Parshat Shemini is loaded with menu
tips for your next dinner party: It famously includes the foundational laws of
kashrut. The Rabbis enlarged upon them. The medievalists debated whether there
was a purpose behind them. Now, in the 21st century, particularly when some see
fit to expend enormous amounts of time and energy worrying about tiny and
microscopic organisms (see here and here), but
ignoring the imposing of pain and suffering on animals, the exploitation of
human beings, and the despoliation of our planet in the pursuit of food to
please the palate, it is time to ask: Are the standards of kashrut morally
appropriate?
To arrive at a place where we can
explore that question, we begin with Parshat Shemini, which stipulates
which animals the Israelites may consume and which are forbidden. Mammals must
both be ruminants[1] and have
split hooves. (Torah even provides examples of species that have one attribute
but not the other: the hare chews its cud but lacks split hooves; the pig has
split hooves but is not a ruminant—both are forbidden.) Fish must have
fins and scales. Birds go according the list in Leviticus 11:13-19. Winged
insects that walk on four legs are impermissible with the exception of those
with jointed legs that can leap or hop; hence locusts, crickets, and
grasshoppers are permissible. Torah then provides a laundry list of forbidden
species: moles, mice, lizards, crocodiles, chameleons. Even physical contact
with these species imparts ritual impurity to a person, wooden utensil, and
cloth or skin container. Any animal of any species that has died is also forbidden
and its carcass imparts impurity.
In addition, the Rabbis developed
laws of shechitah (slaughter), and expanded the prohibition against “boiling a
kid in its mother’s
milk” (Exodus 23:19; 34:26; and Deuteronomy
14:21) to include cooking, eating, and deriving benefit from the combination
(BT Chullin 113b and 115b), mandating a far greater separation of meat and
dairy than we find in Torah.
In addition, people have long asked
what the purpose of the laws of kashrut is. Traditional holds that the mitzvot
concerning dietary restrictions in Parshat Shemini are chukkim,
commandments promulgated without any reason we can discern, and we are meant to
follow them. Nonetheless, in the eleventh century, Moses Maimonides asserted
that the laws of kashrut promote health and hygiene.[2] (Rambam
was a physician, so perhaps this should not surprise us.) Don Isaac Abravanel,
living four centuries later, recognized the problem implicit in Rambam’s claim
that there are cogent rational reasons behind the laws of kashrut: If they can
be demonstrated not to serve the purposes people claim for them, then may we
jettison them? Abravanel asserted that the laws of kashrut are about spiritual
health, not physical health.[3]
Both views have value. With
Abravanel, we can affirm that the dietary laws are a powerful agent of Jewish
identity, causing us to stop and consider “the Jewish way” to carry out arguably the most basic
aspects of living — multiple
times each day. The need to “eat
Jewishly,” day in and day out, reinforces our
sense of belonging to the Jewish community and our commitment to Jewish
tradition on a continual basis.
With Rambam, we can affirm that there
can, and ought to be, underlying reasons for at least some of the dietary
rules. We can and should ask: Are the laws of kashrut sufficient to promote
Jewish values we hold dear? The answer will make many people squirm with
discomfort: probably not. If I’m to be
entirely honest: definitely not. Now, in the 21st century, with the advent of
factory farming and its affect on animals, people, and the environment, it is
time to move beyond Rambam’s
concern for our physical health and incorporate our highest moral values into
the package we call kashrut. From field to plate, our food entails a wide
variety of activities that impact the lives of human beings, animals, and the
environment and sadly often subvert justice, compassion, and the sustenance of
our biosphere.
If we are to be God’s
steward’s of the earth, to protect and
preserve life, and consider the pain and suffering of people and animals—all of
which our tradition calls us to do—it is no longer possible to claim with integrity that the
traditional standards of kashrut fulfill these sacred obligations. For example,
the environmental impact of cattle is a triple-whammy: It requires inordinate
amounts of grain and water to produce each ounce of protein; with so many
undernourished people in the world, should we be devoting so much grain and
water to livestock that feed the wealthiest? Second, cattle emit enormous amounts
of greenhouse gases into the environment; shockingly, livestock emissions
outstrip all the cars and trucks on the planet. Third, cattle severely damage
the land they trample as they graze (70% of all agricultural land is devoted to
rearing livestock). Third, factory farming is a cruel way to treat any living
creature. Similarly, chickens have a miserable existence. The terms “cage-free,” “grass fed,” or “free range” may console us, but we need to know
that they rarely translate to significantly more humane treatment nor mitigate
the environmental concerns.[4] The
Jewish ethical imperative of tzar ba’alei chaim (prohibiting
inflicting suffering on a living creature) is routinely violated in the pursuit
of kosher meat; the uncomfortable truth is that shekhitah (kosher
slaughter) as it is practiced does not reach that ethical standard.[5] (And I
haven’t yet
mentioned genetically modified organisms (GMOs), whose long-term effects on
human health are entirely unknown, yet they are increasingly pervasive in our
food supply.)
There is more—far more—that needs
our attention. Justice and safety for workers should be of paramount
importance. When the ethical violations at Agriprocessors in Postville, Iowa
that came to light in 2008, including “substandard wages, inadequate safety
measures, horrific accidents, routine short-changing of pay, bribe-taking by
shift supervisors and more,”[6] as well
as egregious abuse perpetrated on animals, it became clear that the “letter of
the law” in kashrut was sorely insufficient.
