Imu Shalev: Welcome to Meaningful Judaism, where we try to answer why we do what we do in Jewish life. In this podcast, we search for meaning by diving deep into the Torah text. Meaningful Judaism is a product of Aleph Beta Labs, and I'm your host, Imu Shalev. And today I am joined here by Aleph Beta scholar Beth Lesch. 

Beth Lesch: Hi everyone. Hi Imu.

Imu: You know, Beth, I have some sad news, which is that this episode is the final episode in our season of Meaningful Judaism. It's been fun putting these episodes together, and we hope to be back with Season 2 of Meaningful Judaism in a few months. I thought it would be nice to do a bit of a retrospective episode, looking back at the episodes we've done. Maybe a little bit of epilogue, a little bit of meaning we left on the table.

Beth: It's like the leftovers episode, but when the leftovers are really good. 

Imu: I have to tell you, I love leftovers. And I'll just say, for this retrospective episode, if you haven't heard our other Meaningful Judaism episodes, I would take a look back at our previous episodes. You'll enjoy it a whole lot more.

So Beth, I have a bone to pick with you when it comes to our tzitzit episode. 

Beth: Shouldn't we do this off the record, Imu?

Imu: We should do it off the record.

Beth: But we're not going to. We're going to air our dirty laundry.

Imu: That's right.

Tzitzit and Wings

Beth: Okay, so I know where this is going. There was something that I decided to cut from the tzitzit piece, in my capacity as editor, and you're mad at me and you want a chance to make your case. So go on, Imu, the floor is yours. Make your case. Why don't you just start by giving everyone the context.

Imu:  So this was a conversation me and Daniel had on the meaning behind tzitzit. And we arrived at this really lovely idea based on a noticing about the word kanaf, where you're supposed to attach the tzitzit on the kanaf of your clothing. Kanaf doesn't only mean “corner,” but it more commonly means “wings.” And this notion of tzitzit as an antidote to the shame and the fears experienced by the meraglim, it's sort of like God's invitation to don wings, to see yourself as something grand and majestic. 

Beth: Yeah, sorry to interrupt you, but I remember when we were putting the episode together and we were talking about this idea of wings, I was kind of pushing you to see the wings as birds’ wings, right? It fit together with a lot of the other imagery that we were drawing on in that episode. Like, you had the idea also of techelet, right, that light-blue colored string, which is kind of like the sky – oh, birds fly in the sky. And you know, part of the argument was that tzitzit are supposed to make you feel grand and majestic, and there is something grand and majestic about a bird soaring through the heavens with its wings outstretched. Not to mention that there are other places in the Torah where the bird metaphor is used to describe us: We're like baby chicks, and God is our mother eagle. So yeah, when you pointed out to me that that kanaf means wing, I understood it to be a reference to birds. 

Imu: Yeah, but the truth is that when I first noticed that kanaf means wing, my brain actually didn't jump to birds.

Beth: You had a whole angels thing. You thought that when the Torah speaks about the four corners of the garment, the four wings, the Torah isn't trying to get us to think about birds’ wings, it's trying to get us to think about angels’ wings. And I heard you out, but I didn't feel that it was as strong a case, so I was trying to convince you to leave out the angels idea and just stick with the birds.

Imu: Yeah, eventually I was convinced to take it out. But in the intervening weeks since we made that piece, I felt like I got like a couple of “tap on the shoulder” moments, a couple of moments that said, You know what? Your intuition about angels… there may have been more to that. So I wanted to take the time in this episode just to show people the angels part, because to me it was emotionally really compelling and really moving. So let me do that with you now. Why don't you open up Ezekiel 10.

Beth: Ezekiel 10. Here I am.

Imu: So I had this hunch, okay, wings? What being has wings, and not just two, but four? Because there are four corners of this garment, or four wings of the garment. I was like, what creature in the Torah has four wings? I think it's keruvim. I opened up Ezekiel chapter 10. At the end of this chapter, there's a description of keruvim and their wings. So why don't you read verse 20 and 21.

