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

48 THE ROYAL TABLE
those foods also contain a measure of that self-same es-
sence. This aesthetic appreciation
leads to the desire to
assimilate food. In eating the foods, the soul gathers to-
gether, as it were, the scattered particles of divinity which
are hidden in the inanimate, the vegetative, and the animal
life, and unites these sparks with his own soul.66 The
ultimate goal of the existence of the world is its return to
God the gathering of these particles, these scattered
sparks and their reunion with the One Fire, "for the Lord
thy God is a Consuming Fire." By judiciously choosing
his food, man can do more and more toward achieving the
goal of creation. Now the unclean foods are those whose
nature contains less of the divine; they are the more ma-
terial and gross; and hence man gathers fewer sparks
when using them as food than when eating the prescribed
foods which God's word has indicated as the more worth-
while, the clean, the spiritual, more akin in essence to the
soul of man. The dietary laws then become of supreme
importance in raising man to God, and in achieving the
ultimate goal of the world its return to its Divine
Source. 67
Rabbi Pinehas ben Jair used to say: "The study of the
Torah leads to care in one's acts to avoid sin; carefulness
leads to foresight, which avoids meeting the temptation;
foresight leads to cleanliness from sin; cleanliness leads to
temperance: temperance leads to purity of spirit; purity
leads to sanctity: sanctity leads to humility; humility
leads to abhorrence of unseemly behavior; this abhorrence
M As the Cabahsts would say DDmT wnpl jmso ina^
.nrnarai
91 What I call here the "lower" mystic view is that of the school
of Cordovero; the "higher" view is that of the Lurian mysticism.
See Cordovero Pardes Rimomm and R Chaim Vital: Shaar Hahakdamotk.