Genesis Chapter 4

The book of Genesis continues its history of the way the world works with the story of Cain and Abel. The foreshadowing begins right away when we realize that Abel's name in Hebrew (Hevel) means “nothingness”. This is not a man who will go far in life.

The jealousy between the two brothers seems to be a feud that American historians should know well. The farmer, Cain is envious of his brother the rancher. God seems to approve of the herder rather than the gift of the farmer. Verses 6 and 7 have a cryptic oracle from God to Cain that seems to warn the man about his state of mind when Cain's offering is not accepted. The oracle seems to indicate that if you do wrong, you should strive to do better, because if you don't, then sin is waiting to pounce on you to rule over your life. You can overcome sin but the implication is that you should not tangle with sin at all. Cain pays no heed to this oracle and in a truncated verse 8, where it is unclear the situation that caused the two brothers to be together, Cain kills his brother.

God immediately calls Cain to task for killing Abel but we have to pause here for a moment. What exactly is Cain's crime? Since no person in the world had died yet, there is no reason to think that Cain understood what “killing” was all about. How can Cain commit murder if death was unknown in his world? Still God needs to do something about this taking of a life. After all, Abel’s blood “cries out to Me from the ground.”

There are Bible critics who wonder why God asks Cain about the whereabouts of his brother. After all, doesn't God know everything? God knows what Cain has done. Why does he ask Cain, “Where is your brother Abel?” As I have said many times, when the Bible asks a question like this, it is also asking us, the readers, to answer this question. We can say that this question is one of the central questions in the Book of Genesis. Over and over, the stories of this book deal with the relationship between brothers. Isaac and Ishmael, Jacob and Esau, Joseph and his brothers. We can also see that, since this particular story is about the first brothers, that the question can be as broad as “Where is your brother human being?” Cain's famous answer, “Am I my brother's keeper?” has an obvious and direct answer, “Yes” we are responsible for each other. Not just in our family but in the family of human beings.

The punishment of Cain is that he will never settle down but wander his whole life. This is a serious punishment for a farmer. What follows is a genealogy of Cain, one that includes the first city, the first man to take two wives, the first nomadic herder, the creation of musical instruments, the inventor of copper and iron tools, and the first man to kill another in a fight. This genealogy indicates that Cain's line is a “dead end” for humanity. There will be a new genealogy beginning with Cain's younger brother that will lead to the great heroes of the Bible.

Bible critics also fault this chapter when Cain and his family marry women; the question asked is where do these wives come from? Adam and Eve have only three children. Cain, Abel (who dies) and now Seth. If God created Adam and Eve as the first human beings, where does Cain find a wife for himself and for his son? The Bible has no answer for this question because it is not interested in being a history of the world. It is a chronicle of the moral education of humanity. There is much that goes unanswered in the Bible because the explanations are not important to moving along the themes that the Bible wants to teach. Cain's killing of his brother leads to more killing. That is a dead end for humanity. The chapter then rewinds and goes back to Adam and Eve who give birth to another son, and this one's lineage will hold out hope for humanity in a way that Cain's lineage does not. The birth of Seth's son, Enosh marks the beginning of religion in the world as “men began to invoke the Lord by name.” The name they start to use, interestingly, is the four letter unpronounceable name of God.

Genesis Chapter 3

This chapter is another one of those chapters that everyone thinks they understand but, when we reflect on the story, we find one enigma after another. Christians teach the concept of “original sin” from this chapter, using the story of Adam, Eve, the snake and the “apple” to explain where “sin” comes from and why human beings are sinful from the start. But a close reading makes that “traditional” reading suspect.

To begin with, there is no indication that the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil was an apple. The reference is only to a fruit. Second, as Harold Kushner notes in his commentary on the story for Etz Hayim, “if they gained a knowledge of good and evil by eating the forbidden fruit, does that mean they did not know good from evil before that? If so, how could they be held accountable for doing wrong?” We may understand that God has our good in mind when God commands us; but to Adam and Eve, it can't be wrong to disobey because they don't know what “wrong” is!

The story is pretty straightforward. The snake convinces Eve that the fruit of the tree is not dangerous; Eve eats the fruit and gives some to Adam. They don't really know what to expect from eating from the tree. The snake indicates that it will make them “like God” but all they experience after eating the fruit is embarrassment, shame and guilt. God discovers their disobedience and punishes all three players; the snake will become the enemy of humanity, the woman will give birth with pain, her husband “shall rule over you” and man will have to do hard labor to produce food to eat. (There seems to be a veiled reference to dying as well but since nobody has ever died it is hard to know what Adam and Eve would make of this “threat”).

The story ends with God making clothing of “skins” for Adam and Eve and, because they now know what it means to disobey rules, God exiles the couple from Eden lest they eat from the “Tree of Life” and live forever (even though death seems to have been part of the punishment).

One big question that remains is the purpose of God for placing humans in Eden at all. Why would God put them in a place where such disobedience is possible? As much as God punishes the two, God also loves them enough to make them real clothing (and not just large leaves). The language used seems to be one of harsh justice meted out by God. Yet there are suggestions in the text that perhaps the entire incident was all part of God's plan for humans. Without this knowledge of Good and Evil, how can the humans have free choice in any meaningful way? We can see this story as the beginning of human beings having a conscience. Humans were never designed to be forever in Eden; we needed Eden to be able to meet the challenges of the real world, the world we are “exiled” into, as a child must eventually grow into the real world in which we live. We can not always live a sheltered life. We have to learn to face the challenges, the joys and sorrows, that make up life in this world.

I see Eve as the real heroine of this story. She is the one to boldly cross from innocence to understanding with all the pain and uncertainty that this entails. Her “punishment” seems very severe. It is hard enough to raise children with ones values not knowing how they will turn out in the end, without seeing childbearing as punishment. The issue of the husband ruling over the wife has a long and sordid history. Later rabbis tried to make the relationship between husband and wife more equal but there is much that they left undone that has pushed women into a second class status in all of western civilization as well as in “traditional” Judaism. I believe one of the most important changes in modern Jewish life is the ongoing effort to make Halacha (Jewish Law) more egalitarian.

Genesis Chapter Two

Shabbat is the pinnacle of Creation. The final day that is given over to rest. God rests and we are to rest as well. This final created item is not good, but “holy”, that is, set apart from all the other days. It is interesting, given the lunar nature of the Jewish calendar, that the first holiday is set according to “solar” time.

There is a radical shift that takes place beginning in verse four. The point of view now changes from God to humanity. From now on, the Bible will always be from the human viewpoint. We now have another creation story, a different one. Biblical commentators have tried for centuries to try and reconcile this story with the story in chapter one. Modern scholars of the Bible understand that this part of chapter two is a second, different, creation story; it is told in a different order, it describes the world differently and human beings are not created male and female, but male (Adam) only. The woman will be created later. Humans are created from dust/dirt/clay. The male is placed in a garden near Eden with instructions to tend the garden and not eat from the “Tree of Knowledge of Good and Bad”. The penalty for eating from the tree will be death. It is unclear if Adam even understands what “death” means.

