even as the Jews are informed that they are the chosen of God, they are immediately reminded that they are not themselves gods. They are elected, but not omniscient, utterly unlike the Almighty who chose them. Kass notes that although man is created in the image of God, and therefore “can discern the distinctions in things,” nevertheless “we have not made them separate. Neither have we that power of mind that registers the articulations of the world and permits us to recognize distinctions.” It is so “that we do not forget these qualifications, ”Kass concludes, that the dietary laws must “never be wholly transparent to reason.”⁴³ One might therefore suggest that in order to remain apart from the nations, the Israelites are obligated to remind themselves that they are unique; nevertheless, the mys­teriousness of the laws of kashrut also reminds them that they are the serv­ants of an all-knowing God, one who has separated them in order to serve as the Almighty’s messengers to the world.

 

The notion that Judaism uses the animal world as a medium for symbolizing the Jewish distinction from the nations sheds a great deal of light on the post-biblical, rabbinic writings on kashrut as well. A close read­ing of the talmudic discussion of the dietary laws reveals that the Talmud did, in fact, believe that kashrut was a primary medium for the expression of Jewish chosenness, and drew some striking inferences from this idea. In fact, when one approaches the Talmud with this in mind, what originally seemed like a hodgepodge of homilies and rulings can now be seen as a comprehen­sive presentation of a unified theory of kashrut.

Our analysis of the rabbinic approach begins by noting that the Sages built on the Bible’s depiction of animals as extensions of human beings. We mentioned above Kass’ observation that the closeness between the human and animal worlds is implied by God’s considering the animals possible mates for Adam. The rabbis of the Mishna, noting Adam’s exclamation upon encountering Eve, make this point in a striking way:

R. Elazar said: How are we to understand that which is written, “This one at last is bone of my bone, and flesh of my flesh. This one shall be called woman for from man she was taken”? This teaches that Adam had relations with every domestic and wild animal, but his mind was not at ease until he had relations with Eve.⁴⁴

Rabbinic interpretations such as these indicate the proximity, from God’s point of view, of human beings and animals. As the Jewish theologian Michael Wyschogrod points out, “However great the gulf may seem from the human perspective, from the perspective of God who is infinitely above both humans and animals, the gulf is not as absolute as it seems to humans. It is, of course, true that only the human being was created in the image of God which at the very least means that humans are closer to God than ani­mals. But it does not mean that the gulf between humans and animals is as absolute as that between humans and God. Humans and animals are both finite creatures and while, in the final analysis, only woman is the proper companion of man, animals are also companions though less than fully satisfactory ones.”⁴⁵