Parshat Matot 5768
© Rabbi David Lapin, 2008 - http://iawaken.org
Contaminating Flavors
Gourmet chefs know how flavors retained in the walls of their cooking utensils can contaminate dishes. Cultures such as the Japanese, with highly developed taste senses, will often keep their utensils for specific foods and wash them up separately. We too are sensitive to flavor, but as the Nation of Hashem, we are more concerned about the pollutant flavors of Issur and Tumah (two different forms of negative spiritual energy that can attach to food and utensils) than we are about culinary contamination. Hashem teaches Benei Yisrael in this week’s Parsha, how to cleanse the utensils of Midyan of those spiritual contaminants to make them fit for Jewish usage. These laws are the foundation of our laws of the kashrut of keilim (utensils):
Laws of Kashrut of Keilim
If a keili (utensil) contains non-kosher food, not only may we not eat that food, but we may also not use that utensil for hot kosher food if the non-kosher food it previously contained was hot. The reason is because flavor is absorbed in the sides of the keili, and ta’am ke’ikkar - flavor has the spiritual and halachik properties of the food itself.
There is a way to repair that keili and make it fit for kosher use. The parsha teaches us a second principle, keboll’oh kach polltoh - a keili will discharge the flavors it has absorbed if the same level of heat is applied to it as was used when it absorbed the non kosher food’s flavors initially. So a pot in which non-kosher was cooked (in liquid) will discharge those flavors if it is immersed in boiling water. This is called hag’allah.
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