There was this ring tone on phones when I was a kid called the “mosquito.” It was designed to be such a high pitch that adults couldn’t hear it, only kids could. It was a great way to send messages to other kids that you didn’t want adults in the room (like your teacher) to notice. Not that I’m admitting to performing any such antics myself of course.
It’s fascinating that such a thing can even exist. You see, our ears have tiny hairs that detect different types of sound. As we are exposed to enough loud noises in life, those hairs slowly die, and the range of sounds that we can hear gets smaller and smaller. Not just that you need to turn up the volume to hear it better, but there are literally sounds that become un-hear-able once you lose the right hairs.
The tragedy of losing a sense is that you don’t even know that you are missing it. There could be a tune in your favourite song that you’ve never heard to appreciate. There could be a type of bird that sings near your home in the spring that you don’t even know is there.
In this week’s Torah portion, Shemini, the Torah tells us which animals are kosher and which are not. The Torah explains that a consequence of eating non-kosher animals is ונטמתם. The basic translation of that has to do with “contamination.” But our Sages point out that the lack of an aleph in that word (which is part of the root word of contamination), means that you could instead read it as “become dulled.” That is, if you eat a non-kosher animal, it dulls your spiritual sensitivity. It blocks up your ability to learn and gain from Torah.
If you go to a shooting range without putting on ear muffs, you could damage your sense of hearing. If you eat food without ensuring that it is kosher first, you could damage your spiritual senses.
Keep your senses sharp so you can appreciate all there is to life. G-d created so much beauty in this world. It would be a shame to dull ourselves to the point where we don’t even notice that we are missing it.
Good Shabbos,
Rabbi A and the JET Team
