Torat Emet
25-5770 Mitzvah N-87
07/27/10
Negative Mitzvah 87– This is a negative commandment: do not eat trayfa
Hafetz Hayim – As Scripture says: “You shall not eat any flesh in the field that is trayfa, torn of beasts” (Ex. 22:30). The term trayfa stated in the Torah means an animal which a wild beast of the forest has torn, and so likewise a fowl that was clawed by a bird of prey, such as a falcon or anything similar, in such a way that the animal or fowl cannot survive, because of that attack. Even if a person acts in advance and ritually slays it with a proper kosher shechitah, it is forbidden as trayfa. This is called d'rusha (clawed). Then there are seven other kinds of trayfa animals, which are forbidden by a law given orally to Moses at Sinai. These are: a creature with a perforated vital organ; one with an internal organ removed; one that fell from a height; one with an internal organ, etc. missing originally; one with a severance of the spinal column; one with the flesh covering the stomach torn; and one with most of its ribs broken. Whenever an animal or fowl develops a wound, such that it cannot live another twelve months because of this wound, whether it received the wound from a wild beast or a human being or by the hand of Heaven [natural causes] or it fell from the roof – it is forbidden. So too, flesh from a living creature is likewise called trayfa; and whoever eats an olive’s amount of it should receive whiplashes by the law of the Torah. If an embryo put out its forelegs from the womb of the animal, that limb is forbidden, in the category of flesh that has gone out of its bounds.
This applies everywhere and always, for both men and women.
As I wrote in the last lesson, dietary laws are a big part of Judaism. We are not permitted to eat anything we want at anytime we want. We can only eat kosher food and only after it has been prepared properly. Trayfa is one of the categories of food that Jews are forbidden to eat.
Let me first deal with the technical definition of trayfa. Jewish Law defines meat as “trayf” if it has a major defect or has a major injury that makes it unlikely to be able to survive on its own. If the animal has been attacked by another animal, a predator or even another animal of the same species in some kind of territorial or mating conflict, or if the animal had a wound from an accident, and so the animal is so injured that it will not heal of its own, or that it dies, that meat is forbidden to be eaten because it is “torn” [trayfa]. We are permitted to eat meat only if we kill it ourselves according to the laws of shechitah [ritual slaughter]. Road kill or any other injured or dying animal is not allowed. (Becoming a vegetarian is beginning to look better all the time, isn't it?)
Further, even ft the animal is killed properly, there needs to be an inspection of the carcass to make sure that there are not any hidden reasons the animal might not survive. Deformed or missing organs, hidden injuries etc. all make an animal not permitted for human consumption.
I need to pause here to reflect a moment on the issue of “oral law given to Moses at Sinai”. Tradition from the Rabbinic period tells us that there are two Torahs. One was a written Torah that, as described in Exodus, was given to our ancestors at Mt. Sinai. The other Torah is an “oral” Torah, also given by God to Moses during the 40 days Moses was on Mt. Sinai. This Oral Torah fills in the obvious gaps in the Written Torah. Both of these law codes are therefore divine and binding. Modern scholarship, however, tells us a different story. After the return of the Jewish Exiles from Babylonia during the time of Ezra, the Torah was redacted into its final form and read to the people for the first time in public. That made the text of the Torah fixed for all time. From that moment on, Sages and Rabbis began to explain the law, fill in the missing details and adapt the Torah to fit with current legal and social needs. These discussions and rabbinic pronouncements were codified in the Mishna, and later in the Talmud. The authority for these adaptations and changes in the laws of the Written Torah was then declared to be as old as Written Torah and that both came from God at Sinai. (Since there are parts of both the Written and Oral Torah that were ancient even in ancient times, this seemed like a good way to frame both laws as authoritative because they were the word of God.) When you see this phrase, “oral law given to Moses at Sinai” you can either believe this as true or you can understand this as referring to a law that was added by later Sages.
There is a third category of trayfa that forbids us to eat any limb that is taken from a living animal. This applies to baby animals once their forelegs have emerged from the womb of its mother. It does not matter if the removal causes the death of the animal or not, the meat is forbidden.
