The Blogs: Parshat Shemini -- שמיני | Dov Lederberg

The Torah commands us not to eat and digest certain animals because their life force is bound with the סטרא אחרא Extraneous Side which can not be elevated and causes our soul to be blemished.

The Belly of the Serpent

Within the Parsha is the phrase: כֹּל הוֹלֵךְ עַל-גָּחוֹן. “All creatures that crawl on their belly…” Vayikra (11:42) It is remarkable that the vav in the word: גחון (belly) is written with a larger emphasized font and is the exact middle letter of the entire Torah and can be regarded as the axle around which all the other letters revolve. The phrase refers to the Serpent who obscures our search for the Light Beyond, with its hatched net: “The Skin of the Serpent” משכא דחויא, a kabbalistic metaphor for our mundane “reality”. The vav, called the “letter of truth”, pierces through this skin transforming the Serpent נחש into Moshiach-Messiah משיח sharing the same gematria: 358.

http://kabbalahart.byethost4.com/Parsha.html

Video Art – The Letter Vav – Influx and Connection