The Effect of Non-Kosher Food on Our Brain and Heart • Timtum HaMoach and HaLev in Light of Chassidus

00:00 A few months ago, one of the leading rabbis in Israel spoke about kosher food and said that people who don’t eat kosher food become dull-minded as a result. Naturally, that caused an uproar. There was a huge commotion in the press. How can you say such a thing? We see many people who don’t eat kosher food, yet they are intelligent, sharp people, known as distinguished professors, great scientists, thinkers, and scholars. In their daily lives they eat anything; they don’t eat kosher. So what does it mean to say that eating non-kosher food makes a person dull-minded? There were all kinds of reactions and expressions used. Today we’ll go a little deeper into the subject and try to understand what it really means. The truth is that this expression has a source in the words of our Sages. But sometimes, when we don’t know how to translate an expression correctly, it takes on a meaning that isn’t right at all. So that’s the question we’ll explore today. Let’s see what our Sages say and try to understand the deeper meaning. What does it mean? What kind of dullness are we talking about? And what can we learn from it about the importance of kosher food, which the Torah speaks to us about? It all begins with a teaching of our Sages in the Gemara, tractate Yoma, page 39a. There the Gemara says: “It was taught in the school of Rabbi Yishmael: A transgression dulls a person’s heart.” That is what the Gemara says: a transgression dulls a person’s heart. It cites the verse, “And you shall become defiled by them,” following “Do not defile yourselves through them.” This is a verse in Parshas Shemini. There the Torah is indeed speaking about forbidden foods. Roughly half of Parshas Shemini discusses the various kinds of kosher and non-kosher meat, the animals

02:32 that may be eaten, the animals that may not be eaten, and all the creeping and crawling creatures, and so on. Then, at the end of the parsha, the Torah says, “Do not defile yourselves through them, and you shall become defiled by them.” Now, the Hebrew word translated here as “you shall become defiled” is written without the letter alef. If the Torah were speaking simply about ritual impurity, the word would have been written with an alef. But it is written without one. From this the Gemara learns the teaching of the school of Rabbi Yishmael: a transgression dulls a person’s heart. In other words, there is something about a transgression—and of course, since the verse is about forbidden foods, this refers especially to a transgression involving non-kosher food—that dulls a person’s heart. Now, the first thing we notice here raises another interesting point: dullness of the heart. When we use the word “dullness” in modern Hebrew, we usually associate it with the mind, not the heart. So already we can see that this is talking about a different kind of dullness, not the usual kind. More generally, we know that modern Hebrew has many words that originate in verses or teachings of our Sages, but often the way a word is used today doesn’t quite match its original context, and that changes its whole meaning. Take the word for electricity, for example. We all use that Hebrew word to mean electrical power. But if we look for its source, it is a spiritual term that appears in Yechezkel’s vision of the Divine Chariot, in the Book of Yechezkel. It has nothing to do with what we call electricity today. There are many words like that which have been taken out of context, and sometimes a small change becomes a big change. So what is this “dullness of the heart” that our Sages are talking about? Before we go into the subject of dullness

04:57 of the heart—a wonderful, fascinating subject that is very, very important to understand, especially in light of the deeper meaning that Chassidus teaches us—let’s first speak more generally about kosher food. The whole of Parshas Shemini teaches us which foods are kosher and which are forbidden. The great Rishonim, the early Torah authorities, already wrote about this. What is the explanation, the reason the Torah forbids certain foods? Why is one animal forbidden and another permitted? What is the connection between the signs that make an animal kosher—chewing its cud and having split hooves? What about the signs for fish, fins and scales, and so on? When we look at the writings of the Rishonim, we find something very interesting. Some of the great Rishonim wrote that this has to do with harm to the body. For example, Sefer HaChinuch is a famous work by one of the early great Torah scholars, a Levite from Barcelona. It isn’t entirely clear who its author was, but we know he lived around the time of the Rashba, about seven hundred years ago, and was among the Rashba’s students. In any case, Sefer HaChinuch is a wonderful book that presents the 613 mitzvos and explains the root of each mitzvah—that is, its reason. There it seems that the issue has more to do with the body. In other words, the Torah knows, and Hakadosh Boruch Hu, the true Healer, the Healer of all flesh, knows better than any doctor which foods are harmful to the body. As it says there, the body is a vessel for the soul. A Jew has a pure soul, but to fulfill his purpose he also needs a healthy body suited to that healthy soul. The Torah therefore knows what can cause harm. Sefer HaChinuch seems to suggest primarily that these foods harm the body, even though we don’t always

