Our weekly portion פרשת השבוע deals with ritual prohibitions. Moses states which animals are eatable, and which are ritually unclean and unfit for a Jew to consume. Only that we have lost the meaning of his words and we barely understand what he is talking about. His world contained few animals and they are not comparable to the ones we have today. Since there seems to be no clear rule for his classification, we are unable to rebuild his system.
For example, wherever it is written ציפור tzippor [bird], it is kosher. What about עוף off (also bird, probably a bird of prey)? It is unclean. What about turkeys, unknown by Moses? A turkey is no dove nor a pidgeon acceptable as sacrifice in the Temple, yet Jews everywhere eat them without hesitation. The system has long lost any rational if ever had one, and serves only to establish two opposing mental categories: clean vs unclean, holy vs ordinary. That is whole idea of Judaism.
8 comments:
Distinctive rituals, especially concerning diet, have value for maintaining group cohesion. They limit socialization (and therefore interbreeding) with groups that adhere to different rules. That is their real purpose, so the actual details are unimportant - if Moses had said that we DO eat shellfish and DON'T eat scaled fish, it would have been just as good. Although they must have felt that there was a health basis for the restrictions - in a hot climate, pork and shellfish to this day are known to spoil more quickly than other foods (though in cultures where they are eaten they figured out other solutions for the health problems such as salting the pork).
Turkey is one of the few new animals to make it past the kashrut guardians. The rabbis always tend to err in favor of greater restrictions and observe the maxim that "everything new is forbidden". In order to be kosher, not only does the animal have to meet the requirements listed in the Torah, (cloven hoof, chew cud, etc.) but there has to be a continuous custom of the community eating that animal (thus what is kosher for Yemenites might not be kosher for Lithuanians). If for some reason the custom has died out, according to the rabbis it cannot be revived.
K
On the contrary K, details are super-important. As they say, the devil is in the details.
Whatever is not forbidden is permissible. There is no elastic clause in the Torah, no escape clause and nowhere does it say, "Warning: these rules are subject to periodic review and may be changed with or without notice."
The discovery of turkeys is a great example of an embarrassment to rabbis. They've had to admit that a turkey, by virtue of the fact that it is not unkosher, is ipso facto kosher.
Some have tried to revive the weakening rabbinic authority by inventing the notion of "kosher for some" versus "not kosher for others." But unless they can find a textual origin for "Yemenite Jews" and "Lithuanian Jews," they are shit out of luck and only digging themselves into a deeper hole as more and more God-fearing, Torah-observant Jews ridicule them and flout their silly pronouncements.
It's not true that rabbis "tend to err in favor of greater restrictions." What they tend to do is invent problems that don't really exist so they can invent solutions that aren't really necessary. The kashrut status of turkeys is again a prime example of a problem that doesn't exist (because turkeys are obviously kosher). The solution of examining whether there is an unbroken tradition of having considered them kosher is absurd.
If received tradition was going to be the standard for kashrut, the Torah would just say, "Everything you eat now is kosher. Everything you don't eat is not kosher. The end."
As an simple, agnostic goyim, I have often wondered why and how intelligent people put up with irrational, intrusive and expensive rules.
But as I get older, I increasingly think K's point is substantive, that the objective is really to perpetuate the genes of the in-group.
However, there is clearly a point beyond which the inefficiencies involved, the encouragement of magical thinking, and the blind obedience to irrational authority, all become unaffordable and counter-productive in a harsh and unforgiving world.
This will all be tested in Israel over the next decade, as the increasingly embattled pragmatists struggle to cope with their own leftwing 5th column, the expanding mass of religiose living on another planet, the Muslim demographic explosion, water shortages, a nuclear Iran, a hostile Egypt and Jordan, the inevitability of an immigrant-driven, virulent anti-Semitism in Europe, and the re-election of anti-Israel President Obama.
The fear amongst your friends, as we quietly observe this unfolding drama, is that for all your brains, determination and abilities,it may all be too difficult.
Anon.
The turkey was accepted because the rabbi's idea of "species" was different than the modern scientific definition, at least when it came to fish and birds. So, any fish that you catch that has scales and fins is kosher, even if it is a "species" in the scientific sense that is different from those the Jews ate before. Carp was unknown to the ancients but became THE Jewish fish in E. Europe. As far as the rabbi's were concerned, a turkey was just an oversized chicken.
K
J, wtf? Why did my comment disappear?
I dont know. Please send again.
>more and more God-fearing, Torah-observant Jews ridicule them and flout their silly pronouncements.
Who are these Jews? How do I join? Aren't they worried about sharing the fate of the Karaites, who were the last major community to act along these lines?
>This will all be tested in Israel over the next decade, as the increasingly embattled pragmatists struggle to cope with their own leftwing 5th column...and the re-election of anti-Israel President Obama.
Anon, here's the issue with that. Our foundational document is full of prophets, every one of whom said the same thing-don't worry about the Assyrians, Babylonians, etc.-God raises them up to punish you for your transgressions (idolatry, false worship and social injustice,) and will dispose of them as he pleases. Your main job is to do as you have been commanded, and don't worry about the Assyrians.
If we accept this to be true, well, what is Barak Obama, a nuclear Iran and water shortages compared to Assyria and Babylon?
If we don't accept it to be true, if the words of the prophets are just some interesting historic relic, like the Mari tablets, that we just happen to have preserved and followed for the last 2500+ years, well, then we're just a people like any other, and should follow suit and assimilate. I mean, if our foundational document is untrue, what reason do we have from keeping apart from others other than pure atavistic racism?
Certainly, there is a lot to be said for this second viewpoint, but I'd like to point out that all Jews living today exist thanks to their ancestors having rejected it.
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