Consider also the predicament of the Immokalee tomato pickers.[7] Ninety
percent of the nation’s
tomatoes are grown in Immokalee, Florida. They are harvested by immigrants and
migrant workers who live in destitute poverty and are debt slaves. Senator
Bernie Saunders proclaimed in a U.S. Senate hearing: “”In America
today we are seeing a race to the bottom, the middle class is collapsing,
poverty is increasing. What I saw in Immokalee is the bottom in the race to the
bottom.”[8] I have
heard horrifying descriptions from two colleagues who visited Immokalee.
Consider this description:
If you are very unlucky you could be one of those workers held in debt slavery in a farm camp run by contractors known as crew leaders. It starts off by having to pay a transportation fee for the ride to Florida. Workers are told they can work off their debt over time but cannot leave until their debt is paid off. Workers are then over charged for food, rent, alcohol and cigarettes. In many cases workers have been held against their will under the supervision of armed guards. Workers have been pistol whipped, raped and threatened with death if they try to leave the camp. Many camps are surround by fences topped by barbed wire. Over a thousand men and women have been freed from slave camps in the last fifteen years in Florida.[9]
TheMagen Tzedek Commission of the Conservative Movement came
into being to make the standards of justice and decency cherished by our
tradition normative kashrut requirements. The Commission describes their
commendable and increasingly necessary work this way:
The Magen Tzedek Commission has developed a food certification program that combines the rabbinic tradition of Torah with Jewish values of social justice, assuring consumers and retailers that kosher food products have been produced in keeping with exemplary Jewish ethics in the area of labor concerns, animal welfare, environmental impact, consumer issues and corporate integrity.The cornerstone of the program is the Magen Tzedek Standard, a proprietary set of standards that meet or exceed industry best practices for treatment of workers, animals, and the Earth; and delineates the criteria a food manufacturer must meet to achieve certification. Upon successful certification, the Magen Tzedek Commission will award its Shield of Justice seal which can be displayed on food packaging.[10]
It is time for tzedek
(justice) to become a central concern of kashrut certification. We need to put
a stop to disasters like Agriprocessors and Immokalee.
Anna Lappe, in Diet for a Hot
Planet: The Climate Crisis at the End of Your Fork and What You Can Do about
It, explains in detail and depth the food life-cycle and its connection to
global climate change, which interpenetrates every sector of our economy. Lapp
offers us a useful set of goals and guidelines that comport with Jewish ethical
values, delineated as “seven
principles of a climate friendly diet.” They
are non-technical, easy to comprehend, and straightforward to apply:
1.
Reach for real
food [avoid processed foods]
2.
Put plants on
your plate [eat more vegetables; less meat and dairy]
3.
Don’t
panic, go organic [organic and sustainable agriculture]
4.
Lean toward local
[reduce transportation-related emissions and lower pesticide and herbicide
usage]
5.
Finish your peas…the ice
caps are melting [reduce waste, and compost]
6.
Send packaging
packing [avoid products with extensive packaging of styrofoam, plastic,
cardboard; bring your own bags to the supermarket, and stop buying bottled
water!]
7.
Get ourselves
back to the kitchen [avoid unhealthful fast foods and processed foods; prepare “real food”]
We need kashrut now more than ever to
remind us that there is a chain of events that brings food to our plates, and
it sometimes entails injustice, abuse, suffering, and the degradation of the
environment that will continue especially if we shut our eyes. We need to
broaden our understanding of kashrut to include a range of Jewish moral
concerns for animals, workers, human health, and the environment. Parshat
Shemini provides the framework: It teaches us to think before we pick up a
fork, and to consider what we should be eating and whether our actions are in
concert with our understanding of God’s will.
New menu tips from a more expansive
view of what makes food kosher:
•
No animals were abused or suffered.
•
No people were abused, enslaved, or denied justice and
decent, safe working conditions.
•
The needs of the global environment (which sustains us all)
were given priority.
•
The food is healthful and nutritious, not just delicious.
Recipes to follow.
© Rabbi
Amy Scheinerman
[1] Ruminants consume vegetable matter; they have
four-chambered stomachs and chew their cud in order to digest their food
entirely and extract maximum nutrition from it. This means that cattle, goats,
sheep, deer, antelope, and at least hypothetically giraffes are kosher.
[2] Rambam wrote: “I maintain that food
forbidden by the Torah is unwholesome. There is nothing among the forbidden
foods whose injurious character is doubted except pork and fat. Yet, also in
these cases, doubt is unjustified; for pork contains more moisture than
necessary for human food, and too much of superfluous matter. The principle
reason why the Torah forbids swine flesh is to be found in the circumstances
that its habits and its foods are very dirty and loathsome…the fat of the
intestines makes us full, interrupts our digestion, and produces cold and thick
blood…it is more fit for fuel than for food.” (Moreh Nevuchim III:48)
[3] Commenting on this week’s parashah,
Abravanel wrote: “God forbid that I should believe that the reason for
forbidden foods is medicinal! For were that so, then the books of God’s Laws would be in the same class as
any of the minor and brief medical books…Furthermore, our own eyes see that the
people who eat pork and insects and such…are alive and healthy to this very day…moreover
the more dangerous animals… are not even mentioned at all in the list of
prohibited ones. And there are many poisonous herbs known to physicians which
the Torah does not mention at all. All of which points to the conclusion that
the Torah of God did not come to heal bodies and seek their material welfare,
but to seek the health of the soul, the cure of its illness.”
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