07:06 know what that harm is. The Ramban, who lived before the author of Sefer HaChinuch, says on the one hand that these foods can also harm the soul, though at times he mentions harm to the body as well. Then there is the Ibn Ezra, who writes very emphatically that the primary harm is harm to the soul. He explains that all these forbidden foods—the animals whose consumption is forbidden, and all the other details—are connected to the soul. They have to do with the psychology of the soul, with the traits of different animals. The Ramban says this too, but the Ibn Ezra states it more emphatically. He says it is solely a matter of the soul: the Torah knows the traits and the nature of every animal, and when a person eats an animal, its traits and nature somehow become connected with the person and affect him. That is why predatory, harmful animals with bad traits or habits can later have an effect on a person’s behavior. The Torah protects us by telling us what we need to avoid for the health of both body and soul. In any case, this is what great Torah scholars write. Of course, many great Torah scholars also explain that kosher and non-kosher food is not only a matter of reasons we can understand intellectually; it is also among the Torah’s chukim, decrees whose reasons are beyond us. This seems to be Rashi’s approach in his commentary on the Torah: a large part of the Torah’s dietary prohibitions belong to the category of chukim, whose reasons we don’t know exactly. In other words, they are decrees that the Torah has established: “I have enacted a statute; I have issued a decree, and you have no permission to question it.” Even if you don’t know

09:14 the reason or doesn’t understand the reason, it is, in essence, the Divine will, and a Jew fulfills the mitzvos because that is the Divine will. There is a verse in Parshas Mishpatim: “You shall be holy people to Me, and you shall not eat flesh torn in the field.” In other words, the Torah tells us: You are holy people. The Jewish people are a holy nation, holy people, and the Torah gave us all the laws of non-kosher meat and of eating in order to preserve the special holiness of the Jewish people. This is explained at length in many works by the great Torah sages. So we understand that there is something about kosher food that is connected to the holiness of a Jew’s body, the holiness of a Jew’s soul, and the faculties of a Jew’s soul—because we are holy people. It is not just a matter of a person’s physical health, or even just psychological health. There is something here that relates to the soul. “Holy people”—that is what we are speaking about when we speak of a Jew. A Jew is made up of both a body and a soul. But within the soul, as the Alter Rebbe explains in Tanya, there is the vital soul, the natural soul, which the Alter Rebbe calls the animal soul; and there is the G-dly soul, which is truly a part of G-d above. About this the Torah says, “You shall be holy people to Me”: for the sake of the G-dly soul, the matter of food, and what kind of food one eats, is also connected to the holiness of the G-dly soul and the connection between that part of G-d above and a Jew’s body. So that is the general point regarding eating. When we look at Chassidus, at the teachings of the Baal Shem Tov, there is a much deeper dimension to the whole subject of eating. And here we come to the subject of timtum of the mind and heart—spiritual blockage—which is a very interesting topic explained in the works of Chassidus.

11:19 It begins with a maamar of the Alter Rebbe that explains this subject. In Chassidus, there are two things: a distinction is made between timtum of the mind and timtum of the heart. As we said, the Gemara states, “A transgression dulls a person’s heart.” But Chassidus also speaks of a kind of timtum connected to the mind. So, as we said, let’s first try to understand what the word timtum means. Here it does not mean what people mean by it in modern speech—a kind of stupidity. Rather, timtum means a blockage: an emotional blockage, a blockage when it comes to the spiritual side of something. That is what timtum of the heart means, as explained in the maamarim of Chassidus. A person may understand something intellectually, in the fullest possible way. But when we are speaking about real things, matters of genuine understanding, the intellect must also affect the emotions. It must have an effect on the heart. For example, when a person studies and delves into the greatness of Hakadosh Boruch Hu, contemplating the greatness of the King of kings, Hakadosh Boruch Hu; when he contemplates “Taste and see that Hashem is good”—that intellectual understanding and contemplation must bring forth in his heart a feeling of love for Hakadosh Boruch Hu, awe of Hakadosh Boruch Hu, and joy in serving Hashem. As the Alter Rebbe teaches us in Tanya, there is a fundamental principle stated in the Zohar: the mind rules over the heart. Hashem gave a person a mind, an intellect, and with it a person studies, delves deeper, and broadens his understanding until he grasps a subject deeply and fully. And by nature, the mind rules over the heart. Once I have understood intellectually that something is true, right, wonderful, and great, that will bring a feeling of love for it into my heart. A feeling of awe, of

