Kosher/Kashrut 101 by Rabbi Michele Faudem

Professor Jeffrey Tigay, Commentary on Deuteronomy (Devarim) 126

[Contemporary Professor of Hebrew and Semitic Languages at University of Pennsylvania]

According to Genesis 1: 29-30, God originally assigned all creatures an exclusively vegetarian diet. After the flood He allowed humans to eat living creatures but prohibited eating meat with the blood still in it, since blood was considered to be the life force within the animal. The blood prohibition is thus an expression of reverence for life, indicating that man is not granted unlimited ownership of life. It is the sole remaining trace of man’s original vegetarianism and of the time when living creatures did not prey upon each other for food.

Professor Baruch Levine, The Meaning of the Dietary Laws

[Contemporary Professor of Bible and Ancient Near Eastern Studies, Hebrew and Judaic Studies at New York University]

It follows that habits and behavior of animals, birds, and even fish had religious significance. In particular, the food that animals and birds themselves ate and how they obtained it were factors in determining their classification as pure or impure. This is readily evident in the list of prohibited birds: Almost all of them are birds of prey, by day or by night, who feed on carrion and tear the flesh of other living creatures in their pursuit of food. As such, they were considered unfit as food for a people forbidden to eat blood and commanded to avoid flesh that had been torn by preying creatures. By contrast, those birds considered pure (identified by process of elimination) such as hens, doves, and pigeons, quail, and certain types of geese, feed on grain and spend more time on the ground in proximity to human beings, to whom they are more submissive.

Two features predominate in determining an animal's purity or impurity: digestion and locomotion. Ruminants met the criteria of proper digestion. As regards locomotion, paws were considered bestial, whereas the two "toes" common to animals with fully cleft hoofs were not repulsive...

The dietary laws of the Torah institutionalize the basic distinction between pure and impure living creatures. A practical system of food selection emerges, in which several factors interact. (1) There is a clear preference for domesticated land animals and birds, and this perception may even carry over to fish. (2) Within this larger framework, concern is shown for the diet and digestive processes of living creatures, as if to ensure that nothing forbidden to the Israelites as food had been eaten by the living creatures themselves. If it was, there was concern that such food had been digested as thoroughly as possible or, at the very least, could be separated from the creature after slaughter. The permitted animals are herbivorous ruminants, whereas virtually all forbidden birds are carnivorous creatures of prey. The torn flesh of a land animal (terefah), the evidence of violent preying, is strictly forbidden, just as humans may not eat flesh that they have torn from a living creature. (3) Empirical evidence shows a correlation between methods of locomotion and patterns of feeding and digestion: In most cases, herbivorous ruminants have a cleft hoof. On this basis, creatures with truly cleft hoofs, two "toes," were considered domesticated, thus permitted: living creatures with paws were undoubtedly regarded as bestial and, hence, forbidden. (4) As regards fish, the biblical inventory is extremely limited. Preference for undulatory locomotion with fins probably correlated with observable feeding behavior. Crustaceans, for example, were perceived as scavengers...

A socioreligious intent clearly underlies the dietary classification system. Ideally, humankind should be sustained by the produce of the earth. When, instead, other living creatures are used as food, as is permitted, such use should be restricted to living creatures that sustain themselves with what grows on the earth and that do not prey on other living creatures or attack man...”

Dr. Isadore Grunfeld, “The religious, philosophical and moral basis of the Jewish dietary laws.”

[(1900-1975) British scholar, head of London Beit Din]

To the superficial observer it seems that men who do not obey the law are freer than law-abiding men, because they can follow their own inclinations. In reality, however, such men are subject to the most cruel bondage; they are slaves of their own instincts, impulses and desires. The first step towards emancipation from the tyranny of animal inclinations in man is, therefore, a voluntary submission to the moral law. The constraint of law is the beginning of human freedom, or in Rabbinic phraseology, "None is free, except he who acts in accord with the law." (Avot 6:2). Thus the fundamental idea of Jewish ethics, holiness, is inseparably connected with the idea of Law; and the dietary laws occupy a central position in that system of moral discipline which is the basis of all Jewish laws.

The three strongest natural instincts in man are the impulses of food, sex and acquisition. Judaism does not aim at the destruction of these impulses, but at their control and indeed their sanctification. It is the law which spiritualizes these instincts and transfigures them into legitimate joys of life. The first and probably most vehement of the three impulses mentioned is the craving for food; it can easily lead to gluttony, and what is worse, to the fundamentally wrong conception that man "liveth by bread alone." This natural, but dangerous food-instinct, is transfigured by the dietary laws into self-discipline. It is no accident that the first law given to man – not to eat of the tree of knowledge of good and evil – was a dietary law... Self-control and self-conquest must start with the most primitive and most powerful of human instincts – the craving for food. Thus the dietary laws stand at the beginning of man's long and arduous road to self-discipline and moral freedom.

KEY TERMS

Ever Min HeChai. (Lit. a limb from a living creature) The prohibition against eating flesh of a living animal.

Fleishig. Meat products. Jewish law prohibits the eating of dairy and meat

products together.

Kasher/Kosher. (Lit. fit, proper) A term that designates the ritual fitness of any object, but which refers primarily to the fitness of food for consumption in accordance with Jewish dietary laws.

Kashrut. (Lit. fitness) The state of being kosher. There are numerous bodies that supervise the kashrut of particular foods or food-providing establishments.

Koshering. Koshering generally refers to the process of preparing meat for consumption in accordance with Jewish dietary laws. This process includes the removal of blood by draining, soaking, and salting.

Milchig. Dairy products. Jewish law prohibits the eating of dairy and meat products together.

Nevelah. (Lit. carcass) An animal that died through causes other than shechitah, or through a problematic shechitah. The meat of such an animal is not kosher.

Shechitah. (Lit. slaughter) The ritual method for slaughtering kosher animals or birds. This method consists of cutting through both the windpipe and the gullet with a specially sharpened knife.

Trefah (or treif). Now denoting any food forbidden by Jewish tradition, is used in the Torah to describe meat of animals killed by beasts of prey, "You shall not eat any flesh that is torn by beasts in the field" (Shemot 22:31). This prohibition-related to the general law which forbids the eating of blood, the principal carrier of life. Therefore, the flesh of an animal killed otherwise than by shechitah (ritual slaughtering) would not be properly drained of blood, and it considered to be a treifah.