This week's Torah portion teaches us the importance of eating only kosher foods. It says that eating non-kosher food will cause our spiritual awareness to dull. This sounds very strange. How can this be true in practical Jewish life?

     A dear friend of mine told me this story. His son was not yet three years old. The boy was born with a spiritual gift. More than anything, he loved to say Psalms with his father. He would call out, "Abba, say a psalm," and his father would say a word of Psalms, and the little boy would repeat it. He loved it.

     One day his mother took the boy to a birthday party, and while she was in the other room the hostess served some treats. When she came back into the room, she heard that her son had a glass of Milk, and that it was "chalev stam," not "chalev Israel".

     To explain: all milk that comes from a kosher animal is permitted, but when the rabbis saw that many non-Jews watered down their milk to be able to sell more of it, and then added non-kosher milk to thicken it back up, the rabbis made a rule that we can only drink milk that was seen to have been milked from a kosher animal and nothing added. This is called "chalev Israel," (Israel Milk). Along came pasteurized milk (General Milk- "chalev stam") when the government testifies that it has no additives, so some rabbis say, if you cannot find "Israel milk," you can drink "pasteurized milk - Chalev Stam). Chassidus strongly says, do not drink that kind of milk or it will "cover your spiritual heart."

     Back to the little boy who drank the chalev stam: The mother told me that the boy had a spiritual change! The father told me that from that day on the boy never liked to say Psalms with his father again!!! The boy was less than three years old and had no idea of the laws of Jewish milk, yet this spiritual covering came!

     All of Hashem's laws have both spiritual and physical results. Be careful. Even if you do not understand them, they are for our own benefit.