13:48 respect, of humility—all kinds of feelings and emotional responses to it. So what does timtum of the heart mean? It means that although I study, understand, and grasp the matter, and in my head, in my intellect, I understand it fully, nevertheless my heart does not follow. It is as though my heart is somewhere else. The heart is not moved by what the mind understands. And here I want to tell a story that fits very interestingly with everything we are discussing. The story is that in the year 5663—nineteen hundred and one and—three, sorry—the Rebbe Rashab, who was then, yes, the fifth Rebbe of Lubavitch, traveled to Vienna, Austria. He went there to see doctors about several health issues he had. He consulted and met with a number of doctors, including leading doctors in psychology, among them the famous Dr. Freud. The Frierdiker Rebbe, his son, who accompanied him on that trip, relates in one of his accounts a conversation between the Rebbe Rashab and the famous Dr. Freud. The question that came up in their conversation was: What is Chassidus? Dr. Freud wanted to know exactly what the Rebbe Rashab taught, what this body of teachings, Chabad Chassidus, was. And the Rebbe Rashab told him, among other things, that Chabad Chassidus teaches how to connect the mind and the heart, so that the things a person studies, understands, and contemplates will also guide the emotions of the heart. The heart, by its nature, is confused. The emotions are sometimes not in the right place, and it is the mind’s task to rule over the heart and guide it in the right direction, so that the emotions will be proper and pure, and so on. And as the Frierdiker Rebbe relates, Dr. Freud said something along these lines: “But the continent of the mind and the continent of the heart are two continents so

16:08 far apart. How can they be connected?” And the Rebbe Rashab told him: “That is precisely the purpose of Chassidus—to build a bridge connecting the two continents, or at least to connect them by telegraph wires.” In those days—we are talking about 120 years ago—there were not yet all the other forms of communication between, or what we might call worldwide communication. The one thing that had begun then was the telegraph. In other words, he meant that Chassidus seeks—and finds—the direction, the way for the intellect to influence the emotions in the heart. And that is one of the most important goals in a Jew’s life: to have the proper balance, so that what he understands in his mind influences the feelings in his heart. This is where food comes in. When a person eats kosher food, eats properly and in a fitting way—because if we go into the details, forbidden foods are not the only problem. The Alter Rebbe tells us in Tanya, and it is brought in many maamarim of Chassidus, that even when a person eats kosher foods, if he eats them coarsely, in a materialistic way, solely for the sake of appetite and pleasure, that too makes a person more materialistic and causes the timtum we are discussing now. So, according to Chassidus, timtum of the heart means that the heart does not respond to what the mind understands. Intellectually, I understood it fully, I grasped it, and it is wonderful and tremendous—but that is where it stays. It happens to all of us. We study, understand, contemplate, and—our intellect grasps the matter in the deepest, most wonderful way. But does it actually awaken in the heart a feeling of love for Hakadosh Boruch Hu, love for the Torah, love for another Jew, love for fulfilling the mitzvos? It doesn’t get there. It remains stuck, dry, cold. The heart