Adam gets lonely and, after naming all the animals, realizes that there is no other animal quite like him. Naming animals is a way of ruling over them, another task the Adam is given, to be the steward, the caretaker of all creation and all creatures. It is “not good” that the man is alone so God creates a woman, perhaps from Adam's rib, or perhaps the description of “his side” is a way of saying that Adam “gave birth” to the woman. She is declared to be a “fitting helper” to Adam.

Note that with the poem at the end of the chapter, recited by Adam, the woman is not in any way “subservient” to the man. She is his equal. They are to become “one flesh.” There is an anachronism at the very end of the chapter. So far we do not have any mothers or fathers in the world (do you think Adam and Eve had belly buttons?) so what does it really mean here that a man and woman leave their mother and father and become one flesh. It seems to imply that a sexual relationship is a part of maturation in human beings.

So what is the moral lesson in chapter two? This second creation story, told from the human perspective, spells out the relationship between humanity and God. We are given the mission to tend to the world, to oversee the daily transactions in nature and to listen to God. This last command will be the subject of the new chapter.

Genesis Chapter 1 part 2

It has always fascinated me how the Torah looks at the creation of the world. Of course it is a primitive story; the bible has no concept of evolution or prehistoric time. One of the great problems of the text is the entire issue of time; not just the length of a day, but how the entire concept of time is derived. Jewish time begins with creation. The current Jewish year is calculated by scholars who try to derive the date of creation by working back through the centuries and through the Torah to discover how long ago the world was created. We know of course that the almost 5800 years of the Jewish calendar does not include prehistoric time that includes the rise of life in the oceans, the rise of plant life and then animal life on the land, the age of reptiles/dinosaurs and the early ages of mammals. The calendar really only figures the historical time of civilization in the Middle East. As with the historical accounts of all peoples and civilizations, the “authors” of the Torah see themselves as the center of the universe. To look for something here beyond what was known in the “civilized” world of ancient Mesopotamia, is to go beyond the boundaries of what the Torah is about.

Another issue is the idea that God created the world (something) from nothing. The opening lines of the Torah tell us that there was “tehome” called “the deep” and apparently water. There also seems to be some kind of atmosphere where God's spirit can “hover” in the wind. It seems to be a dark chaotic ball of water that is first illuminated and then split in half. Where the upper and lower parts meet, God introduces a bubble of air and in that bubble will the world be created. The first three days mirror the second three days. The first three days set the scene for what will be created on the final three days. The creation of human beings is thus the pinnacle of creation, the last and greatest of God's creative acts.

It is also a point of some discussion about how human beings were created. The text of chapter one indicates that there was just one person created and that one individual was both male and female. I am not sure if this was one body with two sets of genitalia or if one side was male and the other side female. I know that there is a different story about this creation in the next chapter but I will wait until we get there to address that concern.

More importantly for Judaism, the human, whatever the gender, is created in the “image” of God. This is a real issue because Judaism believes that God has no image. This means that if we want to “see” God, we need to really “see” our fellow human beings. No matter how many different faces, colors, styles and genders, every single human being has this “image” of God and therefore all human life is holy.

Notice also that humanity is instructed to eat only a vegetarian diet. Permission to eat animals will come much later in our text. Humanity is also given a job to do. Human beings are to populate the world and serve as stewards for all the other animals, helping them live their lives and keeping them in their divine place in the world that God has created.

Finally, we note that the seventh day is not part of the creation story, but the opening lines of chapter two. I want to teach from the very start that the Torah, as passed down through the generations from one Jewish community to another, never had any chapters at all. The only divisions were the parshiot, the list of weekly readings for synagogue use every week. The chapters were introduced by Christian scholars in the middle ages and the Jewish community eventually adopted this chapter/verse configuration in order to be able to talk to Christians about the text. If you look at where the Shabbat aliyot break up the text, you see the first reading does include the verses on Shabbat as part of the creation story.

Genesis Chapter 1 : Part 1

I think that this chapter is so difficult that it alone is responsible for more people ignoring the Torah than almost any other chapter. At the beginning of almost every Bible class I teach there are some present that tell me that they tried to read the Torah from the beginning and got so confused from the creation story that they put down the book in disgust. How could they take seriously a book that begins with a story that clearly has no relationship to the reality of the world?

In a different way, this question has been asked for thousands of years, even before there was a Darwin and a theory of evolution. The first question Rashi, the great 12^th century commentator asks is “Why does the Torah begin here rather than with Exodus Chapter 12?” The real issue that underlies all the questions is: Just what is the purpose of the Torah? Why was it “written” at all? What is it supposed to do? If we don't understand what this book is about, then how can we ever understand what it contains. If we are reading a novel, we understand what a novel is so we know what to expect. If we are reading an astronomy textbook, we have an understanding of what we will find inside. If we are reading a history book, we assume that it is about interpreting the historical facts that have come down to us. The reason Rashi asks his question is because, for most Jews, the Torah is a law book. It contains the fundamentals of Jewish law. But if that is the only thing that the Torah is about, then it would indeed have started with Exodus chapter 12, the place where the mitzvot, the commandments, the laws really begin to be stated and explained.

Since the Torah begins with Genesis, chapter 1, then there must be another purpose for Torah. There are some who think that it is a science text; that it is teaching us the real history of the world. These people think that Genesis is opposed to the theory of evolution, rather chapter 1 is the factual account of how the world was created. There certainly are many fundamentalists who believe this is the purpose of the story. It is hard for me to agree with them. The story of creation is way too muddled to call it a history of the creation of this world. It is, first of all, very hard to know how long it took to create the world. The text tells us the world was created in six days and on the seventh day God rested. How are we supposed to define what a “day” is when the sun and moon are not created until day four! I am sure that there are many who believe that if this is what the Bible says, then this is what it means. I am not one of them. If you are a person who takes the Bible at face value and hold whatever it says as “true” then this commentary of the Torah is not for you. I am not going to try and change your mind so you don't have to try and change my mind. We can agree to disagree and you can follow some other blog on the Bible.

If you are trying to come to some understanding of the Torah and a fundamentalist approach is not for you then I hope you will continue to participate in this study. If the Torah is not a law book; if the Torah is not a science text; if the Torah is not a history of the world, then what is it?