Beth: הִיא הַחַיָּה אֲשֶׁר רָאִיתִי תַּחַת אֱלֹקי־יִשְׂרָאֵל בִּנְהַר־כְּבָר וָאֵדַע כִּי כְרוּבִים הֵמָּה – It was the very same being that I had seen under God, like the vision of God, at the Kevar river, and I knew that they were cherubs. 

Imu: Ezekiel’s referencing some previous vision that he had, and he knew when he saw this creature, oh, that's keruvim. And he goes on to describe the keruvim. 

Beth: Okay, so here's the description. אַרְבָּעָה אַרְבָּעָה פָנִים לְאֶחָד וְאַרְבַּע כְּנָפַיִם לְאֶחָד וּדְמוּת יְדֵי אָדָם תַּחַת כַּנְפֵיהֶם – Each one had four faces, each one had four wings, and it had the form of human hands underneath its wings.

Imu: Yeah, so I saw this and I was like, oh my gosh! Here is a four-winged creature, and it's none other than keruvim.

Beth: Than an angel, right. And birds don't have four wings, keruvim have four wings.

Imu: Exactly. And not only that, right, this chapter just happens to tell me the reality that, you know, angels have four wings, but we read the very end of the chapter. 

A Heavenly Vision

But if you go back to the beginning of the chapter, this is actually describing a vision of Ezekiel seeing God. And if you remember our tzitzit episode, we did talk about a verse where people go up and they see God. We were talking about techelet. We were trying to say, why would we need to put a string of light blue on our wings, on the tzitzit? And we were trying to justify what that color means. And we got to this episode where Moses, Aaron, Nadav, and Avihu, they go up the mountain, they see God, and under God's feet is this sapphire brick (Exodus 24:9-10). Well, lo and behold, here we are in Ezekiel, and Ezekiel also has a vision of God. 

Beth: Yeah, I saw this when I was scrolling. It's really cool. The chapter opens with Ezekiel saying, I was looking out, sort of above the heads of these keruvim, and what did I see? כְּאֶבֶן סַפִּיר – I saw something that looks like a sapphire stone (Ezekiel 10:1). And then it goes on to describe, like, the throne of God. So it's that very same image that we had seen back in the Chumash.

Imu: Yeah, it's almost like Ezekiel is back in that episode and he also gets to see what Moses, Aaron, Nadav, and Avihu see, and he's adding detail and he's saying, you know, when they went up and they saw God's footstool – as, you know, the sky itself, this pure, gorgeous sapphire stone – it wasn't just us that was up there. God was surrounded by these four-winged angels. 

Beth:The keruvim were there too.

Imu: Flying in the sky, as it were.

Beth: So take the blue from the sapphire and take the four wings from the keruvim, and that's how you get tzitzit.

Imu: Yeah. It's almost like we are the most earthly beings possible, but then God wraps us in tzitzit, which – we have the wings that the keruvim have, and they're tipped with sky. They're tipped with the blue of sky, the blue of sapphire, and it's almost like God is inviting us up into the heavens with Him. 

Beth: It's beautiful, it's beautiful. You are a member of the heavenly court and you are up there somehow existing at God's footstool, like this image that only Moses and Aaron and Nadav and Avihu and the seventy elders merited to see. They're the only, you know, humans in human history who've been able to see that. So it's like every time that you would put on tzitzit, you're right there all over again.

Grasshoppers and Angels

Imu: Exactly. And you know, Beth, there's one other thing that I want to show you that made me feel like this angels part wasn't speculative, that others had seen what I had seen and maybe also could see how tzitzit is tied up with this notion of angels. And it's this midrash that I came across in Parshat Shelach, the parsha that discusses tzitzit, only it's not on the verse that discusses tzitzit. Instead it's on a different verse we connected tzitzit to, which is specifically the grasshopper verse. So in the story of the spies, where the spies said: We went to the land, we saw these giants and we were…

Beth: “We were like grasshoppers in our eyes, and so we appeared in their eyes” (Numbers 13:33).