18:18 It stays where it is. And this is what our Sages mean when they say, “A transgression dulls a person’s heart.” That is timtum halev, a dulling of the heart. There are ways to deal with it, so don’t be alarmed. There are remedies. Chassidus explains the depth of the illness, and it also shows us how to heal it. But we’ll get to the remedies shortly. First, let’s say a few words about timtum hamoach, a dulling of the mind. There is something more sensitive, more subtle—what you might call a more subtle condition in a person—when it isn’t only the heart that is dulled, but the mind as well. Here, too, “dull” does not mean what it usually means in modern speech. A person can be clever, educated, and perceptive. So what does a dulling of the mind mean? It means that the mind understands, but there is something in the subtler, more abstract aspect of the idea that it cannot fully grasp. Every intellectual subject has its explanation, its analysis, its analogies and examples. But sometimes, especially with very spiritual ideas—and all the more so when we’re speaking here about Torah, about the wisdom and will of Hakadosh Boruch Hu, about Divine wisdom—there is something beyond the intellectual analysis, beyond the reasoning. I mean that there is something words and explanations can’t quite convey. There is a grasp of the idea beyond words, beyond its intellectual analysis: something of its depth, its more abstract aspect, the light of the idea, as it is called in Chassidus. That is really the deeper point—the “light,” spelled with an aleph. Being smart and understanding is not enough. Here you need a certain sensitivity, a special ability to grasp things beyond the reasoning and the outward explanation. And that brings us to timtum hamoach: sometimes

20:39 a person can learn and understand, have a good mind, be clever, sharp, and discerning, and be able to analyze a subject. But at a certain point, when it comes to the more spiritual aspect of the idea, its subtler, more abstract part—especially, as we said, in the study of G-dliness—there is Divine wisdom here, something beyond the analysis, where you need to be able to say, “Ah, yes, I get it.” There is a point here, a depth, something wondrous, and sometimes a person feels, “No, no, I just can’t—can’t connect with that point.” That is what is called timtum hamoach. To truly understand a spiritual idea, an idea in Torah—not to mention when we speak about the inner dimension of Torah, the teachings of its secrets, Kabbalah, and Chassidus, which speak about the greatness of Hakadosh Boruch Hu, the higher sefiros, the higher worlds, the oneness of Hashem, and the worlds’ utter nullification before Hakadosh Boruch Hu—these are certainly subjects of the greatest importance. There we need that capacity. The Rebbe Rashab calls it “intellectual devotion”: the mind’s devotion to what is beyond the mind, to the Divine light, to the inner dimension of the idea. When that is missing, it is called timtum hamoach. Now, a person may have only timtum halev. At the more common level, that is what happens: in my mind I do understand. Not only do I understand; sometimes I even light up. A spark, a certain clarity, lights up in my mind, and I’m moved and excited. I feel, “Wow, there is wonderful wisdom here.” You see the wondrous depth in the wisdom of Torah, the wondrous depth in Divine wisdom, and you’re very excited by it. But it stays in the mind; there is a disconnect. It doesn’t descend into the heart, as

22:50 we said—that is timtum halev. The heart is dulled by material desires, even desires for permitted things, and all the more so by forbidden things, such as forbidden foods, which cause this dulling of the heart. As we said, sometimes it goes further: a person becomes so immersed in permitted or forbidden desires that, from being so deeply immersed in them, the dulling affects not only the heart but also the mind. Then we have to look for ways to correct it, and Chassidus gives us remedies. There is a wonderful maamar that the Rebbe said on Shabbos Parshas Shemini in 5716. There the Rebbe explained beautifully the remedies for timtum halev and for timtum hamoach. I’m not going to go into every detail now; I’ll just touch briefly on the remedies the Rebbe gives there. One point he brings regarding timtum halev is a remedy stated in the Zohar. The Zohar says that a person’s heart is like a log. When you want to light a fire, a thick log won’t catch fire. But when you break the wood into small pieces, the fire catches. The Alter Rebbe brings this in Tanya, chapter 29, too. It means breaking the heart: a person takes stock of his life, thinks about himself and considers what he is doing, how he is living. Does he want to live like an animal, or does he want to live with a higher purpose? Reflecting on this brings a person a certain bitterness—not sadness, G-d forbid. Bitterness, a broken heart, a feeling that things need to improve. That breaking of the material coarseness is itself enough to break it, so that the Divine fire