My take on the Torah is that this book is a morality text. The creation story is a story about the beginning of morality. God creates a world. It does not exist forever. Only God is forever. The creation story is to prove that God is the only real power in the universe. Each of the items that God creates should be considered as if the item is a proper name, the name of a pagan god. I believe the creation story is a story about how God created even the things that other nations called “god” to show that all the other “gods” were really the creation of the one God. The creation story was never meant to be a history of the world; it was meant to explain why the one God was the true creator and the other gods were false. If you want to hold the theory of evolution, the Torah is not contradicting you. If you want to hold that the universe was created with a big bang and is billions of years old, there is nothing here to contradict you. If you want to believe that “light and darkness” the “sun and moon” or any of the animals are really gods, then the Torah is here to tell you that you are wrong. However all these things got here, it was not because they are separate powers in the universe. They are all parts of the natural world and thus “created” by the one God. That is why I think this story is here, to declare the mythology of other pagan religions as false.

Now that we have put that issue to rest, let us take up the text and examine some of the other textual issues it raises...

Introduction to the Study of Torah

There is nothing more basic in Judaism than the study of Torah. Torah is the beginning of all other religious texts. It is the record of communication between God and Humanity. It stands above all other texts because it records what God expects from us. Since all texts can be connected to Torah, this is why the study of any Jewish text is also called “Torah”.

While almost every Jewish text can be called “Torah” because it derives its legitimacy from its connection to the the original scrolls, in its minimalist incarnation, Torah refers to the Five Books of Moses: Berayshit (known also by its English name – Genesis), Shemot (Exodus), Vayikra (Leviticus), Bamidbar (Numbers) and Devarim (Deuteronomy). It is the first of the three divisions of the Jewish Bible [called Tanach, an anacronym for Torah, Neviim (Prophets), Ketuvim (Writings)]. Torah is considered the oldest of the three and the most holy although all three parts are considered holy books. As a legal text, Torah is comparable to the Constitution of the United States; it is the basic document of law that all subsequent laws must be able to have a direct line of connection to its words. The difference, of course, is the Constitution is a document written by human beings and therefore can be amended or rescinded. The Torah represents the word of God. To amend it or to rescind it would be to say that God made a mistake; a theological proposition that not only undermines the source of authority for the law, but calls into question the very foundation of Judaism. We don't say that God is wrong. God is right; the Torah is right and when we follow its laws, we are right too.

But as a law code, the Torah is woefully incomplete. For example there are many married people in the Torah but there is almost nothing about a marriage ceremony. The Torah provides for divorce by having a “sefer keritut” a document of separation prepared but it never spells out what that document should say. There is no good definition provided to ascertain the meaning of the word “Shabbat”. We are told that we cannot do “Melacha” on Shabbat, but melacha is not defined anywhere either. The usual word for “work” is “avoda;” what is the difference between avoda and melacha? The Torah gives us no clue. Laws in Shemot are repeated in Devarim but there are significant differences in the way the laws are written. What do the differences imply? Why are they different? What do we learn from these differences?

As a history book, the Torah is not much better. Some stories are clearly not told in chronological order. Were there two times Moses struck the rock to bring water to the people or are they really just one story? How many times does Moses go up and down Mt. Sinai before the Ten Commandments are given? What are we to make of the seven days of creation in the light of the billions of years of history on this planet? Why is there no other historical record anywhere of Abraham, Sarah, Moses, Aaron, Miriam, the Exodus or the conquest of Canaan? Are the stories of the Torah religious mythology or historical facts? How can we know for sure? How can we separate the fact from the myth?

If the Torah is not a law book or a historical record, then what is the purpose of this document? I look at it as a moral text. A text that teaches us what we are supposed to do at the many crossroads we encounter in our lives. Remember the story of George Washington and the cherry tree? Is that story historically true? Who knows? But the purpose of the story is to teach us that real leaders don't lie; a moral lesson not wasted on our children. The lives of the personalities in the Torah all point out lessons in how we should live our lives. The stories are true in the sense that they teach us truths about our world. Is the rest of the Torah historically true? Who knows? This does not mean that the Torah is misleading us. What it means is that we need to be careful not to make the Torah our guide for things that the Torah was never designed to teach. There may be some historical notes in the text and that the Torah gives us laws is undisputed. The purpose of these five books, however, to me seems to be more about moral lessons than about any specific aspect in the life of Jacob or Moses. It does not bother me that the Torah says the world was created in seven days and geology tells me something different. The Torah does not really care how many days creation took, what matters is what we learn from the creation story about how God acts in this world and what those actions mean for us.

There are anomalies in the text that point to a deeper issue. There are passages in the text that seem to indicate that the Torah is not one document. Scholars tell us that there may be four major documents that make up the text of Torah as it has been handed to us today. These documents were not created at the same time but in very different time periods in Jewish history. For some people this idea of different documents borders on heresy. This “documentary hypothesis” sees the text of the Torah more as the work of humanity and not a text that God handed to us on Mt. Sinai. This hypothesis has been around for centuries but only in the twentieth century were scholars able to speak about it without worrying about religious censors. It is unfortunate that the early scholars of this hypothesis were anti-Semites looking for a way to de-legitimize the Jewish bible. The evidence today is pretty clear about the fact of the different documents, but scholars still argue over which passages are to be included in one document or the other. An extraordinary introduction to this hypothesis can be found in the first chapter of the book, “Who Wrote The Bible” by Richard Freedman.

So can the Bible still be divine if it was written by human beings? I think so, but we will have to be a bit more particular about what we mean by a divine text. What does it mean to have a divine text? What inspired human beings to write these texts? Where does creativity come from? What guided the hand of the “redactor” who put the different documents into the five books we have today? Just how would an infinite God put pen to parchment to write a book? What could be better than human hands following divine instructions? I may not know how God got into these “books” but I do know that God is in there and that is why I study the Torah so diligently.

I am not the first one to comment on Torah, nor am I the last. The study of Torah is what I call “The longest running classroom discussion in the history of the world.” My comment is designed for everyone to add their own comments. This blog is a discussion not a lecture. So feel free to challenge me, question me and argue with me. Let me just share with you some of my Torah learning resources.

The Torah has its origins in Hebrew. The more biblical Hebrew you know, the deeper you will understand the text. The best modern Hebrew texts are from the Jewish Publication Society (JPS) and Koren Publications in Israel. You will need a Hebrew text from time to time to see the words in the Hebrew; I can only hint at the issues when I am writing in English.

The best English translation I believe is the JPS translation. Shocken Books also has a translation that is good, that was translated by Everett Fox. There are two JPS translations, one that dates back to 1919 and the other from the 1960's. The newer one is called the “new” JPS translation and that is the one I use (sometimes it is noted as NJPS).

Jews NEVER just read the text of the Torah. There are centuries of commentary on the Torah and that too is now part of the “text” of Torah. Different commentaries have different agendas. Scholarly commentaries focus on literary style, historical comparisons and cross references to other books, Jewish and non-Jewish. JPS has a five volume commentary. Soncino has a one volume that is a survey of the classic Jewish commentators. JPS also has a “Jewish Study Bible” that is used in college courses. All of these are good resources. JPS and the Rabbinical Assembly put out a one volume commentary called Etz Hayim that includes not only a survey of the JPS commentary but other modern commentaries that speak to the moral and legal issues the text raises. It includes extensive essays in the back that cover other aspects of the Bible and Jewish life. This is one of the best commentaries of the 21^st century.

