Kosher, Not Passed-Over
20 Adar II 5771 / 26 March 2011
Rabbi Daniel Cotzin Burg, Beth Am Synagogue
Rabbi Samuel Dresner begins his classic book, The Jewish Dietary Laws (1966, with Seymour Siegel), with the following story:
There’s a new rabbi of a congregation who is taken aside by shul President and, in a friendly way, advised not to talk about certain topics from the pulpit: “Rabbi, I would not talk about Hebrew Schools – because the children have to take music and dancing lessons and need the afternoons for play. Also, I would avoid the topic of Shabbat observance – because in America one is compelled to work all the time and who has time for an entire day off. Finally Rabbi,” the shul president continues, “I would not discuss Kashrut – because it was only an ancient health measure, out of place in modern times and, furthermore, too much trouble for families to bother with in our day.”
The Rabbi is taken aback and surprised at this advice. He asks anxiously: “If I can’t talk about Hebrew School, Shabbat and Keeping kosher, what can I talk about?”
The President responds, “Why, that’s no problem at all Rabbi; just talk about Judaism!”
Beth Am, thank God, has always maintained a tradition of its rabbis using the pulpit to address challenging, even controversial topics – in fact, sometimes I think Jack Lapides would prefer it if I were a bit more controversial. Of these three topics, Shabbat is probably the one about which I have spoken the most often. And with our congregation’s search for a new Director of Congregational Education, I would say that I need not convince the members of this shul of the importance of having a great religious school, of inspiring the next generation of young Jews to connect with their heritage. Shabbos, Religious School… with these softballs out of the way I thought this might be a nice time to talk about kashrut. And, indeed this is, perhaps, a perfect Shabbat on which to discuss Jewish dietary laws….
First of all, this is Shabbat Parah, one of four special Shabbatot leading up to the festival of Pesach. Passover is a time to celebrate many things: Spring’s renewal, our people’s wondrous story of slavery and redemption, the importance of family. But, perhaps more than any other holiday, Pesach is a celebration of food: brisket, potato kugel and matzo ball soup. And Pesach is not just a celebration of food, but a reminder to us that our choice of foods (namely which foods we eat and which we do not) plays an important role in Jewish religious thinking. On Pesach, we are discriminating consumers, padding our shopping carts with the best that matzo meal has to offer. On Pesach, we eliminate all chametz from our diets, sustaining ourselves on unleavened bread. The hope is that by going chametz-free for eight days, we reawaken ourselves to our, at times, difficult past, as well as to the suffering of others in our day. In other words, we are aware of what we put into our bodies, and this awareness is meant to raise our awareness of God’s presence in the world. On Pesach, food becomes a gateway to divinity and morality.
But today’s parasha, Sh’mini, also affords us a wonderful opportunity to focus on kashrut, for this is the torah portion that deals most directly and comprehensively with the topic. We all know the basics: Jews aren’t supposed to eat pork and shellfish. Kosher land animals are restricted to those which both chew their cud and have split hooves, and sea creatures must have fins and scales. Animals have to be slaughtered in a particular way and the meat prepared in an equally particular way. Dairy and meat products are to be separated. Viewed as an assemblage of laws and dietary restrictions, the details of kashrut may seem arcane, even arbitrary. Perhaps some of you in this very room have felt this way at times. Others of you may have kept kosher your entire lives, and I suspect you have wonderful reasons for your practice. Whatever the case, I do want to draw your attention to a resource you may not have noticed before. In creating Etz Hayim (the Chumash which we use each Shabbat here at Beth Am), Dr. David Lieber took the opportunity to cull the wisdom of several wonderful scholars, asking them to address core beliefs and practices of our Jewish community. These missives are found in the back of the book. The essay on the dietary laws responds to the accusation that kashrut laws are arbitrary. Edward L. Greenstein, the brother of our own Cantor Ira Greenstein, writes the following: “…As in setting a table, what is important is not so much how the system is organized but the fact that it is organized.” In other words, it is hard to understand each detail of a system of practice, particularly one that many view as commanded by God, and we may never succeed in that endeavor. But we can look at the system, qua system, and notice that, at its core, kashrut is about lending structure to the basic human need for food.
In this way, kashrut is like many other aspects of Jewish law and tradition. As Dresner puts it, Judaism in practice is designed to “Hallow the Everyday.” This is what he writes: “When there is love and devotion between husband and wife, marriage is hallowed; when we vote for the ability and integrity of a man and not the favors he may grant us, we hallow our country; when we deal fairly with our employee, we hallow our business. The duty of the Jew is to lift up all of life to God, to hallow the everyday, so that all of life becomes holy” (The Dietary Laws, p. 17). Dresner was writing in 1966. How incisive and prescient his words seem to us today! Seen in this light, kashrut becomes a powerful tool to remind us of God’s relevance – not just in synagogue or during prayer services, but at several moments throughout the day!