In the modern world, trayfa has come to mean any food that is not kosher. It has gone far beyond meat, into every aspect of food preparation. Any food item that cannot be certified kosher, is thus trayf and forbidden to be eaten by Jews. The difficult part is that the qualifications of what is permitted, what is certified Kosher, have become so strict that foods that were once permitted, are now declared trayf. Sometimes this makes a lot of sense, for example, nobody will certify Kosher a hot dog bun that has milk in it. The milk does not make the bun trayf, but since its purpose is to be eaten with a meat hot dot, it just does not make sense to permit the buns to be kosher. Sometimes things get absurd, when one authority declares food by a rival authority trayf. Sometimes a food company will put an unauthorized kosher mark on food that was not certified, and sometimes one authority will refuse to permit a perfectly kosher food to carry certification because of a dispute over pay or benefits. This is not to say that Jews should just give up on keeping Kosher, it just means that those who keep kosher should be prepared to do some homework. In some cases, there is no other alternative for a vendor to charge more for food that has been certified kosher. In other cases, there is no functional difference between how the two foods are processed and there should be little difference in price. Sometimes, the costs of production of a food item changes so that the foods being produced have to change to a cheaper ingredient that may not meet Kosher standards. Many food additives are functionally dairy or from trayf sources. Today it is almost impossible to keep up with the rapidly changing food industry.
This is why it seems everyone has his or her own standards of what they will accept as kosher and what they will not eat as trayf. No matter how kosher your home may be, you will always find someone that is more strict than you and who will not eat in your home. It is impossible to please everyone. So don't try. Keep a level of Kashrut that you and your family can live with and if that is not enough for everyone, well, you are off the hook for serving them dinner. Never let anyone, other than YOUR rabbi, take control of what you serve in your kitchen.
Finally, while food may be Kosher, we also have to look at the ethics of how food is produced. It is one thing to say that the laws of Kashrut have been followed and the food is not trayf, and permitted to be eaten by Jews. It is another thing to turn a blind eye to food processors who mistreat employees, violate secular laws and cut corners on the production line, who hire illegal immigrants and treat them like slave labor or engage in deceptive advertising or not giving the consumers what they are paying for. The food may be permitted, but the ethics of the owner/manager may not be kosher at all. That is why we are seeing a new area of Kashrut called “Magen Tzedek” where the business practices are as kosher as the food being produced. This new certification should be coming to a store near you soon.
Tuesday, July 27, 2010
Sunday, July 18, 2010
24-5770 Mitzvah N-86
Torat Emet
24-5770 Mitzvah N-86
07/18/10
Negative Mitzvah 86– This is a negative commandment: do not eat N'velah
Hafetz Hayim – As Scripture says: “You shall not eat anything that dies of itself” (Deut. 14:21). The term N'velah denotes any domestic or wild animal or fowl, that dies of itself or that was not given proper shechitah (ritual slaughter). Whoever eats an olive's amount from it should receive whiplashes. If someone eats an olive's amount of the flesh of a stillborn kosher animal, he violates the prohibition on N'veah. It is forbidden therefore to eat the newborn young of an animal until the start of the night of the eighth day, when it is no longer in doubt of being able to survive. If it is know that its months or gestation have been completed, it is permissible immediately at birth.
This applies everywhere and always, for both men and women.
Dietary laws are a big part of Judaism. We are not permitted to eat anything we want at anytime we want. We can only eat kosher food and only after it has been prepared properly. N'velah is one of the categories of food that Jews are forbidden to eat.
On the one hand, we already have an aversion to eating something that is already dead. If we did not do the killing, humans have an assumption that there is something wrong with the dead animal. We know, for example, that other animals mostly only kill the damaged or sick animals from the herd, leaving the healthy animals to live to breed again. That is all part of the law of evolution. Human beings, however, are not to be scavengers. Animals killed by another animal (see the next mitzvah) or animals that die from disease or accident, are not permitted as food. This, as the Hafetz Hayim points out in his summary, is the direct law from the Torah.
The difficulty comes when we don't know if an animal is in the process of dying by itself from a disease. The case cited above is of a newborn animal. We don't have any way of “knowing” the reason behind a stillbirth of an animal. We have to assume that there is something wrong with the fetus and therefore the fetus would be N'velah and forbidden to be eaten. If the animal gives birth and the birth is normal, we wait eight days to make sure that the newborn is viable before we slaughter it and eat it. If the animal has any serious birth defects, it will, by the eighth day, be apparent and we will know if we can eat it or not. Most of the time we really don't know when an animal will give birth because we usually are not there at the moment of insemination. We can only guess as to when the proper time for birth will be so we don't really know if the animal is born premature or not. In the rare instance, when we know exactly when the animal should give birth, and we therefore know that the newborn is “full term” then we no longer have to wait the eight days, since we can assume that all is normal.
