Biblical texts on kashrut (Jewish dietary laws)1. What are the forbidden land animals, sea animals, birds, and insects? Why is each one forbidden – is any reason given?2. What are the “unclean” animals? Is it permitted to eat an animal that died of itself (meaning that it was found dead and did not need to be slaughtered)? 3. Why is the eating of blood forbidden? What implications could that have for the preparation of meat for eating? 4. What is the meaning of Deut. 14:21 – “You shall not boil a kid in its mother’s milk”? Leviticus 111The LORD spoke to Moses and Aaron, saying to them: 2Speak to the people of Israel, saying: From among all the land animals, these are the creatures that you may eat. 3Any animal that has divided hoofs and is cleft-footed and chews the cud – such you may eat. 4But among those that chew the cud or have divided hoofs, you shall not eat the following: the camel, for even though it chews the cud, it does not have divided hoofs; it is unclean for you. 5The rock badger, for even though it chews the cud, it does not have divided hoofs; it is unclean for you. 6The hare, for even though it chews the cud, it does not have divided hoofs; it is unclean for you. 7The pig, for even though it has divided hoofs and is cleft-footed, it does not chew the cud; it is unclean for you. 8Of their flesh you shall not eat, and their carcasses you shall not touch; they are unclean for you. 9These you may eat, of all that are in the waters. Everything in the waters that has fins and scales, whether in the seas or in the streams – such you may eat. 10But anything in the seas or the streams that does not have fins and scales, of the swarming creatures in the waters and among all the other living creatures that are in the waters – they are detestable to you 11and detestable they shall remain. Of their flesh you shall not eat, and their carcasses you shall regard as detestable. 12Everything in the waters that does not have fins and scales is detestable to you. 13These you shall regard as detestable among the birds. They shall not be eaten; they are an abomination: the eagle, the vulture, the osprey, 14the buzzard, the kite of any kind; 15every raven of any kind; 16the ostrich, the nighthawk, the sea gull, the hawk of any kind; 17the little owl, the cormorant, the great owl, 18the water hen, the desert owl, the carrion vulture, 19the stork, the heron of any kind, the hoopoe, and the bat. 20All winged insects that walk upon all fours are detestable to you. 21But among the winged insects that walk on all fours you may eat those that have jointed legs above their feet, with which to leap on the ground. 22Of them you may eat: the locust according to its kind, the bald locust according to its kind, the cricket according to its kind, and the grasshopper according to its kind. 23But all other winged insects that have four feet are detestable to you. 24By these you shall become unclean; whoever touches the carcass of any of them shall be unclean until the evening, 25and whoever carries any part of the carcass of any of them shall wash his clothes and be unclean until the evening. 26Every animal that has divided hoofs but is not cleft-footed or does not chew the cud is unclean for you; everyone who touches one of them shall be unclean. 27All that walk on their paws, among the animals that walk on all fours, are unclean for you; whoever touches the carcass of any of them shall be unclean until the evening, 28and the one who carries the carcass shall wash his clothes and be unclean until the evening; they are unclean for you…. 41 All creatures that swarm upon the earth are detestable; they shall not be eaten. 42Whatever moves on its belly, and whatever moves on all fours, or whatever has many feet, all the creatures that swarm upon the earth, you shall not eat; for they are detestable. 43You shall not make yourselves detestable with any creature that swarms; you shall not defile yourselves with them, and so become unclean. 44For I am the LORD your God; sanctify yourselves therefore, and be holy, for I am holy. You shall not defile yourselves with any swarming creature that moves on the earth. 45For I am the LORD who brought you up from the land of Egypt, to be your God; you shall be holy, for I am holy. Leviticus 1710If anyone of the house of Israel or of the aliens who reside among them eats any blood, I will set my face against that person who eats blood, and will cut that person off from the people. 11For the life of the flesh is in the blood; and I have given it to you for making atonement for your lives on the altar; for, as life, it is the blood that makes atonement. 12Therefore I have said to the people of Israel: No person among you shall eat blood, nor shall any alien who resides among you eat blood. 