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“You shall observe My statutes: You shall not crossbreed your livestock with different species (lit כלאים). You shall not sow your field with a mixture of seeds, and a garment which has a mixture of sha’atnez shall not come upon you.” (Vayikra 19:9)
Translation (Otzrot haRe’iah, Vol. 2 pg. 165)
It is common to classify human activities and worldly affairs into two categories – natural and artificial. The natural order is laudable and worthy of preservation. Great destruction results when human artifice encroaches on the domain of the natural. It is not surprising that according to contemporary medicine, many illnesses result when people distance themselves from a natural, healthy manner of living.
One might ask – doesn’t Judaism teach that Hashem created the world “to do” (lit. לעשות),z[1] to develop and attain greater perfection? Jews do not embrace an attitude of quietism and indifference to human welfare, nor acquiesce to disease and suffering! The answer is as follows. G-d has charged us with improving the natural world that is His handiwork, and our ability to do so is itself a Divine gift, one that G-d has created as part of the natural order. But the natural order must still be given its due, and allowed to operate in its rightful domain, without being destroyed or artificially restrained.
For this reason, the Torah limits our ability to transform the natural world by the prohibitions of kilayim, or forbidden mixtures. This encompasses the prohibitions against shatnez and also cross-breeding different species of animals or plants. These laws are intended to inculcate a certain level of respect and regard for the natural order.
The natural order encompasses not just the physical world, but also one’s inner world. It follows that the laws of kilayim have profound ethical implications. Part of human nature is an inborn aptitude for supernal goodness and righteousness, for love and fear of G-d and the supreme pleasure of Divine closeness. We are prevented from tapping into our holy nature by an inner clamor of foolishness that we allow to enter our hearts (lit. המון הבלים שמכניס בלבו), but once these foreign voices are silenced, our inner holiness will emerge. This is indeed the highest level of holiness – that a person not despoil his inner, natural goodness.
Commentary and Food For Thought
A. Rav Kook did not innovate the idea that kilyaim is rooted in a certain regard for the natural order. It already appears in the Ramban, [2] who writes that “G-d created his world in a state of completeness (lit. שלימות). Someone who brings forth new species by cross-breeding or grafting is effectively declaring that G-d did not do a good enough job, that His handiwork is incomplete.” Maharal [3] takes issue with the Ramban, noting that according to many Midrashim, G-d indeed did leave his handiwork ‘unfinished’ for humanity to improve upon. One of the sources he quotes is the following well-known midrash: Once the evil [Roman governor] Turnus Rufus asked Rabbi Akiva, ‘Whose deeds are greater – God’s or man’s?’ He replied, ‘Man’s deeds are greater.’… [Turnus Rufus] then asked, ‘Why do you circumcise yourselves?’ Rabbi Akiva replied, ‘I knew that that was the point of your question, and therefore I answered in the first place that man’s deeds are greater than God’s.’ Rabbi Akiva brought him grains of wheat and some bread, and said: ‘These grains of wheat are God’s handiwork, and the bread is the handiwork of man. Is the latter not greater than the former?’
Rav Kook seems to address Maharal’s difficulty head-on. He posits that human creativity is allowed, but there are some boundaries within which nature must be given its due. Could there be another solution to Maharal’s question? R. Dr. Abraham [4] suggests that Ramban would allow using, modifying, and improving pre-existing forms and entities. Creative activity is only forbidden when one fails to respect distinctions between pre-existing forms. For example, using and selectively breeding horses and donkeys for manual labor is allowed, but we may never breed them to make a mule.
B. Rav Kook writes that our inner holiness becomes covered up by a “clamor of foolishness that we allow to enter our hearts.” The idea of Jews [5] possessing an inner goodness is heavily rooted in Kabbalistic and Chasidic sources (i.e. the ‘pintele Yid’). Contrast this with the approach popular among certain schools of the Mussar movement, which cast religious life as a constant struggle and the body as the ‘prison of the soul.’ Physical desires are to be suppressed and feared, and worldly affairs are either an illusion or indulged as a necessary evil. Only in matters of the soul does man realize his or her true self, and even then, only by constant struggle and self-denial.
