By Rabbi Michael Macks:
To qualify as a kosher animal, the animal must have split hooves and chew its cud. Absent both signs, we automatically declare the animal as "impure," or not kosher. What's interesting is that when the Torah uses the term for split hooves (Vayikra 11:4-6), it glaringly does so in three different tenses: past (hifrisa- its hoof wassplit), present (mafris- its hoof is split,) and future (yafris- its hoof will be split.) Every minute detail of the Torah was arranged so intentionally, so what are we meant to learn from this? Rabbi Yissocher Frand explains that we learn from here that before declaring another person to be impure, we must know their entire story, past, present and future. When we see somebody act a certain way, all we see is the present, and we can never judge another person purely based on the present without knowing the entire story. Rabbi Michael Macks will be contributing weekly divrei torah as he is able |
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