Many individuals have penned Bible commentaries that speak to the issues in their day. The classic commentary is by Rashi but there are others by Sforno, ibn Ezra and Abravanel that speak to the Jews of France, Spain and the Provence. The modern commentaries of S.R. Hirsch and Joseph Hertz speak to the needs of the Jewish community in the 19^th and 20^th centuries. Those who are interested in modern Orthodox commentaries that do not include references to historical or documentary issues, can use the Stone commentary. It is a good idea to consider a number of commentaries before asking your own questions and trying to put together an answer. You don't need to own all these books but finding a Jewish library with them in it will make your study easier and more fulfilling.

Finally, try not to come to the text armed only with what you remember from religious school years ago. Our minds may not remember the stories correctly, we may have learned them wrong or we may have learned them based on later commentators and not on what the text actually says. There are parts of the Bible that are considered too “racy” for young children and somehow we never get around to talking about the adult parts of the text. We will look at the text in Hebrew and English and try to understand it by getting past the usual explanations and stories that are mere excuses for serious difficulties in the text. The text itself has many levels of meaning and we will try to explore these texts on all of these levels.

Now we are ready to start at the “beginning”.

Hello Again

It has been a while since I last posted to this site. I have not forgotten which negative commandment comes next, nor have I abandoned the blog. These past months have  been a time of reassessing what I want to accomplish with this forum. For eight years now I have written about Liturgy, Halacha, Mishna and Mitzvot. There are still plenty of topics to cover but the world of Jewish education has changed over the years, and I have changed over the years as well. What started out as a new opportunity for me to teach a wider Jewish audience, is now in need of a facelift. I dedicated this forum to the memory of my father after his death and one of the many legacies he left me was never to be afraid to reinvent myself.
In 2003 blogging was new and exciting. Today we live in a world of Facebook, Twitter and Google+. In 2003 Jewish education was built around religious school and day school. Now we have Hebrew language charter schools, home schooling and private tutors. The world of Jewish education grapples with parents who are much older when they start having children and who don't see themselves as part of the world of the synagogue anymore. If you are a follower of my other blog, "Jewish Common Sense" you know that even the very essence of the synagogue is changing. If the synagogue is the primary location of Jewish education, then how can these changes impact the way we deliver information about our faith?
I find myself grappling more and more with theology. What do we know about God? What difference does our understanding of God have in our lives? How does prayer, meditation and spirituality fit into this picture? I have been writing about Mitzvot for a long time but I never thought to talk about the whole notion of what it means to be commanded; a challenge made by the chancellor of the Jewish Theological Seminary a few years ago and a topic I have been teaching as part of my adult studies seminars.
Now you see why I have not written for awhile. I have been contemplating not only this blog, but the very foundation of what I am trying to share with my students. Over the past months I have taught bible in a new way, spent ten days on a silent retreat, began to prepare for my first lessons in the field of mysticism and offered my synagogue students the chance to explore in a deeper manner, the latest discussions in understanding about what we mean when we talk about God.
In one way or the other, it all goes back to how we understand Torah. What is the nature of these five books? What did they mean to our ancestors and how do we learn from these words today? I hope to use this blog to travel, chapter by chapter through the Torah and share with you some of the insights I have learned from my teachers, colleagues and students.
Forgive me if I do not complete the study of Mitzvot. I hope to make this new venture a chance to go back to the source of all that is Jewish, to learn not only Mitzvot but the entire range of what Judaism has to offer us as individuals, as Jews and as human beings.
I hope you will find this new journey interesting and compelling and that you will want to share your ideas and comments as well.

14-5771 Mitzvah N-109

Torat Emet
14-5771 Mitzvah N-109
02/28/11

Negative Mitzvah 109 – This is a negative commandment: do not redeem the firstling of a pure (kosher) animal.
Hafetz Hayim – As Scripture says: “but the firstling of an ox... you shall not redeem” (Numb. 18:17). At the time that the Sanctuary is not in existence, it is permissible to sell it; but the buyer has to treat it in accordance with the holiness of a firstborn animal. As for a firstling with a disfiguring defect, it is permissible to sell it, whether it be alive or ritually slaughtered, provided it is not sold at the meat-market. This is in effect, everywhere and in every time for both men and women.
This is also not a law for vegetarians or vegans.



The law of the Torah is that the firstborn of kosher animals is to be sacrificed on the alter. Parts of the animal are then eaten by the priests who are officiating. The rest is burned on the alter. Non-kosher animals were not permitted to be sacrificed and they had to be redeemed so that they could be used for other purposes. The owner would pay a priest a set price and the animal would lose its sanctity as a first born. Kosher animals had to be sacrificed and could not be redeemed. They belonged to the priests. (The firstborn son is also holy and must be redeemed; this is the origin of the Pidyon HaBen ceremony). If the firstborn animal had a defect that would not permit it to be sacrificed, then that animal was to be redeemed and the money paid to a priest. We should see this as a livestock “tax” that was paid to the priests from the firstborn of cattle (oxen, sheep and goats).
That was the law if the Temple was still in existence. Since the Temple was destroyed, the animals can no longer be sacrificed and therefore we need to handle them differently. The rule here is that we are permitted to sell a firstborn animal, but a Jew who buys it should not put it to work like any other beast of burden. It is a holy animal and should not be plowing or threshing. If the animal has a defect it can be sold and used as normal. One can use it for personal consumption but should not sell it for its meat to a butcher. This is how it is handled differently from other animals.
I must admit that this is not a mitzvah that is of use to anyone other than those engaged in animal husbandry. This would be a special area of Jewish Law and I am not an authority in this area. It is interesting how these firstborn animals were handled differently in ancient times and how we should handle them differently today. I don't see any reason to go into this in more detail than we have.

13-5771 Mitzvah N-108

Torat Emet
13-5771 Mitzvah N-108
02/15/11

Negative Mitzvah 108– This is a negative commandment: do not slay ritually both a pure [kosher] animal and its young in one day.

Hafetz Hayim – As Scripture says: “And whether it is a cow or a ewe, you shall not slay it and its young both in one day” (Lev. 22:28). If someone transgressed and did ritually slay them, the meat is kosher [permissible]. The day follows the night [a day is reckoned from sunset to sunset]; therefore if a person ritually slew the mother-animal at the beginning of the night of the fourth day of the week, he should not slay the young until the beginning of the fifth day. But if he slew the mother-animal toward the end of the fourth day, he may ritually slay the young at the beginning of the night of the fifth. This is in effect, everywhere and in every time for both men and women.

This is not a law for vegetarians or vegans. The law is pretty straight forward; we are not permitted to kill a mother-animal and her young on the same day. If you make a mistake and do it, you have sinned, but the meat is still kosher and it is permitted to be eaten. A day,for the purpose of this law is not twenty-four hours from the first slaughter. One has to wait until the next sunset before the second animal can be killed.

