When we imagine religious life, we often picture moments that feel clearly sacred: prayer in the synagogue, kiddush on Friday night, retelling the Exodus at the Seder table.
Parshat Shmini begins in just such a setting. The Mishkan has just been inaugurated. Divine fire consumes the offering on the altar—and the people, witnessing the clear sign of God’s presence, cry out and fall on their faces.
But then the parsha turns in an unexpected direction: from the sanctuary to the kitchen. It details the laws of kosher animals, which may be eaten and which may not.
The juxtaposition is surprising. What do the Mishkan and dietary laws have to do with one another?
The answer lies in the language the Torah uses for both. The sanctuary is the ultimate place of kedusha, or holiness. Yet when the Torah concludes the kosher laws, it declares: “You shall be holy, for I am holy” (Leviticus 11:44). Both the sanctuary and food, the Torah is suggesting, can be sacred.
This reflects a deeper principle within Judaism. As Rabbi Jonathan Sacks often observed, the Torah does not seek holiness by withdrawing from ordinary life. Instead, it locates holiness within it. Everyday actions, when shaped by awareness of God, are not secular. They are the primary arena of religious life.
Kashrut gives that idea a practical shape. It does more than regulate what appears on our plates. It shapes an entire chain of everyday acts: choosing what to buy, reading labels in the supermarket, preparing our food, setting the table, even washing our dishes. Otherwise routine acts are elevated by spiritual awareness.
The Hasidic masters gave this idea a name: avodah be-gashmiyut—serving God through physical life. The goal of religious life, they taught, is not to escape the material world, but to elevate it. The material world contains immense spiritual potential, with hidden sparks revealed when we live lives of holiness.
Jewish practice gives this idea another simple daily form: the blessing before and after we eat. Reciting a blessing reframes an ordinary physical act as an encounter with God’s generosity. What began in the Mishkan now continues at the table.
The sanctuary reveals God’s presence. The table is where we learn to live with it.
Rabbi Dr. Tzvi Sinensky is director of the Rabbi Norman Lamm Legacy digital archive and director of Judaic Studies at Main Line Classical Academy. A member of the inaugural cohort of Sacks Scholars, he has edited over fifty books. He also publishes Reasonable Judaism on Substack and hosts a daily WhatsApp Torah audio series, From the Beginning.
This essay was written as part of our collaboration with The Rabbi Sacks Legacy Sacks Scholars.