Imu: Right, exactly. That's also how we appeared to these giants. So on that verse, there is a midrash, Midrash Tanchuma, where God basically says: Look, I could have forgiven the fact that you said that you were like grasshoppers in your own eyes, but I cannot forgive the fact that you said that you were like grasshoppers in the eyes of giants. How could you possibly know that? How would you know how you appear to them? After all, I'm God. I could have made you appear like angels in their eyes.

And I was, like…. whoa. 

Beth: “Like angels.” The opposite of a grasshopper is an angel.

Imu: Exactly. Meaning, why angels? Like, God could have said: I could have made you appear super powerful. I could have made you, you know, appear as giants too. But God is saying: Look, I actually could have made you appear as angels. Which is now how I'm going to ask you to sort of practice, right? To put on your angels’ wings every day.

Beth: To dress like angels. 

Imu: To see yourself as angels. So that to me was the coolest thing, 

Beth: And it suggests that the author of the Midrash, that our sages, saw the same thing that you saw. That when they read the word “wing,” their mind also went to the place of angels. 

Imu: Well, they saw two things. They didn't just see kanaf as angel, but they also saw the constellation of connections between tzitzit and the spies story itself. Right? We argued a few things, that the tzitzit story is connected to the spies story. It uses the same words: Lo taturu, and just a whole suite of parallels.

Beth: Eynayim and lev.

Imu: Exactly. So that whole constellation, I think we see in this little story in the midrash.

Beth: It felt pretty good when you found that midrash, huh?

Imu: It did feel good. 

Beth: So, Imu, your instinct has been redeemed, and you're being perfectly gracious, but this is really an “I told you so" moment, right? Like, I'll say it again, I really pushed back when you first presented this tzitzit as angels’ wings theory.

Can Humans Be Angelic?

Imu: I got pushback from you and from Daniel. Daniel had a visceral pushback, because he said: From where do you get this idea in Torah that we should see ourselves as angels, or that we should strive to be angels? Right? Angels are perfect, humans are human. Almost, I think Daniel sort of felt like it can even be spiritually harmful to try to be perfect or try to be someone that you're not. 

Beth: And that objection resonated with me. Angels are just emanations of God's will that don't have free will. And we do have free will. So we don't want to be like angels. But then there are other places in the tradition where you do have that imagery coming in. And it's like, we talk about Kedushah as being, you know, lifting up our feet like we're angels. And we talk about Yom Kippur, we're not eating or drinking because the angels aren't physical and they're not eating or drinking. So it actually does feel like in our tradition, there's mixed messages about whether we're meant to aspire to be angels or not.

Imu: Those are great points. But to me, there was a real “tap on my shoulder” moment when one of the episodes that we were doing in Meaningful Judaism, the episode on Shabbat, actually addressed the human connection to angels, as it were. And that's our episode on Shalom Aleichem, where we welcome the angels in on Shabbat, because Rabbi Fohrman so beautifully demonstrated how Shabbat in time is sort of what Eden was in space. And Eden had these angels that were guarding it, and so Shabbat perhaps had these angels that were guarding it. 

The angels, keruvim, actually originally were not there in Eden to guard it. The keruvim instead took over for humanity. Once humanity was expelled from the garden, humanity's job was split apart, and half of it was taken up by angels. The angels were replacements for us. And what Rabbi Fohrman went on to argue is that when we say Shalom Aleichem, we're sort of let back into Eden. There's a changing of the guard. We say “hello angels” and we say “goodbye angels” because now we are taking over for the angels. 

Beth: Yeah, we're stepping into their shoes.

Imu: Which were originally our shoes. So there is this precedent for humanity seeing themselves as angels or being like the angels. And I don't think it necessarily means that we leave our humanity behind.