It is interesting to me that there is no punishment listed for those who violate this law. I suppose that there is no point in wasting the meat as long as it has been killed properly, but the person who has killed mother-animal and her young on the same day clearly has no heart for the suffering of animals and has a pretty cruel attitude about his or her work. Just because one makes a living slaughtering animals for food, this does not allow that person to become cruel or indifferent. We are obligated by Jewish Law to alleviate the pain for animals.

There is a story about Rabbi Yehuda HaNasi who was walking on the street when a calf who was being led to slaughter ran from the man who bought her and hid under the Rabbi's cloak and mooed mournfully. Rabbi Yehuda returned the calf to the owner saying to the calf, “Go, for this you were created.” The story concludes that Rabbi was afflicted with a horrible illness for this act of cruelty to the animal. He suffers for many years until he, from his sickbed, speaks up for some mice in his home. For this act of kindness, he was cured. Judaism takes kindness to animals very seriously. Caring for animals is the first step in learning kindness to other people.

12-5771 Mitzvah N-107

Torat Emet
12-5771 Mitzvah N-107
01/17/11

Negative Mitzvah 107– This is a negative commandment: do not sow two kinds of seeds in a field.

Hafetz Hayim – As Scripture says: “you shall not sow your field with two kinds of seed” (Lev. 19:19). In lands other than Israel, a Jew is permitted initially, from the start, to sow two kinds of seeds together. As for mixed kinds of trees, which means grafting an etrog tree onto an apple tree, or anything similar, it is forbidden in the other lands as well. So too, it is forbidden to graft a tree onto a vegetable or a vegetable onto a tree, even in other lands. However, with both mixed kinds of seeds and mixtures of trees, even though a violation of the law is committed thereby, their produce is nevertheless permitted to be eaten, even by the one who did the forbidden act. As for mixtures of a vineyard (which means planting grain in a vineyard), it is forbidden to sow them, eat their produce or derive any benefit from them – in other lands, by the law of the Sages; and in the Land of Israel, by the law of the Torah.

Here we have to think like a farmer. There are so many acres of land that are ready to produce food. Clearly we want to use as much of the land as possible. By planting a mixture of different crops, we can not only feed our family but also have a hedge against the failure of any one crop. The problem is that the Torah forbids us from certain kinds of planting. We can plant one area with wheat, one area with barley and one with oat. But we can't mix these grains together in one field. The problem here is not grafting, we are not talking about hybrid grains. This is just not a proper way for Jews to plant grains. The law applies only in the Land of Israel.

Grafting trees is the issue in the second part, since it does not matter if you plant different trees close to one another. Here the problem is creating hybrid fruits or vegetables. While Jews should not be doing these kinds of plantings, there is, significantly, no punishment for those who do the grafting nor is there a prohibition against using the hybrid fruits. The prohibition applies both in Israel and in other lands.

In a vineyard, one might think to use the space between the vines to grow grain. After all the vines are above so the grain could grow below. This is also forbidden. And if it is done, then the fruit of both grain and vine are forbidden to be eaten, sold or used in any way that the grower could derive a benefit.

So the question is, “Why?” Why are we forbidden to mix seeds? This is one of three laws in this one verse (Leviticus 19:19) which includes the prohibition of mating cattle with different animals and wearing cloth of two different materials (linen and wool). These laws are part of the priestly legislation that are very concerned with keeping things pure and preventing “impurity”. This law of “mixture” falls under a category of laws, in Judaism, called “Hukkim” or “laws that have no apparent logical explanation”. We are commanded to obey these laws, not because we understand them, but because God gave them to us. Etz Hayim, the Bible commentary published by the Rabbinical Assembly, USCJ and JPS, notes that, in Conservative Judaism, we accept hukkim when they do not affect us morally. When they do affect our moral sense, we reserve the right to challenge and change the law; challenging the Torah to be morally consistent in its laws (p. 697 comment on verse 19). These laws about “mixture” don't seem to have any moral issues associated with them so they stand as written.

There are number of commentators who try to find meaning in these “unexplainable” laws and their answers are interesting, midrashic in nature, explaining after the fact why such a division of species is a good idea. The Torah seems to be teaching that we have limits in how we can change nature. The Sages may limit these mixtures by location and species but the fundamental meaning behind them is unknown. Modern anthropologists have tried to make sense of these laws in Judaism and in other cultures with mixed results (eg: Mary Douglas, Purity and Danger). The reasons behind these laws still remains unclear and when we take up farming, we are bound by these purity laws.

11-5771 Mitzvah N-106

Torat Emet
11-5771 Mitzvah N-106
12/29/2010

Negative Mitzvah 106– This is a negative commandment: do not eat the kind of food eaten by a wayward and rebellious son

Hafetz Hayim – As Scripture says: “You shall not eat over blood.” (Lev. 19:26). Which is understood to mean “you are not permitted to eat the kind of meal that leads to bloodshed.” that is, the food eaten by a wayward and rebellious son. This verse of Scripture is also an injunction not to eat any flesh of an animal before its life expires. And it is also an injunction not to take any food before we pray. This is in force everywhere, in every time, for both men and women.

The wayward and rebellious son is a son who will not listen to his parents and who is totally out of control. The Torah declares that the parents should bring their son before the court and declare that their son is out of control. If the court agrees, then the son is liable for the death penalty. The Sages of the Talmud are so appalled by this law that they go to great lengths to limit it. After all, what kind of parent would come before a court to testify against their son in a capital offense? A minor is not responsible for his actions and an adult would not be responsible to his parents. So the Sages limited this law to the few months between 12 and 13 years of age when a child may be between childhood and adulthood. Later Sages declared that this law was never actually used; that it was written as a warning to children to listen to their parents.

For our purposes, the definition of a wayward and rebellious son was that he would eat meat at an inappropriate time and his parents could not stop him. ( It could also involve drinking, but that is not the direction of this Mitzvah). In ancient times, meat was only eaten on special occasions and to eat meat at other times was a waste of meat since a whole animal would have to be killed and one person could not eat it all. There was no way to preserve the rest of the meat so it was a great waste and a real act of rebellion to eat meat when others were not eating (which they might do on a holiday or other celebratory meal). This Mitzvah, therefore, tells us not to eat like a wayward or rebellious son and eat meat indiscriminately allowing the leftovers to be wasted.

Because this is a rather limited use of this Mitzvah, and because it is only a hypothetical case (according to the Talmud it never happened in history), there are other meanings associated with this verse. Since the Torah tells us that “blood is the life” of an animal, we can also use this verse to prohibit not only the blood of a properly slaughtered animal, but also to prohibit the blood of an animal that has not yet died. This too is a rather limited situation; the animal is, after all dying and will be dead in a little while. Instead of listing this law here, we may be able to include this lesson in the law that prohibits eating a limb from a living animal. As the first two reasons seem to be very limited in their application, this may be the reason why there is a third lesson to be learned from this verse, the lesson that we should not eat before we have prayed.

