Cohn, Jacob. The Royal Table - VWC: Faculty/Staff Web

BASES OF THE DIETARY LAWS 45
cated; similarly, by associating the immoral with the ugly,
men acquire the conditioned response of restraint from it.
"You shall not cut around the corners of your head or
destroy the corners of your beard. You shall not gash
your flesh, or tattoo yourselves. I am the Lord" (Lev.
XIX). By associating in a general taboo eating-with-theblood
with such practices as disfigure the body or mar its
beauty, the Torah established a feeling of repulsion towards
the first act similar to the normal aesthetic reaction of
displeasure
with the second. An animal which died of
itself is repugnant; and sensitive people will refrain from
eating it. By including animals not ritually slaughtered
but killed in cruel immoral fashion in the same class with
carrion, the same aversion is established toward the latter
which normally exists towards the former, and thus the
cruel method of slaughter itself becomes discouraged as
aesthetically repulsive.
Thus far we have been dealing with the ordinary sense
of the term "aesthetic." But there is a truer and deeper
meaning which is undoubtedly at the core of the prohibi-
tions which the Torah imposes on certain types of foods.
The nature of aesthetic contemplation is the identification
of the essence of the observer with the object enjoyed. The
soul, discovering itselj in the object, becomes merged with
it, and one with it. To things which the soul discovers
to be without itself, and with which it cannot be merged,
it reacts in two possible fashions: either neutrally or repulsively,
depending on the nature of the object. That
which is soul-like, then, is the beautiful; that which is
unsoul-like is ugly. The soul being strictly unified,
and hence when viewed externally, ego-centric, is at-
tracted by and attracts all things which are the same in
essence with itself, for in the last analysis these things are