In our tzitzit episode, we had argued that humanity has this propensity, when they're deep in shame, when they see themselves as lowly, to reject themselves before God ever gets a chance to. They say this outrageous thing, which is that God hated us. בְּשִׂנְאַת יקוה אֹתָנוּ – In God's hatred of us He took us out of Egypt (Deuteronomy 1:27). Which, we said, was like a crazy thing to say. God never said He hated us. We said God hated us.

Beth: Yeah, it's warped. 

Imu: And we say that out of a tremendous sense of shame. And God's response to that is: Stop seeing yourselves as grasshoppers. Instead, see yourselves as angels. 

I don't think we need to see the call to see ourselves as angels as a call to be perfect. I actually think it's the opposite of that. It's “even in your imperfection, don angels’ wings.” Even through your mistakes and the mundane nature of humanity, take the moment in the morning when you wrap yourselves in tallit to see yourselves as angels and dispel the shame and feel the closeness to God. 

The symbols of tallit point to humanity in the highest heights, right? In that vision of Ezekiel and that vision of Moses, Aaron, Nadav, and Avihu, the highest heights humanity has ever been to, where they're at that throne in the heavens and they see the livnat hasapir, right? Tzitzit and its imagery invite us up into the heavens. It's so moving for me, and I felt like it added such richness and dimension to the mitzvah of tzitzit. And I just felt like, Ah! I really want to share that with people. Because it really did transform my experience of the mitzvah.

Holes in the Kosher Animals Theory

Beth: I'm really glad that you got your chance to go back to the tzitzit piece and share your ideas about angels. And I know there's another episode for us to talk about for which we have some unfinished business. Right? And that's the episode about kosher animals. We called it “What's Meaningful About Not Eating Bacon?” And there it's not so much, like, “here's a nice idea that I didn't get to share with you.” There were some real holes with the way that we presented that argument. The version in the episode was somewhat incomplete, and we acknowledged that. I know that you want an opportunity to fill in some of those holes and share that with our listeners.

Imu: Yeah. As far as scholarship goes, I feel the most tentative about that third kashrut piece that we did on kosher animals. Because you know, sometimes in Aleph Beta when we show the evidence there's a click, like Rabbi Fohrman's connection between Shabbat and Eden. Like, click, that totally fits. It's very hard to argue with that. But when it comes to kosher animals, I can't say I quite feel that click, because what we argued in kosher animals is that the Torah allows us to eat animals that are herbivores and not carnivores, and there's some obvious reasons why that's not a perfect click. You want to throw any of them at me?

Beth: I mean, first of all, there are plenty of herbivores that are on the list of not kosher animals.

Imu: Right.

Beth: Like, horses are not kosher. What about all of the animals that are herbivores that still fall out onto the list of non-kosher animals? 

There's also hooves. It sounds like animals that have hooves, that that's associated with being an herbivore because like hooves are useful for being able to stand in the grassy plain for a long time and graze. But like, why split hooves? The reason that horses get excluded from the list is because they have hooves but not split hooves.

Imu: Right, if I were writing the Torah, I would say we can only eat animals that chew their cud. Chewing their cud, biologically, means they eat grass. Great, that makes sense. But why a second sign at all? Hooves also point to grass. Split hooves, not really. Split hooves are like, yeah, you can go in the grass, but you can also climb up mountains and rocky terrain. So what's the idea behind the second sign? Is it either redundant, or does it point to something else?

Beth: Then there's sort of a sub-question of that, which is, there are a whole bunch of verses in Parshat Shemini that are like, “These are the animals that have only one sign, but not the other. This animal and this animal and this animal. And then here's an animal that has the other sign, but not the first one.” Why is the Torah elaborating so much on the two signs and which one has which? So that, I think, needs an answer. 