Rabbi Yuval Cherlow, a contemporary rabbi in the Israeli religionist Zionist community, believes that this viewpoint is growing in popularity and is entirely foreign to the Torah’s true spirit. In his words, “Orthodox Judaism is slowly abandoning the Torah’s unique view of the image of G-d in Man. In its place, an ever more dominant religious view encourages Man to see himself as “a worm and not a man”… The responsibility which Man should shoulder gives way to self-negation and self-annihilation… The religious world is inching closer and close to something akin to Puritanism, constantly fighting against the aesthetic aspects of reality. It is slowly adopting worldviews which originated in the schools of through of the extreme Mussar movements, and denying itself.” [6]
C. Aside from Rav Kook, Rav Soloveitchik is one of the few modern Jewish thinkers who assigns spiritual value to man’s efforts to improve the natural world. Two representative passages:
- “As long as we were exposed to such a soulless, impersonal confrontation on the part of non-Jewish society [in exile and before Emancipation], it was impossible for us to participate to the fullest extent in the great universal creative confrontation between man and the cosmic order. The limited role we played until modern times in the great cosmic confrontation was not of our choosing. Heaven knows that we never encouraged the cruel relationship which the world displayed toward us. We have always considered ourselves an inseparable part of humanity and we were ever ready to accept the divine challenge, מלאו את הארץ וכבשוה, “Fill the earth and subdue it,” [7] and the responsibility implicit in human existence. We have never proclaimed the philosophy of contemptus [contempt of the world] or odium seculi [scorn of the secular]. We have steadily maintained that involvement in the creative scheme of things is mandatory.” (Confrontation, Tradition 6:2)
- “Dignity of man… cannot be realized as long as he has not gained mastery over his environment. For life in bondage to insensate elemental forces is a non-responsible and hence an undignified affair. Men of old who could not fight disease and succumbed in multitudes to yellow fever or any other plague with degrading helplessness could not lay claim to dignity. Only the man who builds hospitals, discovers therapeutic techniques, and saves lives is blessed with dignity . . . The brute is helpless, and therefore not dignified. Civilized man has gained limited control of nature and has become in certain respects her master, and with his mastery he has attained dignity as well. His mastery has made it possible for him to act in accordance with his responsibility.” (Lonely Man of Faith, pg. 16-17)
Questions for Reflection and Discussion
- Rav Kook writes that nature (both human and otherwise) deserves a certain level of respect. How well do you think modern science/technology lives up to that expectation?
- How is Rav Kook’s explanation of kilayim similar to the Ramban? How is it different?
- Rav Kook writes that we are “prevented from tapping into our holy nature by an inner clamor of foolishness that we allow to enter our hearts.” How do we silence those impediments? What gets in the way of our ability to do so?
- As noted above, some approaches to avodat Hashem emphasize self-denial and adopt a negative attitude towards man’s natural, physical inclinations. Rav Kook disagrees and argues that man possesses an innate, inner holiness. What are some practical differences in terms of how these approaches play out?
- How is Rav Kook’s approach to the spiritual value of human creativity different from that of Rav Soloveitchik?
- Is one of these two approaches necessarily right or wrong? Could each be true for different people? For different generations?
- When was the last time you felt a natural, inborn desire for or connection with G-d?
[1] Rav Kook is quoting Bereishit 2:3, which we recite before Shabbat Kiddush – ויברך אֱלֹקים֙ אֶת־י֣וֹם הַשְּׁבִיעִ֔י וַיְקַדֵּ֖שׁ אֹת֑וֹ כִּ֣י ב֤וֹ שָׁבַת֙ מִכָּל־מְלַאכְתּ֔וֹ אֲשֶׁר־בָּרָ֥א אֱלֹקים לַֽעֲשֽׂוֹת. The word לעשות at the end seems superfluous, and some understand that the subject is G-d himself – “And G-d blessed the seventh day and He hallowed it, for thereon He abstained from all His work [that God] created [for Himself] to do.” This is understandably an awkward translation. Rav Kook is following a tradition that the subject of לעשות is creation itself – i.e., the universe itself (and especially humankind) is meant to develop and evolve (לעשות) into higher levels of spiritual and material perfection.
[2] Vayikra, 19:19. “Rabbeinu Bachya, Rashbam, Ibn Ezra, Ramban, Seforno, and Sefer HaChinuch all offer the same explanation for the kilayim prohibitions (albeit with some nuanced distinctions), namely that mixing plants or animals constitutes inappropriately tampering with God’s creation.” Ariel Caplan, Genetic Engineering in Halacha – Part 3, (Kol Torah Journal, Vol. 19)
[3] Gur Aryeh, Vayikra 19:19
[4] Nishmat Avraham (Hebrew, 2007), Vol. 4, pg. 184.
[5] Or perhaps all of humanity. But this is a big topic, ועוד חזון למועד.
[6] In His Image (Maggid, 2015), pg. vii-viii.
[7] Bereishit 1:28.