25:04 of the learning, of the contemplation, of what you are studying, can penetrate the heart and begin to kindle it, to set the heart alight. Sometimes, the Rebbe says, it is hard to accomplish this through bitterness and taking stock of oneself. So the Rebbe gives another remedy as well. It is to study Torah, specifically deep subjects. Immersing oneself in deep subjects in Torah also has the power to help. The Gemara tells how Rabbi Akiva saw drops of water that had carved a hole in stone. Drop after drop made a hole in the stone. “Water wears away stones,” as the Gemara relates, and this led Rabbi Akiva to study Torah. The same applies in our lives when timtum halev makes the heart like stone. Then there is the water of Torah: studying deep subjects in Torah and, at times, saying many words of Torah. This wears away the heart of stone and gives us the strength for it to be healed, so that the Divine light can enter our hearts and warm us with love, awe, true joy, and genuine enthusiasm in serving Hashem. That is regarding timtum halev. Regarding timtum hamoach, the Rebbe quotes a maamar of the Alter Rebbe, which gives three very interesting remedies. They are three preparations to make before davening: giving tzedakah, going to the mikveh, and studying the inner dimension of Torah. Three preparations. The Alter Rebbe also explains the connection, and the Rebbe explains it in the maamar as well. Giving tzedakah matters because study alone is not enough. As we said earlier, timtum halev can be addressed through learning and speaking words of Torah. But since here the dulling has reached the mind as well, bringing about a change in the mind also requires action—especially the act of giving tzedakah. Tzedakah has the power to break down all the improper barriers within a person that prevent him from connecting with Hakadosh Boruch Hu. And then there is the mikveh.

27:17 So, as he explains, a mikveh has the power to purify a person when he enters the water and immerses. Chassidus explains that immersion is an act of bittul: one’s previous state is nullified, and the person becomes someone new. We see that a person converting to Judaism also enters a mikveh. A moment before, he was a non-Jew, and through the mikveh he becomes a Jew. All the more so for a Jew: going to the mikveh and immersing has a very special power to change a person from one state of being to another. And then there is the study of the inner dimension of Torah—Torah’s hidden teachings, Kabbalah, Chassidus. The G-dly light that shines there comes from such an exalted place that studying the inner dimension of Torah can also break through this dullness of the mind and kindle the G-dly light within a person. That, in fact, is the remedy for all these issues, both dullness of the mind and dullness of the heart. This is the good news we need to know: there is a power to correct all these things. Now, regarding what we’re discussing today—dullness of the mind and heart and their remedies, and how being careful to eat the right foods protects us, so that a person can have a healthy mind, a healthy heart, a healthy soul, and a healthy body, which is an extremely important point—I want to tell one story, actually two stories. The first is told by the Frierdiker Rebbe in one of his maamarim. It shows us how much what we eat and drink affects us. The Frierdiker Rebbe relates that in the time of the Alter Rebbe, there was a Jew who married off his daughter to a young man

29:29 who was a very great Torah scholar, and so on. He stayed with his father-in-law and studied for several years, as was customary in those days, when a son-in-law would spend several years studying while supported by his father-in-law. That is what happened. This young man stayed and studied Torah for several years, but at a certain point his father-in-law noticed that his son-in-law was no longer in the same state. He had grown cold in various matters of yiras Shamayim, of Torah and mitzvos. Something had weakened, and his father-in-law began to worry about what was happening, until he decided they should travel to the Rebbe. The father-in-law and son-in-law traveled together to the Alter Rebbe. When they arrived, they went in for yechidus, and the father-in-law asked for a blessing for his son-in-law. He said he felt that lately his son-in-law had developed a certain coldness toward matters of yiras Shamayim, to the point that he even had doubts about faith, may Hashem protect us. He was asking all sorts of questions that seemed to reflect doubts about faith in Hakadosh Boruch Hu. The Alter Rebbe told him to check the milk they were drinking. In those days, of course, they were in a village, where they milked the cows and goats and drank that milk. The Alter Rebbe asked them to find out exactly how the milking was done. When they investigated, they discovered that some of the milk they had been drinking was chalav akum—milk milked without a Jew present. Halachah specifically requires a Jew to be present during milking, and apparently there had been some laxity about this. They had not made sure that all their milk was obtained that way. Some of it had been milked without a Jew present, and the Alter Rebbe explained that chalav akum can, may Hashem protect us, lead to problems even as serious as doubts about faith. Once they corrected this and made improvements, his condition also