And then I think the biggest hole that we didn't address, we only talked about normal land animals. We didn't talk about birds and fish. There are lists of kosher birds. There are signs for kosher fish. How did they fit into this whole tahor-transparent thing? How do you account for that, Imu?

And I'm going to say it again, I have tremendous respect for what you are doing, which is putting a theory out there, even when you know, like, it's almost there, but it still has holes and it's a work in progress. We need people like you to do that work. But also, let's be rigorous and let's have it out.

Imu: Great. And I think probably a great place to start is to talk about our methodology in this podcast. We're trying to see, perhaps, what the Torah wants us to think the meaning of the laws are by reading the Torah closely. I firmly believe that when you read the text closely, the Torah nudges you toward meaning. And that's kind of the lens I'd like to take in quote-unquote defense, which is that I can't give you an airtight presentation of why these animals and not those animals. And I also can't help but see, as a scholar, that the Torah is nudging us in certain directions. Could I be wrong about those nudges? I totally can be, but I feel pretty compelled by the nudges in which the Torah is pointing us. 

And let's just take stock of what we said. When the Torah talks about kosher animals, number one, it doesn't talk about kosher animals. It talks about tamei and tahor animals. So the Torah is nudging us in the direction of thinking about these animals in terms of tumah and taharah. That's number one. 

Number two, when it comes to land animals, are these signs. And I think the Torah is hitting you over the head by saying the animals that chew their cud are tahor. And when you look at what animals chew their cud, that's the animals that digest grass. These animals are most connected to source, where they're not eating other animals to get their nourishment, but they have to be eating plants and be as connected to the land as they possibly could be.

Why Split Hooves?

So now the question is, what about all the stuff that doesn't fit? So let's first talk about the hooves. We had two signs. It wasn't just chewing cud, but there was split hooves as well. And there are a few ways you can see that second sign. So David Block, my chevrusa, originally in Parsha Experiment he made the claim that split hooves makes for darn sure that you're eating an herbivore.

Beth: Most animals that chew their cud, you will find that they are in fact herbivores, but there are some animals that chew their cud and eat other things in addition to grass and leaves. They are omnivores.

Imu: That’s right. That was his claim.

Beth: And the Torah calls those out, like the Torah brings us three examples of animals that, they chew their cud and yet they're not kosher. And you're saying it's because they're not true herbivores. 

Imu: Yes. So back up for just a second. If we're looking for the building blocks of evidence in making our argument, I talked about the fact that the Torah talks about kashrut in terms of tumah and taharah, and I talked about the signs. But there is a third piece of evidence that you mentioned that we did not deal with, which is the fact that the Torah doesn't just give us two signs. It also gives us four animals that have one of the signs and not both. 

And so what I think is possible is that the Torah is giving us four examples of animals that maybe back then in popular conception, everybody knew that these animals are not herbivores. These animals are omnivores. They eat plants and they eat animals. And the Torah is saying: Look, I'm giving you two signs because we all know that the pig is something that has split hooves. And so you might say, oh wow, yeah, that's a grass eater. You know, hooves, split hooves. And the Torah is saying: No, but it doesn't chew its cud. And actually, you know, you think about wild boars. Wild boars are carnivorous, right? They'll eat other animals. And so the Torah is saying that's why you need both. 

Or the inverse is true, right? The camel, the hare, the hyrax, are animals that do chew their cud, but they don't have split hooves. Let's take a look at the camel for a second. These animals are mostly herbivores, but the camel is in very harsh climates and sometimes does not have access to grass when it's in the desert sands. And therefore in order to survive, they'll eat carrion, they'll eat the flesh of animals that have died, they'll eat fish bones if they need to, to survive. 

Beth: And something similar is going on with the hare – is it hyrax and hare also?

Imu: That's how it's commonly translated. For two of these animals, there's controversy as to what the definition of those animals actually are. We did some research on hare and hyrax, and it turns out that they also at times can be carnivorous. 

