Maimonides on the Torah's Dietary Laws by David Silverberg
Maimonides' Guide to the Perplexed (3:48), where he advances a particularly surprising theory to explain the rational basis for the Torah's dietary laws: "I maintain that the food which is forbidden by the Law is unwholesome." Maimonides appears to base the entire system of the Torah's dietary code on medical concerns, claiming that the foods prohibited for consumption are unhealthful. He observes that "there is nothing among the forbidden kinds of food whose injurious character is doubted" among the professional healthcare community of his day, "except pork and fat." Maimonides then proceeds to resolve these "doubts" by exposing the "injurious" features of even these foods: "For pork contains more moisture than necessary [for human food], and too much of superfluous matter… The fat of the intestines makes us full, interrupts our digestion, and produces cold and thick blood." Medically speaking, then, all foods forbidden by the Torah are potentially harmful for the human body, and for this reason they are proscribed by divine law.
1. What do you gather is Maimonides reasoning for Kashrut? Do ethics appear in his reasoning?
Ethical Kashrut by Paula Jacobs quoting Rabbi Shmuly Yanklowitz
“As an Orthodox rabbi, I want to defend kashrut publicly and have found it increasingly difficult to do so, given the ethical standards in the kosher industry, including worker treatment and animal welfare,” said Yanklowitz, who is distressed that the Halachic community is often more concerned about the cost and taste of kosher meat rather than the moral message of kashrut. “I believe that kashrut emerged from Torah as a vehicle for the sanctity of life, to bring the Jewish people closer to God, and closer to one another.”
2. How does Rabbi Shmuly Yanklowitz see ethics playing out when it comes to kashrut?
3. Could an ethical kashrut exist?
"I invented the word eco-kosher, to say that something is ecologically kosher. I'll give you an example of eco-kosher. The regular kosher way is about the dishes that mustn't be contaminated, etc. If I pick up a cup to have coffee, styrofoam would be the best thing to have. It hasn't been used before and after I drink from it, I'll throw it away and nobody else will use it. From the usual kosher place that's the direction to go...but in comparison to what will happen to the planet by my drinking in a styrofoam, I'd much rather make the other choice...that's eco-kosher."
4. How far can we push the ethics of Kashrut according to Rabbi Zalman Shachter- Shalomi?
Eating is the primary way that human beings interact with the rest of nature. we are composed of the same elements and compounds that make up our food. Indeed, when we eat, we transform a part of nature into energy that we can use for conscious purposes. The system of kashrut causes us to pause and consider that while we are part of nature, we are endowed with a unique potential to make choices in the way we respond to life.
5. Is making the case that kosher eating has the power to slow us down enough of a reason to say that kashrut is ethical ?