vort from the Rebbe on this week's parashah, Parashat Shemini. In Parashat Shemini the Torah talks about kosher animals and non-kosher animals, and it gives two simanim, two signs, which animal is kosher. One is that it chews its cud, and the other one is that it has split hooves. And then the pasuk says that there are three animals which chew their cud, but they don't have split hooves, and these animals are not kosher, because it only has one sign. Then there's one more animal which has split hooves, but doesn't chew its cud, and that's also not kosher because it has only one, and that is the חזיר, the pig. The other three is the גמל, which is the camel; the שפן, which they translate as hyrax; and the ארנבת, which is a hare. They chew their cud, but they don't have split hooves, they're not kosher. And the חזיר has split hooves, but doesn't chew its cud, it's also not kosher. Nevertheless, concerning the חזיר, the Or HaChaim HaKadosh brings that nowadays a חזיר, because it doesn't chew its cud, it is not kosher, but לעתיד לבוא, Mashiach will come, יעלה גרה, he says, it will start chewing its cud, ויחזיר להיות מותר, and it'll turn back and it'll become mutar. It'll get the second siman and it'll become mutar, and that's one of the reasons it says why it's called חזיר. חזיר comes from word עתיד להחזירה, חזיר from the word להחזיר means to bring it back, and it'll bring it back to being kosher. And the

Rebbe asks a question: why will the חזיר be zocheh to become kosher when Mashiach will come, and not the other three? It seems the same. The חזיר has one siman, and because he has one siman at least, so לעתיד לבוא he'll become kosher, because he'll get the second siman. Why the other three which also have one siman, the different siman, they have the siman that they chew their cud, nevertheless it will not become kosher? Why was the חזיר zocheh to become kosher, and they will not become kosher, they will be not kosher even le'asid lavo? And the Rebbe explains it not al pi peshat, not in simple halacha, but he explains it על פי חסידות, על פי דרוש, על פי עבודת השם. And he says like this: the difference between these two simanim, the split hooves and chewing its cud, is like this. The split hooves is a siman in the foot of the בהמה. It's a כשר סימן in the foot of the בהמה. Chewing the cud is a siman in the digesting system of the בהמה. Ruchniyus, what it means is, when we talk about a בהמה, it always reminds us of the נפש הבהמית, the animalistic soul, the yetzer hara, or as we call the נפש הבהמית of the person. When we say it's מפריס פרסה, it means it has split hooves, that means that in actuality, in maaseh, in physical, actual behavior, it is kosher, because the foot is the part of the body that touches the ground, is down to earth, and it walks on it. So that represents that it's kosher as far as the actual maaseh, down to earth it's doing the right thing. מעלה גרה, the chewing the cud, is talking about the digesting system of the animal, which ruchniyus means a person has to digest the good from the- Digesting means you separate the good from the bad. So, too, a person has to work on his middos, he has to see which middos are good, which middos are bad, he has to work on his character, he has to purify himself, he has to digest and separate the good from the bad in his character. And these are the two ma'alos a Yid is supposed to have. That's why these two ma'alos is a siman for kashrus, because a Yid has to work on his character and digest himself in a way that he will separate the bad from the good and have only good middos, and then also he has to work on מעשה בפועל, to do the maaseh, down to earth, to do the right thing. A

חזיר, which has the ma'alah of מפריס פרסה, split hooves, represents a person which does במעשה, in action, he does everything right. He's still missing, he's missing the refinement of his character, and that's why he's not a kosher animal, cuz he's missing part of what a Yid is supposed to do. The other animals represent a person who works on refining his character and he works on himself and he works on his digesting thing ruchniyus, but he doesn't have split hooves means it's not כשר in the מעשה בפועל. מעשה בפועל, when it comes to action, he doesn't do. And this is what the Torah is telling us. If you have מעשה בפועל, that is the עיקר, because המעשה הוא העיקר, it says in Pirkei Avot, the main thing is the action. So even though he's missing something and it's not good because he is not refining himself, nevertheless, he has the main part of Yiddishkeit. And that's why the one that has at least The split hooves will be זוכה that לעתיד לבוא, השם will make it כשר, he'll give the second מעלה also because he has the main מעלה he has. The other ones, which represent the idea that a person who refines himself, so to speak, but מעשה בפועל, comes to doing mitzvot and doing מעשה בפועל he doesn't do, that's something that's terrible, and that will not be זוכה to be כשר לעתיד לבוא. So the

bottom line is, the lesson from here is that המעשה הוא עיקר. We have to have both. We have to do the מעשה בפועל, פשוט do the mitzvot physically as you're supposed to do it. You also have to have the refinement, the digesting system, the refining of your character. But remember that the main thing is doing the מעשה בפועל. And that's seen here that the one that has the מפריס פרסה, the splitting of the hooves, will be זוכה to become כשר, while the one that only has the chewing the cud will not become כשר and remain non-כשר. And the lesson is, as we said, that you have to work on both, but the main thing is the מעשה.