Beth: And the reason you're being careful to say these are animals that maybe were in the popular consciousness, is because a zoologist will probably tell you that there are other animals that the Torah doesn't list that only have one sign and not the other. But you're saying that doesn't disprove anything. It's not meant to be a comprehensive list. It's like shorthand to remind you: Oh, there are some animals that only have one and not the other, so beware that that could happen. And we're looking for real true herbivores.

Imu: Yeah. That's my contention. While it's true that there are animals that are herbivores that end up being excluded by the demand that there be two signs – so the horse is an example of an animal that is excluded because he does not have both signs but does eat plants – I'm arguing that that's a consequence of the fact that there are these sneaky animals, right, the hare, the hyrax, the pig, the camel, that have one sign and are omnivores.

And yeah, there are going to be some animals that do eat plants that you're not allowed to eat. But the animals that we are allowed to eat, no omnivore is going to slip in. And God's not that interested in making sure we can eat all the herbivores that we could possibly eat. That’s the argument I’m making.

Beth: Right, what matters is that everything that we do get to eat is an embodiment of the value, eating animals that are transparent to their source. 

Kosher Birds

Imu: Let me move to one of your other objections, which is, you know, fish and birds. So let's talk about birds for a second, because the Torah does not nudge us there. It doesn't give us any signs. It just lists the birds you're allowed to eat. And one thing that, you know, you can't deny is that these birds eat insects, they eat worms, right? Okay, great. Now, not sure what to do with that. Maybe the whole theory is destroyed. 

Beth: Right. You're saying chickens and all these kosher birds, they are omnivorous.

Imu: If you look at omnivore the way modern science has defined it, yes, they're all omnivorous, but these are not typically described birds of prey, right? And I find that pretty interesting. We are not allowed to eat vultures. We don't eat eagles. The birds that we eat are, I guess, as transparent as birds can be. 

Beth: Interesting. Because I think usually when people talk about the not eating birds of prey thing, the takeaway that I've heard is, you know, they're cruel. They're cruel, and the Torah is not cruel, and the Torah wants us to not be cruel. But you're taking it in a different direction.

Imu: Yeah. The question is, how are these birds tahor and the other ones are not. So the best I can do is to argue that these birds, based on their diet, are more connected to source than birds that attack other animals or other birds.

Somehow the eating of worms and the eating of insects is different. And it feels intuitively different to me. A worm and an insect is a totally different thing than a bird or an animal. But I'm just putting that out there and saying, yeah, this is birds.

And I think fish suffer from a similar problem, because these fish – salmon, tuna, right? – these are not herbivore fish, right? They do eat other, smaller fish. 

Beth: Right.

Imu: And again, not sure what to do with that, but I will tell you kind of where my mind goes. 

Split Hooves: Another Theory

So this takes me back to this debate with me and David Block on the two signs for animals. And I know I gave an explanation as to why there are two signs for animals, but it's useful to revisit that debate for fish, and you'll see why in a second.

Beth: Wait, hold on a second, Imu, I'm not sure that our listeners know that there was a debate there. You shared with us David's theory about what split hooves mean for animals, but it sounds like now you want to bring up that you actually had a different theory about that. You have a different explanation for split hooves, and somehow understanding this other explanation eventually is going to help us with the fish question. So what was your other theory? 

Imu: Yeah, I didn't really share my side of the debate. David argues that when it comes to animals, the two signs are chewing cud and split hooves to make really sure that these animals are herbivores. But for me, hooves make sure that you're the type of animal that is on a grassy terrain, but split hooves actually does something else. It takes you a step beyond that. The animals that have split hooves are animals that can climb up mountains and rocky terrain. And that feature is the better to escape predators.

And my argument to David was: Maybe it's not enough to not be a predator. Maybe the Torah also wants you to not be prey, which I know is absurd because I'm not arguing that, you know, cows and goats, even the wild non-domesticated variety, are never prey, right? But maybe there is something to us seeing those signs of an animal and relating to the fact that this animal's doing its darndest to step outside that cycle of predator and prey. 