13And anyone of the people of Israel, or of the aliens who reside among them, who hunts down an animal or bird that may be eaten shall pour out its blood and cover it with earth.14For the life of every creature – its blood is its life; therefore I have said to the people of Israel: You shall not eat the blood of any creature, for the life of every creature is its blood; whoever eats it shall be cut off. 15All persons, citizens or aliens, who eat what dies of itself or what has been torn by wild animals, shall wash their clothes, and bathe themselves in water, and be unclean until the evening; then they shall be clean. 16But if they do not wash themselves or bathe their body, they shall bear their guilt. Deuteronomy 143You shall not eat any abhorrent thing. 4These are the animals you may eat: the ox, the sheep, the goat, 5the deer, the gazelle, the roebuck, the wild goat, the ibex, the antelope, and the mountain-sheep. 6Any animal that divides the hoof and has the hoof cleft in two, and chews the cud, among the animals, you may eat. 7Yet of those that chew the cud or have the hoof cleft you shall not eat these: the camel, the hare, and the rock badger, because they chew the cud but do not divide the hoof; they are unclean for you. 8And the pig, because it divides the hoof but does not chew the cud, is unclean for you. You shall not eat their meat, and you shall not touch their carcasses.9Of all that live in water you may eat these: whatever has fins and scales you may eat. 10And whatever does not have fins and scales you shall not eat; it is unclean for you. 11You may eat any clean birds. 12But these are the ones that you shall not eat: the eagle, the vulture, the osprey, 13the buzzard, the kite of any kind; 14every raven of any kind; 15the ostrich, the nighthawk, the sea gull, the hawk of any kind; 16the little owl and the great owl, the water hen 17and the desert owl, the carrion vulture and the cormorant, 18the stork, the heron of any kind; the hoopoe and the bat.19And all winged insects are unclean for you; they shall not be eaten. 20You may eat any clean winged creature. 21You shall not eat anything that dies of itself; you may give it to aliens residing in your towns for them to eat, or you may sell it to a foreigner. For you are a people holy to the LORD your God. You shall not boil a kid in its mother's milk. Kosher slaughter (shechitah)• method is a single quick, deep stroke across the throat with a perfectly sharp blade with no nicks or unevenness (Segal, p. 271)• removal of all blood – it is drained out of the animal and then the remaining blood is removed through salting or broiling • removal of the sciatic nerve (see Gen. 32:32: “Therefore to this day the Israelites do not eat the thigh muscle that is on the hip socket, because he struck Jacob on the hip socket at the thigh muscle”). Separation of milk and meat• based upon threefold repetition of “You shall not boil a kid in its mother’s milk”• includes poultry, even though birds are not mammals and thus don’t have mother’s milk • fish is not considered meat at all • extends to utensils and equipment in which meat and dairy foods are prepared, eaten, and washed • requirement to wait after eating meat before eating dairy foods Reasons that have been given for the laws of kashrut• holiness (“kedushah” – separation)• moral self-discipline • moral symbolism • health-related advantages – e.g., avoidance of pork means protection from trichinosis Moses Maimonides(Guide of the Perplexed III:48, from the Shlomo Pines translation, University of Chicago Press, 1974, pp. 598-601)What reasons does Maimonides give in the Guide for the various parts of the laws of kashrut? I say, then, that to eat any of the various kinds of food that the Law has forbidden us is blameworthy. Among all those forbidden to us, only pork and fat may be imagined not to be harmful. But this is not so, for pork is more humid than is proper and contains much superfluous matter. The main reason why the Law abhors it is its being very dirty and feeding on dirty things… The fat of the intestines, too, makes us full, spoils the digestion, and produces cold and thick blood. It is more suitable to burn it. Blood, on the one hand, and carcasses of beasts that have died, on the other, are also difficult to digest and constitute a harmful nourishment…. With reference to the signs marking a permitted animal – that is, chewing the cud and divided hoofs in the case of beasts, and fins and scales in the case of fish – know that their existence is not in itself a reason for animals being permitted nor their absence a reason for animals being prohibited; they are merely signs by means of which the praised species may be discerned from the blamed species…. As for the prohibition against eating meat [boiled] in milk, it is in my opinion not improbable that – in addition to this being undoubtedly very gross food and very filling – idolatry had something to do with it. Perhaps such food was eaten at one of the ceremonies of their cult or at one of their festivals. A confirmation of this may, in my opinion, be found in the fact that the prohibition against eating meat [boiled] in milk, when it is mentioned for the first