The Book of Vayikra is called 'The Laws of the Kohanim'. A kohein is a person dedicated to the service of HaShem which requires a level of holiness. There is one tribe within the Jewish people who are the designated Kohanim. What I find difficult is that much of Vayikra discusses laws that relate to the entire Jewish people and not limited to the Kohanim. Why then is the Book called by this name?
The Torah on many occasions identifies the mission of the Jew as an individual as well as a nation is to aspire to kedusha (holiness) and achieve kedusha. The reason this Book is called 'The Laws of the Kohanim' is because it teaches us those laws which maintain the kedusha of the nation. HaShem refers to His people as being a nation of Kohanim because we have within us the ability to achieve kedusha.
What I find so wondrous about the Torah's worldview is that there is nothing in the material world that is prohibited. Every worldly pleasure is permitted. In fact, the very path to holiness is found in the usage of those pleasures for the right purposes and in the right amounts.
One such example is the mitzvah for the kohein who brings the offerings on the altar to eat the offering. The atonement of the offering depends upon the kohein eating this offering. Abstinence and self-denial is not the accepted path to achieving holiness. Rather, the path to holiness is by moderating and controlling the pursuit of these pleasures.
HaShem placed Man in this world with a position of control. He is the driver of this physical world. Within his relatively small circle of involvement he gives purpose and direction to the entire world based on what he chooses to do with his life. He is the only creature that acts on his own volition. While the rest of the world acts only upon their pre-programmed instinct, Man has the capacity to choose his own path. He has freedom to break from his instinct. The choices he makes governs the path of the rest of the world. Man must therefore partake in this physical world using his intellect to make good choices and choose using his freedom to give purpose for this world. When Man eats a sandwich in order to have the strength to help another person or to study Torah he is elevating that piece of material to a level of holiness.
It is therefore no wonder that we find the laws of kosher and non-kosher animals in this week's Parsha, Shmini. (In the book of Vayikra) The reason for these prohibitions is to safeguard the holiness that lies within every Jew. There is a myth that these laws stem from a health concern. However, a simple reading of the Torah and certainly an more in-depth reading yields quite the opposite.
Let us go back to the Book of Shemos to the Parsha of Mishpatim where we find the first instance where the Torah prohibits non-kosher food. There the discussion is regarding a kosher animal such as a cow or sheep whose health condition was compromised which renders the meat of this animal non-kosher. “You shall be a people that are Holy unto Me and meat in the field that has been torn (attacked by a predator) you shall not eat, rather throw it to the dogs.” Although a prohibition of such meat could certainly be understood as a health concern, nevertheless the Torah clearly frames the prohibition in the context of our being Holy unto HaShem. In fact, when the Torah does address the concern of taking care of our physical well being there is no mention of keeping a kosher diet which ought to have been mentioned if that was the reason of kashrut.
In our Parsha as well the Torah offers the reason not to eat the non-kosher animals is because they are source of tumah; "But this you shall not eat. The camel, the hyrax the hare … it is tomei to you.”. Although tumah is translated as "unclean" it is limited to cleanliness in the spiritual realm.
Tumah is uncleanliness in the abstract sense just as we refer someone who uses foul language as having a filthy mouth even though there is no physical dirt in his mouth. Similarly, tumah implies a spiritual filth. Never is it used in the physical sense of filth. The physical notion of filth has its own unique word, lichluch.
This Shabbos we will announce the arrival of the month of Nissan in which hashem took us out of Egyptian slavery and made us His very Own. That exodus was the transtion from being an enslaved nation to becoming the nation that would bring holiness to the world.