Beth: Yeah, Imu, you shared this idea with me when we were working on the episode together, and I found it really powerful. Why would the Torah want to select these animals that are outside of the cycle of predator and prey? Like, what's the meaning of that? Why do we care? And we talked a lot about the fact that death is something that brings on tumah, encounters with death, because death somehow obscures God as the source in this world. Every time that you've got predators going around and killing other animals in order to eat them, there's a little bit of tumah that comes with it. So to have these animals that are, they're stepping to the side of that, that is a way of helping us to eat with more taharah.

Imu: Yeah. You know, David dismissed that idea, and I think it made a lot of sense for him to dismiss it, because even though they have their split hooves, there are many of them that do become prey. And it just made a lot more sense to focus on the diet of the animal and their connection to land and grass, and so we just left it there. 

Kosher Fish

But the truth is, if you look at fish and the signs the fish have, they end up having something in common with the animals. There are signs for fish, right? The Torah doesn't just list the fish, it actually gives you signs. And the signs are סְנַפִּיר וְקַשְׂקֶשֶׂת – fins and scales (Leviticus 11:9). Can you see a connection between fins and scales and split hooves? And let me just describe for you what fins and scales do for a fish.

Beth: Yeah, I don't think I know. I mean, fins help you to swim more quickly. Oh, to be able to get away from a predator maybe. 

Imu: Yeah, they can flee, or pursue, right, so that may be a little ambiguous. But scales are basically armor. They protect a fish, you know, if a predator is coming at them. They prevent them from taking damage when they're bitten or attacked in some way.

Beth: The predator is going to sooner try to eat the fish that isn't wearing the armor than the fish that is. It’s just going to be easier to chew.

Imu: Exactly. But if you take these two signs together, it seems like fins and scales, they're not telling you about the diet of fish, but they are telling you about the defense of a fish, perhaps its ability to escape the cycle of predator and prey. What do I do with the fact that these fish do eat other, smaller fish? I'm not sure. Looking at birds and fish together, you're starting to get a picture of the Torah being maybe okay with eating, sort of like, lesser life forms. So it seems not to be okay for birds to eat other birds or to eat animals, but okay to maybe eat worms and insects. And maybe the kind of fish that the Torah allows us to eat do not eat other tuna and salmon, right? They eat much smaller fish.

You know, Beth, it reminds me of a query that was put before a pretty famous sort of Eastern-style spiritual teacher. And the question was: O sage, should we make sure that we're only eating vegetarian, that we do not eat animals? So the sage answered: You know, you cannot get away with not eating life. Anything that we consume is a living being, right, whether it's an animal or even a plant. Plants are very much alive, right? So I just can't help but think of that story when I see these pieces together, because it does seem like the Torah is okay with birds eating lower life forms and fish eating lower life forms and even humans eating lower life forms. 

And it seems to be taking us back to our very first episode in Meaningful Judaism, where a lot of the kashrut stuff we deal with is: What are the consequences of humanity declaring that an animal is a lower life form and eating it? The Torah, when it teaches the laws of shechitah, or the permission to eat an animal, quickly is followed up by: And by the way, we don't kill people. Like it's sort of, the Torah is worried that if we allow ourselves to eat the animal, which is the closest life form to us without being us –

Beth: That it's a slippery slope, because we're going to lose our sensitivity for the sanctity of life. And if it's a slope that can be slippery, that means that it's a spectrum. There's a kind of spectrum of life forms with some being higher up, so to speak, and some being lower. And it seems that the Torah might not be asking – might not be expecting us to see all those life forms along the spectrum in exactly the same way. 