I am not sure how the Sages make the connection from the rebellious son to the requirement to pray before we eat. I can see that they might learn it from the fact that there are blessings recited when slaughtering an animal and that might cover the time between the slaughter and eating. I can imagine that this could also refer back to the wayward and rebellious son who, they speculate, eats before he prays (if he didn’t, he would not be rebellious). I am just not sure how they made this connection. It is the rule, however, not to eat breakfast until after reciting the prayers of Shacharit.

10-5771 Mitzvah N-105

Torat Emet

10-5771 Mitzvah N-105

12/20/10

Negative Mitzvah 105– This is a negative commandment: eat no fruit of a tree in the three first years since its planting

Hafetz Hayim – As Scripture says: “three years it shall be as forbidden to you; it shall not be eaten” (Lev. 19:23). Even what is doubtfully (not certainly) orlah, fruit of the first three years, is forbidden. In lands other than Israel, there is a law given to Moses orally at Sinai that what is certainly orlah is forbidden, while fruit that is doubtfully orlah is permissible. Over certain, indisputable orlah in the Land of Israel, whiplashes are deserved; while in other countries one should be flogged with whiplashes of disobedience.

This is in force everywhere, in every time , for both men and women.

I see this law of “orlah” as similar to the eight day waiting period for Brit Milah, and for the time a calf can remain with the mother before being eligible for sacrifice. Just because we have something, does not mean that we can do what we please. These perhaps are “first born fruit” that belong to God just as the firstborn of the herd and the first born of the flock belong to God. In any event, the Torah is explicit that the first fruits cannot be eaten. But that is only one level of this Mitzvah. The Hafetz Hayim gives us much more to ponder as he explains orlah.

The first difference is between orlah in Israel and orlah outside of Israel. In both locations we cannot eat the fruit of a tree in the first three years after planting. But three years is a long time. We can forget exactly when we planted the tree or whether this was the new tree or if it was a completely different tree. We could be doubtful if we are holding fruits from the new tree or if they are mixed up with fruits from older trees. What happens when we are not sure that the fruit we have is orlah or not?

If we are in the Land of Israel, we treat fruit that we are unsure of as if they are orlah and we refrain from eating them. This is a strict law that only applies to the Land of Israel. Outside of Israel, fruits that are certainly orlah cannot be eaten, but fruits that are doubtful, can be eaten. The rules about fruit outside of Israel is not in the written Torah but is claimed to be a law from the Oral Torah, the law that Moses was taught while he was up on Mt. Sinai for 40 days and nights. This Oral Torah eventually will become the Mishna and the Talmud. The Rabbis see both the Written Torah and the Oral Torah as having equal standing under the law. Yet here, the punishment violating the law differs between Israel and the diaspora. When one is certain about the status of orlah, and uses it anyway, in Israel such a person is flogged as one who violated a biblical command. Outside of Israel, the biblical command is not in force, but the Rabbis commanded that the person be flogged for disobeying a rabbinic ordinance. This is a different kind of flogging, one that is not the formal punishment of the court but one that is used to insure compliance with rabbinic law. These whippings are not tied to the same formal rules as the biblical flogging but were still limited to 39 lashes in most cases.

9-5771 Mitzvah N-104

Torat Emet

9-5771 Mitzvah N-104

12/12/10

Negative Mitzvah 104– This is a negative commandment: do not eat Hametz (food with grains that are leavened) on the day before Passover, after noon.

Hafetz Hayim – As Scripture says: “You shall eat no leavened bread over it.” (Deut. 16:3). This means at the time of the Pesach sacrifice. The Pesach sacrifice was performed beginning in the seventh hour of the 14^th day of Nisan. Whoever eats Hametz on the day before Passover after six hours from the day's beginning should receive whiplashes; and the Sages of blessed memory forbade eating it, or having any benefit from it, from the beginning of the sixth our; while in the fifth hour eating is forbidden but benefit from it is permissible.

This is in force everywhere, in every time , for both men and women.

There are some Rabbis today who claim that Passover is really two different holidays. Pesach was celebrated with a symbolic dinner featuring roasted lamb and it was eaten at the end of the 14^th day of Nisan, after dark (the very beginning of the 15^th of Nisan.) From the 15^th of Nisan on, was the Festival of Unleavened Bread which was observed by eating only Matzah for seven days. These two festivals eventually merged into one holiday beginning with a Seder and lasting seven days in Israel and eight days in the lands of the diaspora.

The Talmud records that on the 14^th of Nisan, beginning in the seventh hour from sunrise the Kohanim would begin the long process of sacrificing everyone's paschal lamb for the dinner that night. Basically this pressed every Kohen into service that day, creating long lines of people with lambs and goats bringing them to the Temple for sacrifice. The lamb would be killed, the blood spilled properly and the lamb was then given back to the family to be roasted whole for their Pesach Seder.

The Rabbis measured hours by dividing the daylight and nighttime into 12 equal segments. As the days got longer, the daylight hours were longer and the nighttime hours were shorter. In the winter, the daylight hours were shorter and the night hours were longer. Since Pesach was near to the vernal equinox, the days and night are pretty much the same and we can identify the seventh hour from sunrise as 1:00 pm. Clearly the Torah does not want us to mix Hametz with our Paschal lamb so the last time we can eat Hametz is the beginning of the sixth hour from sunrise or Noon. After than time, a person could not eat Hametz nor could that person derive any benefit from it. That is he can't sell it for money nor use it to feed animals or any other way that might benefit the person. The Rabbis then extended the time back to the fifth hour, 11:00 am as the time when one could no longer eat Hametz lest they err and mistakenly eat it after noon. One can derive benefit from it from 11:00 am to Noon.

Today, we make it only a little more complicated. Since we cannot own or derive benefit from Hametz, it has become the custom to sell unused Hametz to a non-Jew for the duration of the holiday. While it remains in our homes, it is locked away as the property of someone else and not only would eating it be a sin on Pesach, but it would be stealing as well. This sale of Hametz is often done by signing a document at your synagogue stating that you are appointing the Rabbi to act as your agent to sell your Hametz on your behalf to a non-Jew. It requires your name and all the addresses where your Hametz can be found. This must be done by the end of the fourth hour (10:00 am) so that the Rabbi has the time to find the non-Jew and sell all the Hametz he or she has been authorized to sell. This means that by 11:00 am, whatever Hametz you still own has been sold and is now the property of someone else. You would be stealing to use any of it after that time. A small amount of Hametz is usually pulled from that stash the night before and used for “bedikat Hametz” the “Search for Hametz,” to insure that all Hametz has been used up or put away for sale. The last bit is then searched out and finally burned the following morning after 10:00 am and before noon. In this manner we are sure that all Hametz has been removed by the proper time and we can then concentrate on preparing for our Seder.