In this way, Rabbi Dresner also debunks the myth of kashrut as an ancient “health measure.” Intelligent people need only to read the ingredients on a box of Manischewitz cake mix or schmaltz herring to know that kashrut is about holiness, but not always about health. Don’t get me wrong, I would argue that the more we know about which foods are healthier and life-preserving, the more we should seek out those healthier foods. For the Torah also says with regard to the mitzvot, “v’chai bahem,” and you should “live by them.” The preservation of life is surely a sacrosanct ideal in Jewish tradition. But, we should also not confuse this ideal with the particulars of kashrut. Kashrut provides the framework for “hallowing the everyday.” The rest is up to us.
But, of course, reverence for life features quite prominently in the ta’amei ha’mitzvah, the reasons for keeping kosher in the first place – and not just because kosher slaughter endeavors to avoid causing pain to the animals. Upon close examination of Genesis, it would appear that the earliest human beings, and animals for that matter, were all vegetarians. Eating meat was a compromise offered, after the flood, as a way of co-opting and re-contextualizing certain human desires. In fact, our Sages teach (Hullin 84a): “…man shall not eat meat unless he has a special craving for it, and shall eat it only occasionally and sparingly.” The logic goes this way: God says, “Okay, I see that you have a taste for meat. Here’s the deal… all of creation is precious to me. If you are going to consume the flesh of animals, make sure to acknowledge the Source of all Life, namely me!” This is probably why we are forbidden to consume blood, for blood is the anatomical “source of life,” the purest reflection of God’s handiwork. Just like politics and business, in other words, food consumption has the potential to bring out both our better and our worse selves. To put a different spin on Otto von Bismarck’s oft-quoted line: laws and sausages should ideally be made in a way that makes us proud, not ashamed.
A story from the Talmud (Bava Metzia 85a) well illustrates the heart of kashrut and the need to mitigate against blood lust. “Once Rabbi Yehudah HaNasi sat and taught Torah before an assembly of Babylonian Jews at Tzipori, and a calf being led to the slaughter passed before him. It sought to hide itself in his cloak and began to cry, as if to say: ‘Save me!’ ‘What can I do,’ said Rabbi Yehuda, ‘since it is for this that you were created?’ It was therefore decreed in heaven that because he had no compassion, sufferings should come upon him. [Some time later] a weasel ran past his daughter and she wanted to kill it. He said to her, ‘Let it be, for it is written,’ “God’s mercies are over all of God’s works.” So it was decreed in heaven that because he had pity, pity shall be shown to him. And his sufferings ceased.”
The separation of milk and meat also has implications for the acknowledgment of life’s sanctity. We may quibble about the particulars of the pots, stoneware and time to wait between eating fleishigs and milchigs… But look deeper and we discover a simple truth which all mothers intuitively understand: our tradition forbids an animal to be consumed with milk – the very substance which sustains life. By raising our awareness of the distinction between life and death, kashrut challenges us to think seriously and deeply about the source of our food, and never to take it for granted.
These are some of the many reasons why an initiative like Magen Tzedek is so important. At its best, all kashrut is ethical kashrut! And when there is slippage, when we see the details of Jewish law become unglued from their theological and moral underpinnings, we must rededicate ourselves to repairing the damage. As Rabbi Morris Allen, the creator of this Justice Seal has often said, the ritual aspects of kashrut are no more important than the ethical ones. But the flipside of that particular coin is that the ethical concerns should not distract us from the ritual either. Ours is a tradition grounded in the real and the tangible. That is why Rabbi Allen started his cleverly named “Chew by Choice” campaign. For those who might find the multiple layers of kosher living a bit daunting, he suggests starting simply – start by giving up pork products and move on to shellfish. Later, you might choose to buy only kosher meat and begin to separate meat and dairy into two distinct categories. In other words, this is not an all or nothing affair. Remember: Halakhah is derived from the Hebrew word, lalechet, “to go.” Jewish practice is a journey. The trick is to be making progress along the way. A teacher once told me, “we are all Jews by Choice.” We choose to allow the teachings of our ancestors to resonate within us, to carve out a place of meaning and relevance within the framework of Jewish life. Or, we don’t.
My hope is that we might use Pesach, its focus on food and food consumption to challenge us once more. And as we contemplate the meaning of parashat Sh’mini, that we might draw relevant conclusions as to the importance of kashrut throughout the year. It doesn’t have to be all or nothing. This Shabbat, and in the coming days and weeks, as we are still eating challah or bagels or pizza, let’s commit ourselves to do some thinking about kashrut. How might we reconsider the ideas of separation, the inherent value of creation and the distinction between life and death? How might we look to food consumption as a way of hallowing the ordinary, and remind ourselves that when we talk about marriage or politics or business or food, we are, of course, also talking about Judaism.
Shabbat Shalom.