Explanation of Kosher requirements

this Link presents a balanced view on why God required his people to only eat certain foods…to simply say that unkosher foods are unhealthy is not the full picture and may not be true in all circumstances. Sometimes we need to resist the need to explain a directive from God in order to feel good about following it. Many things i ask my children to do or not do are beyond their comprehension yet they still must learn to obey…sometimes for their own sake, sometimes for other’s sake, sometimes for both, and sometimes because it is the law and even I don’t understand it. Here’s an excerpt from the devotional…

The laws of what is clean and what is unclean have to do with being able to participate in the Tabernacle worship system. We really do not know the reason some animals are called fit and others are not. The rabbis explain that the kosher laws belong to a category of commandment that has no rational explanation (chukim, חקים). Asking why a buffalo is kosher while a giant sloth is not kosher is like asking why the Sabbath is on the seventh day of the week and not the first day of the week or why the sun rises in the east instead of the west. Some things we have to accept simply because God says so. Who are we to question God? He decided that certain creatures are not food for His people Israel. That is completely within His prerogative.

God gave Israel the dietary laws to make them holy. Remember, the word holy does not refer to a moral/ethical quality. It means to be set apart. Israel is supposed to demonstrate to the world that it is a nation set apart for the LORD. One of the ways that the people of Israel are to do that is by maintaining a distinctive diet that, on some levels, keeps them separate from others. The distinctive requirements of the kosher diet have forced the Jewish people to cluster together in communities while limiting their potential interactions with other communities.

Some people regard the thought of eating an unclean animal as revolting. Personal taste preferences and appetites are the wrong reasons for avoiding unfit foods. Likewise, health reasons alone are not a good motivation for keeping kosher. A famous rabbi from the days just after the time of the apostles taught that a person should not say, “I think pork is disgusting.” Instead he should say, “I would certainly eat it, but My Father in heaven has forbidden me to eat of it, so I will not.”²

From First Fruits of Zion website