I should also mention that when you appoint the Rabbi to sell your Hametz on your behalf, it is customary to give a small donation which usually goes to charity. On the sale of Hametz you will have to go back into the archive and see Positive Mitzvah 22.

8-5771 Mitzvah N-101,102,103

Torat Emet

8-5771 Mitzvah N-101,102,103

12/06/10

Negative Mitzvah 101,102,103– This is a negative commandment: do not eat bread from the new crop of grain before the Omer offering [was brought to the Sanctuary]. It is likewise a negative commandment to eat no kali (grains from one of the five species mentioned in the Bible that were roasted in fire) from new grain, before the Omer offering. And it is also a negative commandment not to eat karmel (grains that were crushed by hand and not roasted in fire) from new grain before the Omer offering.

Hafetz Hayim – As Scripture says: “And you shall eat neither bread nor kali (parched grain) nor karmel (fresh grain) until this very day” (Leviticus 23:14). All this applies to grain of the five species alone which are wheat, barley, spelt, oats and rye; that is forbidden. If someone eats bread, parched grain, and karmel – an olive's amount of each – he violates three prohibitions. When the Sanctuary was in existence, it was forbidden on the sixteenth of Nisan until after the offering of the Omer. At the time when the Sanctuary is not in existence, it is forbidden the entire day of the sixteenth of Nisan, by the law of the Torah. And in the Diaspora, where two festival days are always observed, it is forbidden by the law of the Sages on the entire day of the seventeenth as well. As long as planted grain took root before the Omer, even if it ripened after the Omer, the Omer makes it permissible.

          This applies everywhere and always, for both men and women.

There are some early authorities who hold that the law on new grain in lands outside of Israel is only by the enactment of the Sages, as a protective measure; and they decreed it nowhere but in areas bordering on the Land of Israel. Therefore most of the world of Jewry is not careful about it. Even though it is not in our power to oppose the ones who are lenient, nevertheless,every scrupulously observant person should be strict for himself in everything possible for him; because according to many great early authorities it is a prohibition by the Torah in all respects.

The Law of the Omer is that new grain cannot be used until the first sheaves are “waived” at the Sanctuary on the Second day of Passover, the sixteenth of Nisan. There was some controversy between the school of Hillel and the School of Shammai about if the date was the second day of Passover or the Shabbat of Passover. That was finally resolved by following the ruling of the school of Hillel that established the date as Nisan sixteenth. The effect of this law was to see an increase in the price of grain and flour (made from last year's grain) in the days preceding Pesach and a sharp drop in prices as the new grain hits the market after the ceremony in the Sanctuary. Basically you can't use new grain in any form until after the Omer is waived. The Omer is waived every day from the second day of Pesach, seven weeks until the day before Shavuot. We still count the days and weeks of the Omer each evening. A sheaf was “waved” every day during the 49 days of “Sefira” (counting).

The difference between the teachings of the “early authorities” is: some who say that we should keep the laws of the Omer because they are Torah laws, and the others who maintain that, like the other harvest laws in Judaism ( like the Sabbatical laws and the laws about leaving the corners of the fields), it applies only to the land of Israel. Outside of Israel, the Torah law is not in effect and anyone who would keep these laws anyway would be stringent in keeping a Rabbinic law, which may be important, but it is not as important as a Torah Law (which we say comes from God). Clearly the Hafetz Hayim would have us keep these laws but he has to admit that there are many good authorities who do not require it. He promotes a strict interpretation of this law, but admits that one who does not keep the law and follows the lenient authorities, have not violated these prohibitions. “Protective measures” refer to enactments of the Sages that prevent Jews from accidentally violating a Torah Law. In our case, some of the Rabbis felt that if the Jews of the diaspora did not have the habit of keeping the laws of the Omer, they might, when they travel to Israel, make a mistake and eat new grain before the Omer is offered.

I see the observance of this law in the Diaspora today as an unnecessary stringency. We no longer separate the new grain from the old grain and we no longer “wave” the sheaf of grain as an Omer offering.

7-5771 Mitzvah N-97-98-99-100

Torat Emet

7-5771 Mitzvah N-97-98-99-100

11/29/10

Negative Mitzvah 97– This is a negative commandment: do not eat swarming creatures of the ground

Hafetz Hayim – As Scripture says: “And every swarming thing that swarms upon the earth is an abomination; it shall not be eaten” (Leviticus 11:41). “Swarming creatures of the ground” means snakes, scorpions, beetles and worms. Whoever eats of them a whole creature should be given whiplashes. And if it was not complete, then if he ate an olive's amount he should receive whiplashes. All swarming creatures eaten are reckoned together to add up to an olive's amount.

This applies everywhere and always, for both men and women.

Negative Mitzvah 98– This is a negative commandment: do not eat worms of fruit or seeds

Hafetz Hayim – As Scripture says: “even all the swarming things that swarm upon the earth, them you shall not eat.” (Leviticus 11:42).

This applies everywhere and always, for both men and women.

Negative Mitzvah 99– This is a negative commandment: do not eat swarming creatures of the water.

Hafetz Hayim – As Scripture says: “You shall not make yourselves detestable with every swarming thing that swarms.” (Leviticus 11:43) and swarming water creatures are included: for example, frogs, crabs, and so forth; or worms and leeches; or sea animals and the sea dog. Whoever eats an olive's amount from them should receive whiplashes.

This applies everywhere and always, for both men and women.

Negative Mitzvah 100– This is a negative commandment: do not eat creeping things.

Hafetz Hayim – As Scripture says: “neither shall you defile yourselves with any swarming thing that crawls, upon the earth .” (Leviticus 11:44). The creatures called “remmes” are what come from molds, not deriving from male and female creatures. Whoever eats an olive's mount of them should receive whiplashes.

This applies everywhere and always, for both men and women.

Since the Torah is very specific about what animals cannot be eaten, each kind of an animal has its own special prohibition lest you think that one forbidden animal is not included in the general prohibition of swarming things. Other than locusts, which we no longer eat because we are unsure which may be kosher and which are not, all insects are forbidden, including those that swarm in the air (flies, dragonflies, etc.) those that swarm on the earth (worms, scorpions, ants etc.) those that swarm in the water (crabs, frogs, leeches etc.) and those found inside fruits or grains (weevils, larvae etc.)

The sea animals that are included here are also the sea mammals. A sea dog is what we call a seal and includes walrus, whale and porpoise. There is a fish that is called “dolphin” or Mahi Mahi that is kosher. The bottle nose dolphin is a mammal and is forbidden.

Again, the only way to violate these laws is to eat them intentionally. When eaten in error or accidentally, there would be no punishment. So if you eat an apple and find that you have also eaten a worm by mistake, then you may feel sick but you have not violated a law of Kashrut. (The only thing worse than finding a worm in an apple is finding half a worm!)

