The second half of Exodus and the first part of Leviticus form a carefully structured narrative. The Israelites are commanded to construct a Sanctuary. They carry out the command. This is followed by an account of sacrifices to be offered there. Then, in the first part of this week’s Parsha, the Kohanim – the Priests – are inducted into office.

What happens next, though, is unexpected: the dietary laws are presented, a list of permitted and forbidden species, animals, fish and birds. What is the logic of these laws? And why are they placed here? What is their connection with the Sanctuary?

The late Rabbi Elie Munk offered a fascinating suggestion.[1] As we have mentioned before in these studies, the Sanctuary was a human counterpart of the cosmos. Several key words in the biblical account of its construction are also key words in the narrative of creation at the beginning of Genesis. The Talmud (Megillah 10b) says about the completion of the Sanctuary, that “On that day there was joy before the Holy One blessed be He as on the day when Heaven and Earth were created.” The universe is the home God made for humanity. The Sanctuary was the home human beings made for God.

R. Munk reminds us that the first command God gave the first human was a dietary law. “You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it you will surely die.” The dietary laws in Shemini parallel the prohibition given to Adam. As then, so now, a new era in the spiritual history of humankind, preceded by an act of creation, is marked by laws about what one may and may not eat.

Why? As with sex, so with eating: these are the most primal activities, shared with many other forms of life. Without sex there is no continuation of the species. Without food, even the individual cannot survive. These, therefore, have been the focus of radically different cultures. On the one hand there are hedonistic cultures in which food and sex are seen as pleasures and pursued as such. On the other are ascetic cultures –........

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