two times (Ex. 23:19; 34:26), occurs near the commandment concerning pilgrimage…. It is as if it said: When you go on pilgrimage and enter the house of the Lord your God, do not cook there in the way they used to…. The commandment concerning the slaughtering of animals is necessary…. the aim was to kill them in the easiest manner, and it was forbidden to torment them through killing them in a reprehensible manner by piercing the lower part of their throat or by cutting off one of their members…. It is likewise forbidden to slaughter it and its young on the same day (Lev. 22:28), this being a precautionary measure in order to avoid slaughtering the young animal in front of its mother. For in these cases animals feel very great pain, there being no difference regarding this pain between man and the other animals. For the love and tenderness of a mother for her child is not consequent upon reason, but upon the activity of the imaginative faculty, which is found in most animals just as it is found among man…. What is Eco-Kosher?(by Arthur Waskow, http://www.shalomctr.org/node/1284)1. Traditional Jewish ethical categories about relationships between human beings and the rest of God's creation. • Tza'ar ba'alei chai’im – literally, concern for the "distress of those who possess life," usually understood as respect for animals. Some members of the gathering suggested it could be extended to prohibit growing animals under super-productive "factory farm" conditions, and then one step further, to prohibit eating meat from such animals. Still others suggested extending it to respect for the identity of plants – for example, by restricting the misuse of pesticides and genetic recombination, and then by prohibiting the eating of foods that were grown by such misuses. • Bal tashchit – literally, "not ruining" the earth. This norm began with the Biblical prohibition against cutting down the trees of an enemy – and then was extended to protect all trees and other aspects of nature, and even to prohibit the waste of furniture or other objects in which human beings had mixed their labor with the products of the earth. As the committee thought about bal tashchit, they suggested it might be further extended to prohibit poisoning the earth with chemical pesticides in order to grow food and to forbid the use of foods grown that way, in favor of the use of "natural" or "organic" foods. • Sh'mirat haguf. The protection of one's own body. It could be understood to prohibit eating foods that contain carcinogens and/or hormones, and quasi-food items like tobacco and overdoses of alcohol. This principle would also mandate attention to the problems of anorexia or overeating that cause us deep physical and psychological pain and make food into a weapon that we use against ourselves. • Tzedakah. The sharing of food with the poor. It could be extended to prohibit the eating of any meal, or any communal festive meal, unless a proportion of its cost goes to buying food for the hungry. Some of the committee pushed this approach even further – suggesting that in a world where protein is already distributed inequitably, it is unjust to channel large amounts of cheap grain into feeding animals to grow expensive meat protein – and that it is therefore unjust to eat meat at all, when the grain could be directly feeding larger numbers of human beings somewhere in the world. • B'rakhah and Kedushah. The traditional sense that those who eat must consciously affirm a sense of holiness and blessing. Traditionally, this meant that those who eat together literally pause at the table, before and after the meal, to praise God for the earth's bounty…. 2. A new kashrut that drew on the ethical strands of Torah would also demand that people make choices about how to observe. For example: Some might treat the principle of oshek (not oppressing workers) as paramount, and choose to use only products that are grown or made without any oppression of food workers (food, for example, from one's own backyard or neighborhood garden, or from a kibbutz where all workers are also co-owners and co-managers). Others might make the principle of bal tashchit (protection of the environment) paramount, and put oshek in a secondary place – perhaps applying it only when specifically asked to do so by workers who are protesting their plight. But there might also be some important differences in the way choices will work in an ethical kashrut, from the way choices work in traditional kashrut. In the new approach, there might be so many ethical values to weigh that it would be rare to face a black-and-white choice in a particular product…. • How would we develop rules of "kashrut" to apply to such non-food products, and how would we enforce them? • Does it make sense for us now to draw on the basic principles that we have already examined - bal tashchit, etc. – to set new standards for what we actually consume? So they began to look at several different areas of possibility: • Work. How do we choose what companies to work for and what work to do? Should engineers, secretaries, scientists, public-relations experts, nurses, be asking whether their work contributes to or reduces the danger of oil spills, ozone depletion, global warming, nuclear holocaust? Do Jewish tradition and the Jewish community offer any help in making such judgments? What help is most needed? How could the Jewish community, or parts of it, decide whether specific jobs were "kosher"? Suppose a community decided a specific job was not kosher? Should and could the community provide financial help – temporary grants, low-interest loans, etc. – to Jews who decide to leave such jobs in order to carry into the world their commitment to Torah? Should organizing toward such a fund be a goal of the Jewish community? • Investments. How do we judge where to invest money – in which money market funds, IRAs, etc.? What about institutional funds in which we may have a voice or could make for ourselves a voice – college endowments, pension funds, city bonds, etc.? Should they be invested in businesses that spill oil or deplete the ozone layer or burn rain forests? In the Jewish community, investment funds that might become "socially responsible" include community-worker and Rabbinical association pension funds, synagogue endowments, building campaign accounts, pulpit flower funds, seminary endowments, etc. How would the community decide which investments are "kosher"? • Purchases. Should we as individuals, when we choose which companies to buy consumer goods from, use as one factor in our choice the facts of what else a specific company is producing? Should we ask our synagogues, our pension funds, our city and state governments, our PTA's, to choose vendors on the same basis?... After long discussion, we decided to use "Eco-Kosher" because no alternative seemed as apt to express the commitment to Jewish roots and values and the sense of a continuous daily practice and discipline. At the same time, we decided to take two precautions: • to say explicitly that "eco-kashrut" stood outside of and independent from traditional kashrut, in a different rather than a competing sphere; • and to carry out this assertion by leaving on one side, at least for the present, the main categories of "kosher" and "treyf" products – that is, meat and dairy foods – and instead focus on issues and products not addressed by traditional kashrut. So we made ourselves into the Eco-Kosher Project. We decided to focus on four categories of individual and institutional purchase and investment: a) Fresh and processed fruits and vegetables. In terms of the ways in which they are grown, packaged, and marketed, which of these products are most sensitive to protection of the earth? b) Household and congregational consumables other than food – in particular, paper products and cleaning products. c) Finances – in particular, choices of where to place checking and savings accounts, investments, etc. d) No-cost or low-cost conservation and recycling of materials and energy. Assignment for April 17: Kosher food industry and ethical issuesRead:http://www.forward.com/articles/14157/ - “Agriprocessors and Beyond: The Forward’s Coverage of the Kosher Industry”: this is an introduction to the Forward’s coverage of the kosher food industry 1. Treatment of workers http://www.forward.com/articles/1006/ - “In Iowa Meat Plant, Kosher ‘Jungle’ Breeds Fear, Injury, Short Pay” – on working conditions at the Agriprocessors plant in Postville, Iowa. http://www.forward.com/articles/13910/ - “Slaughterhouse Accused of Child Labor Violations” 2. Immigration law violations http://www.forward.com/articles/13360/ - “Immigration Authorities Arrest Hundreds in Raid on Nation’s Largest Kosher Meat Plant” 3. Questions about cruelty to animals at the Postville plant http://www.forward.com/articles/4635/ - “Animal-rights Activists Take Aim at Glatt Kosher Meat Plant” http://www.forward.com/articles/11145/ - “Video Renews Beefs About Slaughterhouse’s Practices” http://www.forward.com/articles/12666/ - “Widespread Slaughter Method Scrutinized for Alleged Cruelty” 4. Heksher Tzedek/Magen Tzedek – a new type of kosher certification http://www.forward.com/articles/10733/ - “Rabbis Move Ahead With New Certification Plan” For more information on Magen Tzedek, see the webpage - http://hekhshertzedek.org/. Questions to consider as you read: 1. What are the range of issues raised by the industrial production of kosher food? 2. What sort of ethical judgment should be applied to these issues? 3. Should the operators of kosher slaughterhouses be required to follow ethical guidelines that go beyond the traditional rules of kashrut (in terms of how workers are treated, animal cruelty laws, immigration laws, etc)? 4. Should there be a new type of kosher certification? Write a brief (no more than one-page) discussion of these issues for Friday’s class – it will serve as the basis of our discussion of these issues |