Parasha Shemini

             Kashrut -- The Hidden Wisdom of the Torah

     

            The first ten chapters of Leviticus deal with the laws specific to the Sanctuary. The remainder of Leviticus deals with what might be termed the Laws of Daily Life. In the eyes of the Torah, nothing human is secular. G-d's laws embrace the totality of our existence.  There is no aspect of our lives, no part of our days, that is "carved out" from the potential to be holy.

            Without attempting to justify or elaborate, the Torah gives a lengthy list of foods which are Kosher and those which are not. Since very early in our history, Kashrut laws have been at the very center of our heritage.  The Rabbis classified these laws as "Hukim", laws that had to be obeyed although they transcend human understanding. This did not, however, inhibit the desire to understand just what might be the reasons that G-d commanded these laws. One such speculation is found in the medieval work Sefer Ha Chinuch.  "G-d knows that in all foods prohibited to the chosen people, elements injurious to the body are found. For this reason, G-d removed us from them so that the souls can do their function." 

            The problem with such a viewpoint is that it implies that G-d only cares about the Jews.  If these foods are injurious to the health of the individual, why did G-d only forbid them to the Jewish people?  Isn't G-d the Creator of All, and doesn't G-d care about all of His creatures? 

            Others put forth the opinion that the dietary laws are compensation for unsanitary conditions that existed at the time the Torah was given.   If the Jews of the Torah had invented refrigerators, goes this theory, there would have been no need for Kashrut laws.  As if you needed a law to tell you not to eat spoiled meat! 

            Maimonides puts forth another reason for the laws of kashrus. "The Dietary Laws train us in the mastery over our appetites; they train us to restrain the growth of our desire and the tendency to consider the pleasure of eating and drinking as the purpose of man's existence."  This reason is related to the health issue.  If we do not exercise restraint in eating, obesity and the resulting diabetes, heart problems, and other health problems are more likely to affect our lives. From a psychological perspective, adherence to dietary laws allows one to experience self-mastery and self-control.  In a society where we are encouraged to consume as much as we can, isn't voluntarily submitting to restrictions an attractive quality? 

There are other reasons we might choose to follow the Jewish dietary laws. We may do so out of an affirmation of our Jewish identity.  We may do so as a reminder that humankind should not have total domination over other creatures. Keeping kosher also may make us more aware of what we are eating, helping us to be more mindful of each moment and experience in our lives. Kosher slaughter rituals also reinforce the sanctity of life, even as we are taking it. Death, even of an animal, should not be taken lightly.

Rabbi Shlomo Riskin understands our dietary laws to have a different purpose. He writes that "dietary laws are intended to teach us compassion and lead us gently into vegetarianism." The Biblical ideal, according to this idea, is vegetarianism. Adam and Eve are given "every seed-bearing plant and every tree with fruit" for food, but not animals. According to the Bible, only after Noah did G-d permit meat to the human being.  The book of Leviticus limits the consumption of meat to the precincts of the Tabernacle. That's right – an animal could only be slaughtered and eaten in the context of worship. Only in the book of Deuteronomy does the Torah make a concession – if you are living in the Land of Israel, and live far from the Temple, is one is allowed to slaughter and eat meat on one's own, outside of the context of Temple worship.

Perhaps the Torah has the right idea – that meat consumption should be allowed, but limited. It has been argued that our current rate of meat consumption is contributing to the degradation of our environment.  Livestock production is the second greatest source of greenhouse gases, after petroleum production. Twenty percent of greenhouse gasses, which contribute to global warming, come from this source. From 1950 to 2000, the world's population doubled, but our livestock population increased five-fold. Ten billion animals are killed in the United States each year to feed us. To maintain a healthy diet, experts recommend that individuals eat no more than one half a pound of meat a week. Americans eat an average of half a pound of meat per day!   

Is there some compromise one can make between being a vegetarian for those of us who do not want to give up meat?  Aaron Potek, a New York City rabbinical student, has a website called mooshy.org.  MOOSHY, which stands for "Meat On Only Shabbat, Happy Occasions, and Yomtov", is an organization which advocates for limiting meat consumption to special days in the Jewish calendar in order to promote Jewish values and conscious eating. In fact, Maimonides, in the 12^th century, wrote that it was enough for a healthy person to eat meat once a week on Friday night.  Maimonides, however, did not have a web site, and so you probably never heard of this idea.  You can, however, now go to www.mooshy.org and read about it now.  On this Earth Day we can improve our own health and the health of Planet Earth by paying attention the eternal wisdom of the Torah.

