This week’s Torah portion includes specifics regarding the laws of kashrut, or the kosher dietary laws. We Reform Jews of Temple Israel of Northern Westchester span a wide array of traditional religious practices, and our members make the choice to observe all, some, or none of the laws of kashrut.
The Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron, saying to them: Speak to the Israelite people thus:
These are the creatures that you may eat from among all the land animals: any animal that has true hoofs, with clefts through the hoofs, and that chew the cud—such you may eat. (Leviticus 11:1–3)
The text continues with specifics about the permissibility of eating certain land animals, sea creatures, and flying creatures (bird and bugs). This section of the Torah was written by the priests of the Israelite community, well before the 4th century BCE. The priests were concerned about keeping the sacred separate from the ordinary, and certainly from the profane:
For I the Lord am your God: you shall sanctify yourselves and be holy, for I am holy. (Leviticus 11:44)
The Torah provides a lot of WHAT is or is not allowed, but not much by way of WHY. Those of us who chose not to observe these dietary laws may wonder what, if anything, we can apply from these passages to our modern lives. But this is not new. For thousands of years, Jews wondered why consumption of some animal meats was allowed while others resulted in the consumer becoming impure.
The medieval scholar Rashi (1040–1105) understood that people questioned the laws, but indicated that those people were giving in to “evil inclination” by questioning God. Rashi would agree with the oft-used refrain from a strained parent of, “Because I said so.”
The ancient Jewish philosopher Philo (1st century BCE) tried to give meaning to the prohibition beyond “because I said so.” He suggested that humans grow in wisdom when they chew over what they have studied; like an animal that chews the cud. And that humans learn to divide and distinguish various concepts, just as the animals are divided by their “clefts through the hoofs” (The Special Laws, IV 97).
Other scholars would turn to allegory to provide explanation, as the Talmudic Rabbis did regarding the pork prohibition. It is known that, unlike sheep, goats and cows, pigs do not need vast fields to graze in and pigs willingly eat slop, meaning that pigs can be raised in the city. The Judean refusal to eat pork was a subject of Roman ridicule. The Talmudic Rabbis created a connection from Esau (who rashly surrendered his birthright to his brother Jacob), to the Edomites (neighboring culture to the Israelites), to the Romans (rulers over Judah at the time of the Talmudic Rabbis) to be dismissive of both the Romans and of any Jew who would sink so low as to eat pork (Bereshit Rabbah).
With thanks to Dr. Rabbi Josh Garroway of Hebrew Union College in Los Angeles (a rabbinic-school peer of Rabbi Jaech), Rabbi Jaech shared with us the Letter of Aristeas. Although attributed to Aristeas, a 3rd century BCE servant to King Ptolemy in Greece, scholars tell us the letter was likely written by a Jew living in Egypt in the 2nd century BCE. The letter gives us insight into what Alexandrian Jews at that time thought of the Torah, and particularly its dietary laws.
The letter encourages its readers not to take “the contemptible view” of the dietary laws. This statement alerts us that there were Jews living in that community who pushed back on the laws. Using the example of birds, the letter points out that flying creatures such as hawks, eagles or vultures obtain their food from unknown origins. They dominate the other creatures around them and may unjustly obtain (through murder or theft) their food source. Birds that are permitted for human consumption are “domesticated and of exceptional cleanliness.” We humans should also behave “righteously, in the manner of the gentle creatures among” us (Letter of Aristeas 144-148).
Reading the laws allegorically leads us to wonder if we need to observe the dietary laws, as long as we follow the moral behind the allegory. The earliest adherents to the religion that would become Christianity (who were also mostly Jews) thought not. The book of Matthew, in words attributed to Jesus, states:
. . . it is not what goes into the mouth that defiles a person, but it is what comes out of the mouth that defiles . . . what comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart . . . [and from] out of the heart comes evil intentions, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false witness, slander. (Matthew 15:11–19)
Many Jews living in America in the 19th century had also tossed aside the laws of kashrut. So many so that in the first Declaration of Principles of the Central Conference of American Rabbis—the organization that Rabbis Jaech, Fein and Sperling are all members of today—stated:
. . . today we accept as binding only its moral laws, and maintain only such ceremonies as elevate and sanctify our lives, but reject all such as are not adapted to the views and habits of modern civilization. . . [L]aws as regulate diet, priestly purity, and dress originated . . . entirely foreign to our present mental and spiritual state. They fail to impress the modern Jew. (CCAR 1885)
Rabbi Jaech says that, even if we do not follow to the letter the dietary laws found in the Torah, our choices can be informed by kashrut. What we eat matters and reflects who we are, and the ethics behind it are important. For example, in our community Rabbi Jaech was a driving force in having Temple Israel set a moral example by serving only factory-farmed meat.
What will you do with your choice?
The blog is Tara Keiter’s interpretation of the Temple Israel of Northern Westchester Torah Study session. Misquotes or misunderstandings in what Rabbi Jaech taught are the responsibility of Tara Keiter.