(OK, I will pause here to acknowledge the irony that we are worried that a calf or lamb etc. is viable and disease free so that we can immediately kill it for food. If we want to use the milk from the mother animal after she gives birth, we will need to use the offspring for food so that we can continue to milk the mother and use her milk for other purposes. If you did not really know this, it is because we have become so good at removing ourselves from the reality of farm life. If you are a vegan, I am sure that you know this and have become vegan exactly because you do not support this kind of animal husbandry. If you are a vegetarian, you may not know all the details as to why we kill young animals for food, but you are opposed to killing animals in all cases. As we explore the details of the kinds of animals, the rules of slaughter and the preparation of Kosher meat, I understand that some of my students may want to consider alternative meatless lifestyles. Judaism does permit this but I will deal with those issues at a future date.)
I also should add to the Hafetz Hayim, that even grown animals that are slaughtered for food, must have their lungs and liver inspected after Shechita (Kosher slaughter) to determine if they were already “dying” from some disease prior to the Shechita. This must be done by a qualified Rabbi so that abnormal spots and defects in these organs can be distinguished from normal spots and thus the “fitness” of the carcass is determined. There are certain defects, especially in the lungs of large animals, that do not cause it to be rejected as Kosher meat. However, there are some extra pious Jews who do not trust anyone with the inspection of the lungs, and who insist that the lungs of the animals they use for meat should be smooth, without any defect. This is obviously a higher standard and would cause Kosher meat to be more expensive. The Yiddish word for “smooth” as in “smooth lung” is “glatt”. A “glatt” Kosher animal has to pass a more rigid examination of its lungs than a “normal” Kosher animal. Most Kosher meat today is inspected with the glatt standard, and is more expensive than regular Kosher meat (which often is more expensive than regular non-Kosher meat.) Please note, that the “glatt” designation should apply only to large Kosher mammals. Chickens, fish and eggs cannot be “glatt” and if you are paying more for them, you are being ripped off. One can make a case that the entire “glatt” standard should be rejected and we should return to a simple Kosher standard, but the super pious and fundamentalists seem to have cornered the Kosher slaughter market and standard Kosher meat is becoming harder and harder to find in stores.
We will speak more about this super-Kashrut standard when we talk, in the next lesson, about Treif.
24-5770 Mitzvah N-86
07/18/10
Negative Mitzvah 86– This is a negative commandment: do not eat N'velah
Hafetz Hayim – As Scripture says: “You shall not eat anything that dies of itself” (Deut. 14:21). The term N'velah denotes any domestic or wild animal or fowl, that dies of itself or that was not given proper shechitah (ritual slaughter). Whoever eats an olive's amount from it should receive whiplashes. If someone eats an olive's amount of the flesh of a stillborn kosher animal, he violates the prohibition on N'veah. It is forbidden therefore to eat the newborn young of an animal until the start of the night of the eighth day, when it is no longer in doubt of being able to survive. If it is know that its months or gestation have been completed, it is permissible immediately at birth.
This applies everywhere and always, for both men and women.
Dietary laws are a big part of Judaism. We are not permitted to eat anything we want at anytime we want. We can only eat kosher food and only after it has been prepared properly. N'velah is one of the categories of food that Jews are forbidden to eat.
On the one hand, we already have an aversion to eating something that is already dead. If we did not do the killing, humans have an assumption that there is something wrong with the dead animal. We know, for example, that other animals mostly only kill the damaged or sick animals from the herd, leaving the healthy animals to live to breed again. That is all part of the law of evolution. Human beings, however, are not to be scavengers. Animals killed by another animal (see the next mitzvah) or animals that die from disease or accident, are not permitted as food. This, as the Hafetz Hayim points out in his summary, is the direct law from the Torah.
The difficulty comes when we don't know if an animal is in the process of dying by itself from a disease. The case cited above is of a newborn animal. We don't have any way of “knowing” the reason behind a stillbirth of an animal. We have to assume that there is something wrong with the fetus and therefore the fetus would be N'velah and forbidden to be eaten. If the animal gives birth and the birth is normal, we wait eight days to make sure that the newborn is viable before we slaughter it and eat it. If the animal has any serious birth defects, it will, by the eighth day, be apparent and we will know if we can eat it or not. Most of the time we really don't know when an animal will give birth because we usually are not there at the moment of insemination. We can only guess as to when the proper time for birth will be so we don't really know if the animal is born premature or not. In the rare instance, when we know exactly when the animal should give birth, and we therefore know that the newborn is “full term” then we no longer have to wait the eight days, since we can assume that all is normal.