Imu: Right. So you know, the constellation of everything that I've seen, I wish it were neater. I wish the categories were really clear and tight: “You can't eat other animals, you can't eat other birds, you can't eat other fish.” And yet it's not as clean as that. It's the cleanest with the animals. It's a bit less clean with fish and birds. And yet, if we're talking about the nudges that I think the Torah is nudging us to see, this to me is what I see. And I guess for me as a scholar, I'm personally moved and I find meaning when I allow myself to be nudged in these ways rather than sort of throwing up my hands and saying, this isn't perfect, and therefore I'm just not going to engage with the meaning that I see here.

Could be that as I mature and I get to see more things there, maybe the click that I'm after is going to be more pronounced. But that having been said, I still find these arguments very persuasive, and more than that, I find it really meaningful.

Season 1 Reflections

Imu: So Beth, this is our final episode of the season. How did you enjoy putting Meaningful Judaism together and critical reception of Meaningful Judaism?

Beth: This has really been, it's been a thrill for me and really a privilege. My experience has been, of all of the Torah that I have researched and taught at Aleph Beta, over my – wow, nearly seven years here, this anecdotally feels like it's had the widest impact and has resonated with people in my life who otherwise were not engaged by what we were doing here. I'm hearing from friends and I'm hearing from family, just really lovely messages from people who are saying, not just like, “That's a nice find, that was a nice presentation,” but, “Thank you. That was meaningful for me.” And that's why I'm in this business. There's nothing better to hear than that.

Imu: Yeah. I've been having that feedback too. There's a lot of stuff I'm proud of creating here at Aleph Beta, but you know, friends, family, they're being like, “Yeah, that episode on niddah was really great.” They're enjoying it. So I'm really, really grateful for that. We didn't invent these answers, but I do think for me personally, the journey is where the meaning's at.

Beth: I'm really glad that you're bringing up this point, because one thing I think that we're not often explicit enough about is that there's two values that we're trying to provide in our episodes. And one is: “Okay, here's a mitzvah. Maybe you struggle with it. Let's give you a different way to look at it.” But the other is: “Let's give you a different relationship with Torah and with this book and with its Author.”

That's the reason that our episodes are sometimes an hour long and they involve all of these lengthy textual journeys. We could make it a lot shorter if we weren't doing that. And we're not just doing it to show our work. A lot of it is inviting people to have a different relationship with Torah, to see it in a new light. Not to see it as a closed book, but seeing it as this book that is filled with all of these clues and nudges, and that the issues that we're struggling with, it speaks to them. But you just need to read between the lines in order to see that.

Imu: Lovely. Beth, it's really fun doing this retrospective. I feel like we're trying hard not to end this season, but we hope to be back with Season 2 in a few months. Beth, what are some things that you're interested – making no promises, but what are some mitzvot or topics you want to dive into in Season 2?

Beth: Ooh, that's a good question. I hope we'll talk about mikvah.

Imu: I know that one of the scholars here is working on tzniut.

Beth: Oh yeah, that's a really cool one. 

Imu: I'm personally hoping that we can do an episode on brit milah. That's been in the works for a while, and I hope we can get that out. And maybe there's a wider episode on tumah and taharah. We treated it already in this season, but there's so much of Torah that's dedicated to the Temple, to sacrifices, to ritual purity and impurity. So I think taking some time to explore those mitzvot. Avodah zarah, like, why is God really worried about idol worship? 

Beth: Yeah, that's a good one. And maybe our listeners also have some ideas of which mitzvot we should talk about.

Imu: Let us know. Send us an email at info@alephbeta.org and tell us where you'd like us to investigate.

Beth: Thanks for this great conversation, Imu. This was really fun. And to all of our listeners, we've really loved sharing these journeys with you, and we hope you'll join us again next season. 

Credits

This episode of Meaningful Judaism was recorded by Imu Shalev and me, Beth Lesch. 

Sarah Penso and I were the editors for this episode. 

Our audio editor is Hillary Guttman. 

Our managing producer is Adina Blaustein. 

Meaningful Judaism's editorial director is Imu Shalev. 

Thank you for listening.