Kosher Essays

The kosher status of the food we eat has a tremendous impact on our spiritual sensitivity.

It would be absurd to think that G-d gave us the Torah as a sort of bandage for His mistakes. "Oops! I didn't mean to put those nasty animals there! People might eat them! What do I do now?"

So we’ve come to realize the subtle but potentially dire effects on our food, but do we ever consider our food’s spiritual “profiles”? Does the food or drink that we consume affect us on a spiritual plane, on a soul level, influencing our character and natural tendencies?

There are plenty of other animals that aren’t kosher either, but none of them arouse as much disgust as the pig. Why?

Wine has been with us since Creation.Come explore some practical examples of where the prohibition of wine handled by a non-Jew come into play.

Have you ever closed a deal, celebrated your marriage (or its anniversary), or simply spent time with a good friend—without eating something together? Why do our teeth, gullet and stomach figure so prominently in who, how, where and with whom we are?

The spiritual significance of shechitah; the laws of kashrut applied to the beast, bird and fish within the soul of man

"The world can live without wine, but it cannot live without water; the world can live without peppers, but it cannot live without salt" and other sayings from the midrash and talmud on food and eating

The Kabbalists teach that nestled within every created thing is an "utterance of G-d's mouth" -- the letters of Divine speech that are the instrument of its creation (as described in the first chapter of Genesis)

One common misconception is that if something is kosher, then it must be healthy to eat.

With a little education—and a lot of help, support and advice from friends and others in my life—I decided to take the kosher plunge.

Metal and glass utensils that were bought from a non-Jew are to be immersed in a kosher mikvah prior to use for food.

A shochet must be learned in the laws of kosher slaughter and adept at sharpening and polishing his knives, known as shtellen ah chalef in Yiddish.