31:51 began to improve. It is a very moving and important story about how careful we must be with what we eat, and how it affects who we are and how we live, particularly our Jewish lives. The last story I want to tell is one I heard from my father, who witnessed it himself. I also knew the people involved. My father was involved in it too, but this is a true, firsthand story: I had the privilege of knowing the people it happened to, and it is connected with my sister, a"h. I had an older sister whom I was privileged to know. Her name was Chana Bilha, a"h. She passed away at a very young age. She was in the hospital—this was close to fifty years ago—and she had, may Hashem protect us, that illness. At the time, one of the doctors treating her was a doctor who had immigrated from Argentina, Dr. Daniel Krasnokoki[?]. He was a very, very special person. He devoted himself to my sister in an extraordinary way and attended to every detail of her care, and a connection developed between them. During that period, my father was corresponding with the Rebbe, asking for blessings and advice, and the Rebbe was kept informed of what was happening. Sadly, my sister passed away in 5736. That Jewish doctor stayed in touch with my father—may my father live many long and good years—and they would study together. My father told him, “I can’t repay you materially as you deserve, but at least let’s set a regular time to study.” And together they began studying Tanya. Before that, this man had been as far from Judaism as could be. He had been involved with all

34:20 sorts of idols and idol worship. He really was... And once he began studying Tanya—of course, it took time, and my father would sit with him for hours. I still remember the many hours he invested, studying together. Little by little, the doctor began to draw closer to Judaism. His wife, however, stayed where she was. She wasn’t interested, and whenever they discussed it, she would say, “I have absolutely nothing to do with this. It doesn’t interest me. I have a good, happy life; everything is fine.” Then, one day, my father came to visit the professor’s home and saw that the house was dark. Everyone... He opened the door and found everyone sad, with the house in darkness. It turned out that the wife was in a very serious condition. She had not slept for several days, and every time she fell asleep, something happened to her—some very dangerous episode that she couldn’t explain. They tried to find out what it was. Doctors, treatments—nothing helped, and it was getting worse and worse. My father persuaded them to write to the Rebbe. At first, she absolutely refused to hear of it. Why write to the Rebbe? What did the Rebbe know about her medical file? The whole idea was irrelevant. But my father insisted and managed to persuade them to write. A few hours later, the Rebbe’s answer arrived: “Kashrus of food and drink. I will mention it at the Ohel.” That was the Rebbe’s response. When my father returned there a day or two later, they told him that this was the answer they had received from the Rebbe. On the one hand, an argument began there about it: How did the Rebbe know? They had written their name; they hadn’t written whether or not they kept kosher. How did the Rebbe know that we don’t keep kosher? And what does kashrus mean? In short, there was an argument, an argument, and in the end, yes, the situation

36:14 Her condition kept getting worse, and the woman gave in. They decided to make the change in their home and keep kosher in the most thorough way possible. They brought in the kashrus campaign in Jerusalem—a group of Chabad chassidim who worked on making kitchens kosher—and went through the whole process: separating meat and dairy, kashering the utensils, and so on. Just a few days later, the woman suddenly said to my father, “It’s simply unbelievable. All the pains, all those problems—” She had become completely healthy. She told my father, “You see, the Rebbe is very wise. The Rebbe didn’t tell me he wanted me to become a religious woman. The Rebbe didn’t talk to me about t-t-turning myself from a secular woman into a religious one. The Rebbe wanted just one thing: that what we eat and drink should be kosher. That’s all.” Yes, but of course, each of us knows what happened next. Once the woman began eating kosher, not only did she begin to recover physically; of course, her mind and heart began to recover too. Slowly, the whole family—the parents and children—became observant of Torah and mitzvos. They took it all the way and reached the place a Jew needs to reach. So that is the story, and we need to understand what the weekly parsha teaches us: the wonderful power of being careful about what we eat, of eating the right foods. This is what the Torah tells us: by doing so, a person sanctifies himself. Later, after discussing the subject we’ve been speaking about, the Gemara continues: “A person sanctifies himself from below, and he is sanctified abundantly from Above.” When we are truly careful to eat in a holy, pure, and proper way, Hakadosh Boruch Hu also grants each and every one of us health in body and soul. “A person sanctifies himself from below, and he is sanctified abundantly from Above.” “You shall be holy people to Me.” May we merit to be people of

38:22 holiness, and through all this, may we truly merit, soon in our days, the complete Geulah that we are all hoping and waiting for. We are now approaching the month of Nissan and the days of Pesach. May each and every one of us have a kosher and joyous Pesach, and may the complete Geulah come speedily in our days.