Shabbat Shalom

--

Rabbi Marc D. Rudolph

Congregation Beth Shalom

Naperville, Illinois

Passover 5772

The Four Freedoms

Passover is the holiday of storytelling par-excellence.  We are told four times in the Torah that we must tell our children the story of Passover.  We have developed an elaborate ritual, the Seder, to fulfill this commandment, and a book, the Haggadah, literally, "The Telling" to teach our children the story.  But, for my money, the Haggadah does a poor job of telling the story.  I know we Jews have been using it for almost two thousand years, but what kind of way is this to tell a story?  We do not mention Moses in the traditional Haggadah.  But Moses is the central person in the entire story of the Exodus!  Could someone teach about the Civil War, without mentioning Abraham Lincoln?  Could someone teach about the American Revolution without telling about George Washington?  But the Haggadah tells the story of Passover, for hours upon hours, without once mentioning Moses! 

Then there are the four questions.  The youngest child asks the four questions – and then we don't answer them.  Instead, we recite a paragraph proclaiming it is our duty to tell the story of Passover.  Do we then tell the story of Passover?  No, next we tell the story about five rabbis who once had a Seder during Roman times.  After that, we tell the story of four different kinds of children.  We immediately move on to describe how Abraham came from a family of idol worshipers. We then begin a completely different story, one in which Laban tried to harm Jacob.  By this time, one could not blame the participant in the Seder for being totally confused!

Then there are the songs – I love the songs.  But tell me – what does "Who knows one, I know one" have to do with Passover?  One of my favorite songs, "Adir Hu" has seemingly nothing to do with Passover. It a song in praise of G-d and a plea that the Temple in Jerusalem should be speedily rebuilt in our day!  The song where the dog bites the cat that eats the goat that my father bought… what does that have to do with Passover?  The miracle of Passover seems to be that with such a disjointed way of telling the story, and with songs that are irrelevant to the occasion, we actually have managed to transmit the story of Passover through the ages to our children. 

If the Haggadah is not very good story telling, then what is it?  I would like to suggest that the Haggadah is very good at teaching us about freedom.  In January, 1941, with war in Europe and Japan threatening from the Far East, President Franklin Roosevelt outlined the four freedoms that he said were fundamental to a free society. Those four freedoms were freedom from want, freedom of speech and expression, freedom from fear and freedom of worship.  I think our Seder teaches about these very freedoms that President Roosevelt outlined very, very well.

How does the Seder begin?  Ha Lachma Anya – before it has anything to say about freedom, it begins by addressing hunger and need.  "Let all who are hungry come and eat".  It has its priorities correct. If one is hungry, if one is in need, there can be no freedom.  Before we can even talk about freedom, those who are hungry need to be provided for.  Freedom from want, however, is not enough.  A society must provide opportunities to its members in order for people to be truly free.  As Mordechai Kaplan once wrote, "Freedom without opportunity is like appetite without food." 

Next in our Seder we have the four questions. This too, teaches us about freedom. Without freedom of speech, without the freedom to ask questions of those who are in authority, there is no freedom.  So we can ask questions, like – How is it that a man in Florida can shoot and kill another man who is not armed, and not be arrested by the police or charged with a crime?  We can ask – does it have to do with the fact that the perpetrator was white and the victim was black?  We can ask – Why was there apparently no attempt to contact the loved ones of the victim through his cell phone, which was still on his body when it was taken to the morgue?  Asking questions – until we get answers – can be, as we saw this week, very effective.

Next, we must have Freedom from Fear.  "Come let us learn," says our Haggadah, "What Laban the Aramaen tried to do with our father Jacob.  While Pharaoh decreed only against the males, Laban tried to uproot us all."  In order to be free, one must live in peace and in security.  The killing of three Jewish schoolchildren and a rabbi in France several weeks ago reminds us anew of the hatred that some in this world harbor toward our people.  Indeed, with the threat of nuclear proliferation in North Korea and Iran, none of us can say yet that we are truly free.

Finally, what is the ultimate goal of the exodus from Egypt? What reason does Moses give to Pharaoh over and over to let the Jewish people go? It is so that they could worship G-d in their own way.  The culmination of the Exodus from Egypt is the revelation of Mt. Sinai and the covenant that is established between the Jewish people and G-d.  This story of the search for religious freedom was the inspiration for the Puritans to come to this country in 1620. The Puritans identified themselves with the ancient Hebrews and sought to establish a New Israel on the shores of this continent, where they could find freedom from the religious despotism of England.  Freedom of worship is that fourth freedom that Roosevelt spoke about.

No, the Haggadah may not be very good at actually TELLING the story of Passover. I imagine a person sitting down to a Seder for the first time, without having read the biblical account of the Passover, would get up from the Seder feeling very confused about what happened.  At the same time, that person would have learned a great deal about freedom – about freedom from want and hunger, freedom to question, freedom to live without fear, and freedom for each person to worship as they want – the freedoms that we all aspire to if we are truly to live free.

Hag Sameach and Shabbat Shalom 

 Rabbi Marc D. Rudolph