Timeless Torah

Story: Loan against Mercedes. Everything has reason. Not always the real reason.
Parent explains to child…just not real reason.
That’s person to person. Imagine another species.
Goat to goat: The lady of the house drank our cholent water.
Foolhardy for us to imagine we know G-d’s reasons for mitzvohs.
Mixing meat and milk is a Chok (supra-rational law). Not due to health motivations.
Why are there Mishpatim (rational mitzvohs)? Aren’t we to serve G-d with Kabolas Ol?
G-d wants our understanding … even in Chok.

Preface:
1. G-d created an imperfect, unfinished world.
G-d allowed Himself to be malbish/enclothed in this world.
Clothes/accessories are an extension that reveals or suppresses one’s personality.
Pork is an accessory that suppresses G-d’s personality. Hence we stay away.
How do we explain meat and milk (both kosher) producing treif.

2. Birrur han’tzutzos/refining the Gdly sparks.
Tohu/World of Chaos is a realm of unbridled extremes.
Its implosion produced G-dly sparks which were embedded in our world.
Our avodah/service is to elevate these sparks. (Tikkun Olam)

3. DaTZChaM: The four realms (inanimate, vegetation, animals, man)
Only man can be righteous. (You can’t be righteous by default, by accident.) (Charity is exception)
The other three realms are elevated via man.

Lo Tevashel G’dee Bachaleiv Eemo – Do not cook a kid in its mother’s milk (3 times)
Cooking treif (Biblically) is allowed, except meat/milk.

Cooking: Three components required food, water, fire.
Water and fire do not mix.
Kabbala: Fire is Gevurah (aggressive energy); Water is Chessed (passive energy).
Jews in Desert: Meat has a caveat as to when it should be used.
When G-d your G-d shall broaden your borders, as He has promised you, and you will say, I shall eat meat, for your soul shall desire to eat meat, you may eat meat to your soul's desire. (Deuteronomy 12:20-23)

There are those who contest the morality of eating meat. What gives man the right to devour any of G-d's creations?
There is no such natural right. When man lives only to enhance his own being, there is no justification.
“When a person walks along without a thought of G-d in his head, the very ground under his feet cries out: Boor! What makes you any better than me? By what rights do you step on me?”
Man does have the right, indeed the obligation, when he serves as the agent of their elevation.

Difference between the consumption of meat and other foods.
Man cannot live without the vegetable and mineral components of his diet. Meat is a luxury.
The desire for meat is not motivated by need, but by the desire to experience pleasure.

Man eats bread in order to live. If he lives to fulfill his Creator's will, the elevation is complete.
Man eats meat to savor its taste; thus, it is not enough that a person lives in order to serve his Creator for the meat to be elevated. Rather, he must be a person for whom the very experience of physical pleasure is a G-dly endeavor.
In the desert meat was forbidden. Only after G-d broadened their borders, granting them a mandate to make ‘holy’ an adjective of ‘land’, were they able to sanctify meat/desire.
Sages: “A boor is forbidden to eat meat.” (Talmud, Pesachim 49b)
Wise, broad-minded, holy: Meat will give you tremendous energy.
Otherwise it turns you into an aggressive animal.

Digestive system: Extracts goodness (nutrients) from waste (which body expels).
Similar to birur han’tzutzos.
Jews are always eating. We’re fixated on food. Our soul is driving it.
Digestion begins when the enzymes of the saliva start to break down the food.
(Bricks and mortar build a Shul that contains a Torah. But they don’t become Torah.)
(Food builds a body that houses a Jew. The food becomes that Jew.)

Hardest food to digest (physically, and as we already discussed, spiritually) is meat. Even six hours later, meat stuck in between the teeth, being pummeled by saliva retains its status. Thus, you wait 6 hours until milk.
Need to chew it well. Saliva, teeth, stomach all combine to digest.
Raw meat gives you botulism.
Cooking tenderizes. It is first step in order to help us digest.
Cooking first step in birur han’tzutzos.

Meat and milk are two spiritual opposites.
White is the color of Chessed/kindness and purity. (Milk – A mother’s milk is the ultimate kindness in food giving, nurturing, etc.)
Red is the color of gevurah/aggression. (Meat)
Moses: “At night you will eat meat.” (Original commercial: Where’s the beef?)
Night is Gevurah, Day is Chessed.
(Spielberg on Munich: Blood represents death, milk represents life.)

“Do not cook a kid (meat) in its mother’s milk (something which nurtures).”
Torah speaks to common situations (Bedouins).
Bishul: Major first step in fixing/tikun world (That is why cooking is forbidden on Shabbat).
When you cook (using the methodology of birur) meat & milk, you further break the world apart.

Rebbe to Rabbi Posner: Quote Neil Armstrong, “One small step for man, one giant step for mankind.”
You can’t look at an action in isolation, but in context.
Child’s first step. First step after stroke.

Cooking is not cooking, it’s a holy birur.
Meat is not meat, it’s gevurah. Milk is not milk, it’s chessed.
When you cook meat & milk, you are use birur to accomplish the exact opposite of its purpose. Instead of separating, you are mixing two opposite forces. You are creating a spiritual, nuclear meltdown.