Chapter 8: What We Take In: Forbidden Food, Idle Talk and Secular Wisdom

In chapter 7 we learned that permitted food eaten for the sake of Heaven is raised up: its life rises and clothes itself in the Torah study and prayer that its energy fuelled. Now the Alter Rebbe adds that forbidden food cannot be raised at all. That is the meaning of its name. Issur means “bound”: its life is held captive by the three impure kelipos and cannot be released.

Look at the case he chooses. The person did not know. His intention was for the sake of Heaven, and he really did learn and pray with that strength. Even so, the food stays what it is. Most sins are something a person does. Forbidden food is something he takes in, and it becomes part of him. That is why even an innocent mistake does not free it.

The rule holds even when the prohibition is only rabbinic, because, in the Mishnah’s words, the Sages’ enactments are treated with even greater severity than Torah law itself.

Since the two kinds of food come from two sources, so do the two kinds of desire. The craving for what is forbidden comes from the same place as the forbidden things themselves, the three impure kelipos. It is called a “non-Jewish demon” because it is foreign to a Jew’s nature. A Jew’s animal soul comes from kelipas nogah, so its natural pull is toward the permitted. The foreign craving is acquired: a person who sinks himself in permitted pleasures can become so coarse that he begins to want the forbidden too.

The pull toward the permitted is called a “Jewish demon.” It is still a demon: until the person turns what he ate to holiness, it is sitra achra. But it can be redeemed. When he returns to learning and serving G‑d, the energy of that food rises.

Then comes a sobering point. Even after it has been raised, something stays behind. What was eaten purely for pleasure was on the wrong side when it was eaten, and in that moment it already became his flesh and blood. Teshuvah raises the energy to holiness, but a physical trace remains in the body itself.

That trace in the body has to be cleansed, and the body itself is cleansed after the soul has left it. That is chibut hakever. It is not that the body is bad. Its purpose is to reflect G‑d’s goodness, and it becomes impure only through what it was used for.

The exception is Rabbi Yehudah HaNasi, who at his passing said that he had not enjoyed this world even with his little finger. The phrase can be read two ways. Either he truly took no pleasure, or his pleasure was “not of this world,” because everything he did was for the sake of Heaven.

The second reading matters. Not enjoying this world does not have to mean refusing every pleasure. It can mean that the pleasure itself belongs to serving G‑d.

What eating does to the body, speech does to the soul. Why does the Alter Rebbe take the case of someone who cannot study? Because for anyone who can, the duty to learn never stops, so idle talk is not permitted for him. For one who cannot, empty talk with nothing forbidden in it is permitted. It belongs to kelipas nogah.

Even so, it leaves its mark, and the soul must be cleansed by kaf hakela. The image comes from the verse “the souls of your enemies He shall sling out, as from the hollow of a sling” (I Shmuel 25:29), which the Talmud describes as souls hurled across the world from end to end. What that means: the soul is tossed between two poles. At first it is made to see how true and how dear holiness is. Then it is thrown back into the empty thoughts and words it filled itself with in this world. That contrast is painful.

Eating is bodily, so the body is cleansed. Speech is finer, so the soul is. And there is a simple remedy. The Previous Rebbe taught (Hayom Yom, 7 Teves) that reciting words of Torah by heart while going about one’s day, such as Chumash, Mishnah, Tehillim or Tanya, protects from this, besides its own worth as Torah study.

Permitted idle talk is like dust on a garment. Shake it hard enough and it comes out. Forbidden speech is like a stain: no amount of shaking will remove it. It needs washing. That is Gehinom, a deeper cleansing for a deeper stain.

The second case is striking. The words themselves are not forbidden. But for someone who could have been learning, they took the place of Torah. For him they are not innocent chatter but bittul Torah, neglect of Torah study, so the hollow of a sling alone cannot cleanse them. One way to see why the punishment is so severe: Torah study is equal to all the other mitzvos together, and this time was taken from it.

On top of that comes the general punishment for any positive mitzvah left undone through laziness. Gehinom works measure for measure. Sins done in the heat of desire are cleansed with fire. Sins of omission, which come from coldness and lack of feeling, are cleansed with snow.

By the wisdom of the nations the Alter Rebbe means the secular sciences. First, a plain point of law: time spent on them instead of Torah counts as idle talk.

Then a deeper point. The soul’s powers follow the four elements, as chapter 1 explained, and the emotions come from its element of air. Empty chatter engages the emotions and drags them into the animal soul’s own “air.” It never reaches the intellect, because nonsense needs no intellect. Anyone can talk that way.

Secular wisdom does reach the intellect. Unlike idle chatter, it engages chochmah, binah and da’as. But its source is only the “back side” of holy wisdom, which fell in the breaking of the vessels, and it carries the impurity of kelipas nogah into the mind. That is the text’s reason. One way to put it in everyday terms: these sciences describe what things are and how they work, but leave out why, and the Creator behind them. Taken in for their own sake, they shape the mind itself.

So idle talk stains the heart, but secular study can stain the mind. And since the mind is meant to rule the heart, that is the deeper stain.

There are two ways to turn secular wisdom into a tool. The first is a living: a person learns a skill to support himself comfortably so that he can serve G‑d. The second is to use the knowledge itself for Torah, such as using mathematics to understand the laws of sanctifying the new moon.

One way to see the two ways: they match the two ways of eating in chapter 7. A living from a skill is like food that gives strength for a mitzvah. Using the knowledge for Torah is like the food of Shabbos, where the eating is itself part of the mitzvah.

That is why the Rambam and the Ramban engaged in these studies. They knew how to use them for the service of G‑d and Torah. What decides is not the subject but what it is for.