You Are What You Eat—and What You Don’t: Keeping Kosher in the Land of Bacon-Wrapped Everything©

Photo by Tim Mossholder on Unsplash

Parashat Shemini 2025/5785

Why do you keep kosher? Why don’t you keep kosher? Why is it hard for Jews to keep kosher?

In America, the answer might be: “Why restrict ourselves from any of the food on God’s earth?” We live in a country where freedom is often defined by having whatever you want, whenever you want it.

Let me share a true story. It was the week before Rosh Hashanah, and I received an email from a congregant. The subject line read: “Rabbi—This is outrageous!” The message continued: “BaconFest 2014. Look at the date—it’s on Yom Kippur! I think you should call the Mayor and say something!”

At first, I wasn’t sure what the issue was. Was he upset about a non-kosher food festival on the holiest day of the year? Was he worried about the message it sent? I emailed back: “Thanks for bringing this to my attention. Why is this such a concern for you?”

He replied: “Because I wanted to go.”

I picked up the phone, called the mayor’s office, and said: “I know I can’t endorse political candidates, but if you keep holding BaconFest on Yom Kippur, you’ll have my vote—no matter what. Thank you for your continued service to our great city.”

For many American Jews, this is a real dilemma—standing in judgment at synagogue or standing in line for a bacon sampler. America has been our people’s land of opportunity and freedom. We’ve been able to live wherever we want, become whoever we want, and eat whatever we want. For many, that’s part of what it means to thrive here.

Consider the TV personalities Andrew Zimmern and Adam Richman—the hosts of Bizarre Foods and Man v. Food, respectively. Both are Jewish. One of them even went to a Solomon Schechter day school growing up. In their shows, they eat things like pig’s blood stew, shark meat, and 180 oysters in one sitting. That’s a long way from the kosher kitchens of their ancestors.

We live in a culture of indulgence, and we’ve often leaned into it. But kashrut offers a countercultural path: it is the spiritual discipline of restraint in a world that glorifies excess. And the Torah can teach us why restraint matters.

This week’s parashah, Shemini, reintroduces the laws of kashrut. These dietary laws have become one of the defining practices of Jews across centuries and continents. But why?

Over the past two millennia, many have tried to explain the reasons behind the kosher laws. The most popular rationale? That it’s healthier. But as we all know, kosher food isn’t inherently more nutritious. You can eat nothing but kosher potato chips and still not be healthy.

The truth is, there’s really only one reason the Torah gives: “Because I said so.”

Think back to childhood. You ask your parent, “Why can’t I do that?” and after enough back-and-forth, they say, “Because I said so.” In the Torah, it sounds a bit more elevated: “For I, the Lord, am your God: you shall sanctify yourselves and be holy, for I am holy” (Leviticus 11:44–45).

Kashrut is not about health—it’s about holiness. The forbidden animals are described as tamei lachem—ritually impure for you. They’re not inherently evil or disgusting. They simply aren’t part of the Jewish people’s spiritual path.

Kashrut limits what we can eat, and in doing so, forces us to think differently about food—especially meat.

Our relationship with meat has changed dramatically over the years. When my grandparents lived in Europe, meat—maybe just chicken—was a once-a-week luxury, and meals were modest. But when they came to America, meat became a sign that they had “made it.” This is common among immigrant cultures: abundance equals success.

Who can forget the scene from My Big Fat Greek Wedding when Toula’s aunt learns her niece’s fiancé is a vegetarian. She exclaims: “What do you mean you don’t eat no meat?!... That’s okay, I make you lamb.”

When meat becomes too easy, too cheap, too constant, we stop thinking about it. And if everything is permitted, why shouldn’t I taste every kind of meat the world has to offer?

But the Torah encourages us to ask a different question.

In the very first chapters of Genesis, Adam and Eve are told they can eat from any of the trees in the Garden—except one. The implication is clear: they were to eat from the trees, not the animals. They were to name the animals, not consume them. In the ideal world of Eden, humans were vegetarians.

Only after the flood, with Noah—living not in Eden but in the “real world”—does the Torah permit eating meat. Even then, there are conditions: “Every creature that lives shall be yours to eat. But flesh with its lifeblood still in it you shall not eat” (Genesis 9:3–4). Some commentators suggest that this concession to eat meat was made because of our taste for violence—our craving for blood.

Fast forward to Shemini and the laws of kosher animals. Here, the Torah begins to shape that concession into something more disciplined and sacred. Certain animals are permitted; others are not. Later in Vayikra (Leviticus 17), we are told that one must bring an animal to the Tent of Meeting to slaughter it properly. Anyone who slaughters an animal elsewhere incurs bloodguilt.

That may have worked when the Mishkan was at the center of the camp. But what about when the central shrine was in Jerusalem, and you lived in the Galilee? The Torah in Devarim offers a concession: you can slaughter and eat meat in your own towns—but only under certain conditions.

Interestingly, this type of meat is called basar ta’avah—“meat of craving” or “meat of lust.” It’s not just meat—it’s meat driven by desire. The term itself carries a tone of reluctance, as if God is saying: “If you must give in to your appetite, then here’s how to do it with limits.”

In the Mishkan and the Temple, meat become associated with simchah—with joy. A sacred barbecue, if you will. The message evolves: eating meat is allowed, but the type of meat, the quantity, and how much you share—that’s what makes it holy.

Nachmanides takes it further. He suggests the Torah forbids eating animals that are cruel or predatory by nature, because ingesting them could influence our own character. As a holy nation, the Jewish people must strive for compassion—not cruelty.

The Kedushat Levi, a Hasidic sage who likely ate very little meat himself due to poverty, cites the prophet Joel’s vision that one day, all Jews will become prophets. He writes: “For God to communicate with us, our bodies must be vessels of sensitivity and love. The Divine Presence cannot address a mouth fed on unclean or abhorrent creatures.”

In other words, what we consume physically can impact what we’re open to spiritually.

This is especially true at our Shabbat and holiday tables. When we eat meat at those meals, we’re not just enjoying a roast—we’re echoing the sacred act of eating the Temple offering. It’s not just food—it’s memory, mitzvah, and meaning.

Kashrut is not a diet. It’s a discipline. A way of grounding spiritual awareness in something we all do every day: eat. And it extends beyond food.

Think about it: every day, we make decisions around food. What to cook. How to cook it. Who to share it with.

Will our decisions be driven by hunger alone—or something more?

Kashrut nudges us to ask:

• Is this food kosher?

• Am I eating this meal with gratitude?

• Have I paused to say a blessing?

• Could I place a coin in the tzedakah box before eating?

But it doesn’t stop there. Kashrut is a ladder. It starts with avoiding non-kosher animals. Then we separate milk and meat. But we can keep climbing:

• Was this food produced ethically?

• Were the animals treated humanely?

• Was the land honored in its growth?

• Were the workers paid fairly?

• How do I speak to the person preparing or serving my food?

  
  

Kashrut, at its heart, connects life and death, body and soul, the dinner table and the Divine. It transforms meals into mitzvot, forks into sacred tools.

And like so much in Judaism, it’s not just about the laws—it’s about the values the laws cultivate. Kashrut teaches us to extend intentionality into speech, into ethics, into cultivating middot—virtues like patience, generosity, and restraint.

It reminds us that being Jewish is not just about what happens in the sanctuary—it’s about what happens in the kitchen, at the grocery store, at the dinner table.

So maybe the old saying is true: You are what you eat.

But in Judaism, we’d say it a little differently:

You are what you choose to eat, how you eat it, and what that says about who you’re trying to become.