Q&A: They Drove Me Crazy About Forbidden Foods
They Drove Me Crazy About Forbidden Foods
Question
Hello,
Ever since I was little, they drove me crazy with “stories of righteous people” and all kinds of sayings and statements that eating non-kosher food enters the body, that the cells renew themselves every 7 years, that it brings in husks, that it damages spirituality, that it throws off faith, and so on and so forth.
But the fact is that in the “real world,” theoretically there can be countless mistakes and stumbling blocks in every area of this issue (meat and milk, insects, different kosher certifications, “human error,” and who knows what else), and I’m constantly checking myself because in my head this is “extremely severe,” and it becomes part of the body and the 7 years and it messes up faith, etc. etc.
Is there any way to calm down and get out of these anxieties???
Thank you!!!
P.S.
For anyone reading this who maybe doesn’t understand—when a “great” rabbi, a “prominent” one, a “rosh yeshiva,” and so on with all the titles, says things like this in a lecture that’s being recorded in front of lots of people, with a super serious expression, without any qualifications, conditions, or anything at all—saying that literally any non-kosher thing will ruin my spirituality—then, well, what can I do? It gets into your head.
Answer
It is extremely severe because it is a prohibition, not because of mystical effects on the soul. Personally, I am highly skeptical of these mystical effects, because I do not know who could determine that such things exist. Where did the Sages or the medieval authorities (Rishonim) get information on such matters? By the way, quite a few sages opposed this way of seeing things. You can see in my halakhic ruling on eating citric acid on Passover:
Discussion on Answer
I mentioned there the Ben Ish Chai regarding the dulling of the heart through transgressions. And there are others as well (I don’t remember whether it was mentioned there) regarding the dulling caused by forbidden foods—whether it is deterministic or whether it is a result of the prohibition involved (the halakhic decisors discussed this around the Talmudic passage in Ketubot 60 and in the Shulchan Arukh regarding a nursing infant who nurses from a non-Jewish woman).
Regarding things that are forbidden because of danger, there are halakhic decisors who wrote that nowadays this no longer applies.
I didn’t find those sages in the article.
I’d be glad if the Rabbi would enlighten us as to which sages doubted the Sages regarding spiritual effects.