Fish Worms, Kabbalah, and the Rambam

If that title did not get your attention I don't know what will ;)

In case you don’t know the Orthodox world is currently in a fish worm crisis

My gut feeling was “kanaim who just want to make things harder” but that is not really fair because after all eating worms is not allowed according to halacha. (Assuming the fish worms don’t spontaneously generate) Right?

After a bit of thought I realized something. Worst case scenario what happens? You eat a worm something which is probably prohibited by halacha and then...

What are the consequences of eating fish worms that you never find out about? (skeptical answer: same thing as eating a worm on purpose - nothing, but this is a non-kefira post) You never know that you ate a fish worm or a strawberry bug what is going to happen to you?

This is where a bit of theology comes in. What is the purpose of the mitzvot? What “happens” when you break a mitzvah?

[Ignore spell check turning all my mitzvot into mitzvoth]

Put way too simply there are essentially two schools of mitzvah philosophy. I believe that depending on which school of thought you follow can radically change your whole attitude to halacha in general and this case in particular.
The Rambam is the best formulated version of what I call Rationalistic Philosophy of Mitzvot. The Rambam at the end of the Moreh Nevuchim attempts to explain the rational of every mitzvah. His focus is on the social and ethical effects that result from every commandment. Of course the Rambam stresses that the mitzvot are not contingent on his given reasons but still his basic philosophy of mitzvoth is that they have tangible effects on the people who perform them. This basic method is also used by the Sefer Hachinuch, the Ibn Ezra, and R. Hirsch.

Now the other approach is the kabbalistic approach. In kabbala the mitzvot do not always affect man visibly but may affect him spiritually. In other words doing a mitzvah or doing an aveira has a direct effect on man’s soul. In some kabbalistic systems the mitzvot and aveirot even affect the entire ontology of the world! In Lurianic Kabballa the coming of the Mashiach (which to him is the climax of a metaphysical process) is directly dependent on man’s actions and his correct performance of the mitzvoth.

Now take the case of an inadvertently swallowed worm. What happens? According to the Rambam probably nothing. Because the whole purpose of the mitzvoth is to have an effect on our behavior and our self control and things like that. The Rambam explains that the laws of kashrut are a way to learn to control our urges. If you eat something not kosher you have failed to control your urges and have lost out on an important ethical exercise. Swallowing this little worm however did not do anything at all because you did not know about it. Surely things that you didn’t know about will not do anything to you if the basic purpose of mitzvoth is to make you into a better person. Maybe you should take a look at the fish or strawberry in question and quickly check if there is a worm or not but all of this meshugas?

On the other hand in the kabbalistic approach eating the worm has fundamentally changed reality (somewhere in the world of sefirot or in your soul) Just because you did not know about it does not mean that it hasn’t done something. In which case it is extremely important to make sure you don’t swallow any forbidden worms.

I speculate that the kabbalistic philosophy of mitzvoth is sitting somewhere in the back of the minds of people who take this much care to insure that no “sin” gets done. A rabbi of mine in Yeshiva once said that aveirot create evil in the world. Although he was by no means a kabbalist he was obviously influenced by the kabbalsitic legacy in some way.

Either it’s the kabbala or modern day poskim simply don’t even bother to think about what exactly is the ultimate problem with an aveira in which case I think poskim should take more care to consider problematic cases on a more universal/theological level rather than just treating it so legalistically.

I know that virtually all people who compliled philosophies of the mitzvot stressed that the mitzva still stands whether or not the reason is gone, but still in fringe cases like this shouldn't a bit of hashkafa come into play?