(OK, I will pause here to acknowledge the irony that we are worried that a calf or lamb etc. is viable and disease free so that we can immediately kill it for food. If we want to use the milk from the mother animal after she gives birth, we will need to use the offspring for food so that we can continue to milk the mother and use her milk for other purposes. If you did not really know this, it is because we have become so good at removing ourselves from the reality of farm life. If you are a vegan, I am sure that you know this and have become vegan exactly because you do not support this kind of animal husbandry. If you are a vegetarian, you may not know all the details as to why we kill young animals for food, but you are opposed to killing animals in all cases. As we explore the details of the kinds of animals, the rules of slaughter and the preparation of Kosher meat, I understand that some of my students may want to consider alternative meatless lifestyles. Judaism does permit this but I will deal with those issues at a future date.)
I also should add to the Hafetz Hayim, that even grown animals that are slaughtered for food, must have their lungs and liver inspected after Shechita (Kosher slaughter) to determine if they were already “dying” from some disease prior to the Shechita. This must be done by a qualified Rabbi so that abnormal spots and defects in these organs can be distinguished from normal spots and thus the “fitness” of the carcass is determined. There are certain defects, especially in the lungs of large animals, that do not cause it to be rejected as Kosher meat. However, there are some extra pious Jews who do not trust anyone with the inspection of the lungs, and who insist that the lungs of the animals they use for meat should be smooth, without any defect. This is obviously a higher standard and would cause Kosher meat to be more expensive. The Yiddish word for “smooth” as in “smooth lung” is “glatt”. A “glatt” Kosher animal has to pass a more rigid examination of its lungs than a “normal” Kosher animal. Most Kosher meat today is inspected with the glatt standard, and is more expensive than regular Kosher meat (which often is more expensive than regular non-Kosher meat.) Please note, that the “glatt” designation should apply only to large Kosher mammals. Chickens, fish and eggs cannot be “glatt” and if you are paying more for them, you are being ripped off. One can make a case that the entire “glatt” standard should be rejected and we should return to a simple Kosher standard, but the super pious and fundamentalists seem to have cornered the Kosher slaughter market and standard Kosher meat is becoming harder and harder to find in stores.
We will speak more about this super-Kashrut standard when we talk, in the next lesson, about Treif.
Monday, July 5, 2010
23-5770 Mitzvah N-85
Torat Emet
Negative Mitzvah 85– This is a negative commandment: do not encroach beyond a neighbor's boundary, specifically in the Land of Israel.
Hafetz Hayim – As Scripture says: “You shall not move your neighbor's landmark … in your inheritance which you shall inherit” (Deut. 19:14). which means taking some of his land. If a person entered his neighbor's domain even by the breadth of a finger, even outside the Land of Israel – if it was by main force, he is thus a robber; if it was by stealth, he is a thief.
This applies everywhere and always, for both men and women.
When we purchase a piece of property, no matter if we are financing the purchase or paying cash, a survey of the property is always required. It only makes sense that when we purchase property, we know the exact dimensions of what we are buying and the exact location of the property boundaries (where my property ends and someone else's property begins).
In the days before modern surveying, landmark stones were put in place at the corner of private property and sales contracts were written concerning the land between these marker stones. Once these stones were in place, it was forbidden to move them. After all, as we see in the Torah and in the Mitzvah above, moving the stone was tantamount to stealing a neighbor's land. If you were to purchase an adjoining field, you might, together with your neighbor, move the stones to the new property line, but if you do it by stealth, you are a common thief. If you take the land at gunpoint (or sword point) you have committed an act of armed robbery. I should also note that in Deuteronomy 27:17, there is a special public curse recited by all the people assembled between the mountains of Ebal and Gerizim directed at anyone who would move his neighbor's landmark.
Clearly landmarks were easy to move and the temptation to move them and gain a bit more land for free was strong. The system of property markers required a bit of personal honesty among neighbors to prevent boundary disputes that even with our modern surveys, we find all too often still can sour the relationship between neighbors. Since these landmark stones could be moved and the other party none the wiser, this was considered a seriously nefarious criminal act and ancient society had only its most severe disdain to enforce what was basically an honor system.
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