27 Aug REEH: POSITIVE FIRST

But this shall you
not eat from
among those that
bring up their cud
or have completely
separated split
hooves: the camel,
the hare, and the hyrax, for they bring up
their cud, but their hooves are not split —
they are unclean to you; and the pig, for it
has a split hoof, but not the cud — it is
unclean to you” (14:7-8)
The Torah’s listing of kosher and
nonkosher animals, which seems
somewhat technical, contains many
lessons beyond the mere details of what
we may and may not eat.
Rav Noach Weinberg zt”l, Rosh Yeshivah
of Aish HaTorah, who was directly
responsible for bringing tens of thousands
back to Yiddishkeit and an exponentially
larger number through his students, would
point out (based on a Gemara in Chullin
60b) that there is proof that an all-knowing
G-d wrote the Torah from the verses

listing the animals that chew their cud but
do not have split hooves, and the animal
that has split hooves and does not chew its
cud. Would a human put his credibility on
the line by predicting that at no point in
the future would a single animal that is
not on that list be found somewhere in the
world?
And indeed, some three millennia after
the Torah was given, and with all the
searching science has done for unknown
species, not a single such animal has been
found!
Aside from strengthening our faith,
however, these verses also teach us a
lesson in how to view, and relate to, other
people.
The point of the verses listing the animals
that have only one kosher sign is to teach
us that they are not kosher. It would seem
appropriate, then, to list the sign that
causes them to be nonkosher first. Yet we
see that the Torah lists them as the camel,
the rabbit, and the hyrax, which chew
their cud but do not have split hooves, and

the pig, which has split
hooves, but does not
chew its cud.
Why does the Torah list
the kosher signs of these

animals first if the non-
existent signs are the

only ones we really need
in order to label these
animals nonkosher?
A Midrash explains that
the Torah is trying to
teach us that even when
something is not kosher,
we should find a way to
mention something praiseworthy about it
first. Even something as treif as chazir
(pig) deserves to have its positive trait
pointed out.
If the Torah does so for nonkosher
animals, how much more do we have to
learn to have this consideration with
regard to people?
Bosses, employees, children, students,

coworkers, and neighbors will invariably
have some negative traits. It might be our
job, from time to time, to deliver a
negative message.
This Midrash is teaching us that even
when we have to deliver a negative
message to others — to tell them that they
are “nonkosher” in some way — we
should always find a way to point out
their positive attributes or qualities first.