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Sept. 30, 2005
Demystifying laws of kashrut
Some key dietary laws are put into a more contemporary context.
EUGENE KAELLIS
Ritual practices in Judaism have several levels of significance.
The background of some rituals can be baffling.
A ritual can be educational, reminding practitioners of their history.
It can be punctuational, marking the routines of daily life, or
dedicational, centring the concern of life with truly basic issues.
It can be sanctificational, hallowing or elevating a mundane activity;
traditional, reminding one of his or her heritage; inspirational,
reiterating the connectedness of all things; concentrational, redounding
through the senses and reducing distractions; associational, reducing
the often obsessive aspects of conjunction with the world; inventional,
serving as a repository for one's imagination. A ritual can also
be celebrational, expressing gratitude and joy.
The reason or history behind various ritual practices may seem quite
arbitrary and unconnected with anything in contemporary life. Yet,
when their history is explored and their origins exposed, they become
more meaningful.
A good case in point is the injunction that rabbis have interpreted
as a prohibition against eating dairy and meat foods in the same
meal. In its textual form, it is considerably more confined. It
reads, "Thou shalt not seethe a kid in its mother's milk,"
and it must have been considered important in the early days of
Judaism because it appears three times in an identical manner in
the Torah, once in Deuteronomy (14:21) and twice in Exodus (23:19,
34:26).
Although there were in place ordinances mandating the humane treatment
of animals and their relatively painless slaughter, in light of
temple animal sacrifice then practised by the Israelites, it seems
quite unlikely that this injunction reflected an exquisitely humane
attitude toward animals, particularly one that would require the
mother goat knowing about this particular fate of her offspring
and her grieving reaction.
Nor is there any evidence that this was a dietary health measure.
While there may be claims regarding the hazards of eating meat and
drinking milk at the same meal, those do not have to do with the
combination but with each food itself and are, moreover, of much
more recent origin (concerns regarding cholesterol, saturated fatty
acids, etc.).
More likely, the zeal with which this injunction was presented has
to do with avoiding practices common to idolatrous peoples living
in the same general area as the Israelites and offering rituals
that drew the Jews away from Mosaic law and prescribed practices.
That this "backsliding" was common among the Israelites
is amply attested to by the Bible.
In this vein, there is a logical explanation for the meat-dairy
prohibition. Maimonides himself speculated that "... probably
it [i.e., mixing milk and meat] is prohibited because it is somehow
connected with idolatry, forming perhaps part of the service, or
being used in some festival of the heathen. I find a support for
this view in the circumstance that the Law [Torah] mentions the
prohibition twice after the commandment given concerning the festivals...."
The prohibition that Jews render meat bloodless before consuming
it is probably also a reaction (in addition to the Noachide commandment
in Genesis 9:4) to the practice among Dionysian cultists of the
frenzied eating of raw flesh torn from an animal during orgiastic
practices performed at the time of a full moon.
The prohibition against eating pork may also have originated as
a reaction to an Egyptian custom of offering pork as a sacrifice
to Dionysus, a practice that may have penetrated Jewish life during
the lengthy sojourn in Egypt.
It must have been during this sojourn that Israelites learned the
art of making leavened bread. The Egyptians were the first to use
yeast to make bread and beer. Their finding was purely empirical
– they had no knowledge of microbiology or biochemistry. It
is probably the identification of leavened bread with Egypt and,
therefore slavery, that eating it is prohibited during the seven
days of Passover. (Exodus 12:15)
To avoid any possibility of leavening from naturally occurring yeast
in flour, matzah must be completely baked within 18 minutes after
the flour and water are mixed. Exodus 33:34 states that the Israelites
fled Egypt so hastily their bread dough did not have time to rise.
However, another explanation is that the ritual commandment is simply,
as so many are, to avoid backsliding into Egyptian or other pagan
ways.
Indeed, it was often the custom among women baking the Sabbath loaf
(challah), which is, of course, leavened, to toss a tiny
bit of dough into the oven, perhaps as a "sin offering,"
meaning that using leavening was a transgression, however mild.
Placing these practices in an historical context to demonstrate
their probable origin does not detract from their ritual meaning.
Indeed, the prohibitions, consciously understood in the probable
context of their origin, remind Jews of their constant struggle
against contemporary idolatry that today appears in subtle and tempting
forms.
Eugene Kaellis is a retired academic living in New Westminster.
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