While many of these creatures are not a regular part of a Western diet, they are eaten in other parts of the world and in some places are considered delicacies. Frog, crab, shrimp and lobster are all forbidden but are considered in this country to be normal sea food. Other insects and sea animals are eaten in other cultures all the time. These laws in no way should be considered as reasons to forbid them from eating what is their custom. These laws do not apply to other cultures; these creatures are forbidden as food for Jews.

6-5771 Mitzvah N-95-96

Torat Emet
6-5771 Mitzvah N-95-96
11/22/10

Negative Mitzvah 95– This is a negative commandment: do not eat non-kosher fish.

Hafetz Hayim – As Scripture says: “And they shall be an abomination to you; of their flesh you shall not eat” (Leviticus 11:11). Whatever does not have fins and scales is non-kosher, and if anyone eats an olive's amount from it, he should receive whiplashes.
This applies everywhere and always, for both men and women.

Negative Mitzvah 96– This is a negative commandment: do not eat winged swarming creatures.

Hafetz Hayim – As Scripture says: “And all winged swarming creatures are unclean for you; they shall not be eaten” (Deut. 14:19). These are non-kosher kinds of grasshoppers, flies, gnats, bees, wasps, and so forth. If someone eats an olive's amount of them, he should be given whiplashes. If he ate a whole creature, even if it did not comprise an olive's amount, he should receive whiplashes. Pure (kosher) kinds of grasshoppers however, are allowed to be eaten. They have three signs of purity: whatever has four legs, and four wings covering most of the length and most of the circumference of its body, and two jointed legs with which to jump.
This applies everywhere and always, for both men and women.

As far as fish is concerned, fins and scales are the universal signs of kosher fish. This leaves out most bottom dwellers that do not have fins (shrimp, lobster, crab) and most large sport fish that do not have scales (shark, marlin) as well as others that do not fit this description (catfish and certain other fish without scales). There are two fish that start out life with fins and scales but the scales fall off as the fish matures. These are sturgeon and swordfish. Since these species are in doubt, there are many who just refrain from eating them but the Conservative Law and Standards Committee has ruled that these fish are kosher and can be eaten. This rule applies only to these particular kinds of fish that shed their scales as they grow. The roe of kosher fish is also kosher. The roe of non-kosher fish is not kosher. Shellfish have neither fins nor scales and they are all forbidden (oysters, clams, scallops, mussels). Fish sold as Dolphin or Mahi Mahi is not the mammal (porpoise) and is a kosher fish. This is NOT a complete list of kosher and non-kosher fish. One should consult such a list if the species of fish is unfamiliar.

Current issues with fish involve cross breeding to create a larger stock of fish to bring to market. For example, Salmon is a very popular fish and is kosher, but there is a program taking place to find a fish that would be similar in color and taste to Salmon, but the fish being used does not have scales. For this reason, many kosher fish markets now sell fish with their scales so that one can easily see that the fish is kosher. Frozen fish is also a problem because often these fish are processed at sea, in huge blocks as they are netted in the open waters. Often non-kosher fish are also caught in the net and are not properly separated from the rest of the fish. Since there is no rabbinic authority to supervise this freezing process, there are many who do not eat frozen fish or fish sticks that are not supervised by a reliable authority.

In the case of insects, there is note in the Hafetz Hayim that the Shulchan Aruch requires a fourth sign of a kosher grasshopper. It must be called “Hagav”. I do not know of any authority who actually has identified by species which grasshoppers are kosher and which are not. As far as I know, we no longer eat insects of any kind at all. This will really only be a problem if one is traveling to China where roasted insects are popular. I am told by non-Jewish people, that scorpions and ants (fried or chocolate covered) are actually tasty, but they are treyf, so what can I do? I also believe that the worm in a Tequila bottle not only is treyf but makes the Tequila treyf as well. My best advice is to not eat any insects.
Eating a whole insect that may not be an olive's amount on purpose is to be liable for punishment. If you are riding a motorcycle, or standing outdoors and you swallow an insect accidentally, there is no punishment other than your own gag reflex. I can’t say that I have seen everything, but I have never seen grasshoppers sold under Rabbinic supervision.

5-5771 Mitzvah N-94

Torat Emet

5-5771 Mitzvah N-94

11/15/10

Negative Mitzvah 94– This is a negative commandment: do not eat non-kosher fowl.

Hafetz Hayim – As Scripture says: “And these you shall hold in abomination among the fowl; they shall not be eaten” (Leviticus 11:13); any bird that divides its feet when a string is stretched for it [to walk on, placing] two talons on one side and two talons on the other, or that takes in food from the air and eats in mid-air, is a bird of prey, and is non-kosher. Whatever dwells with non-kosher birds and resembles them is non-kosher. If someone ate an olive's amount from a non-kohser kind of bird, he should receive whiplashes. The eggs of a non-kosher species of bird are forbidden to be eaten, by the law of the Torah.

This applies everywhere and always, for both men and women.

There are many different ways that Kosher and non-kosher birds are identified. I am not an expert on kosher birds so I will quote here from Rabbi Isaac Klein [Guide to Religious Jewish Practice: JTS Press; p. 304-5] “The Torah does not prescribe any identifying marks for birds; instead, it enumerates the species that are forbidden – a total of twenty-four according to the reckoning in the Talmud (Hulin 63b). The implication is that those not listed are permitted. The rabbis of the Talmud, however, deduced four distinguishing marks of birds that are permitted. A permitted bird has a crop; the sac in the gizzard can be peeled off; it has an extra toe – i.e. in addition to the three front toes, it has another toe in the back; it is not a bird of prey. According to one opinion, a bird that divides its toes when it rests, i.e. two toes in front and two in the back, is not permitted (Mishna Hulin 3:6) Despite these identifying marks, it has become the accepted practice that only those birds that have been traditionally accepted as permitted may be eaten (Shulchan Aruch: Yorah Deah 82: in Rema). They are: chicken, turkeys, ducks, geese, and pigeons. Pheasants have been considered permitted in may places.”

The problem with all of this is that the Torah does not list any way to determine a kosher bird from a non-kosher bird. The rabbis try to find some distinguishing marks on the non-kosher birds but as you can see from Klein, they pretty much have given up on this. Today we only eat birds that have a tradition of being eaten. This is particularly interesting in the case of turkey and pheasant. Turkey is not in the Torah and was not discovered by Europeans until they came to the “new” world. I am not sure why turkey was eventually put on the list but it definitely is on the list of permitted birds today. Pheasant was a bird that was not domesticated and was only hunted. Since a hunted bird is not killed properly, according to the laws of shechitah, it could not be eaten. Because it was so tied to the hunt, Jews never ate it and so there is not a strong tradition of eating pheasant. In some places, where pheasant are raised on farms and slaughtered according to the laws of shechitah, they are permitted to be eaten. In places that did not have a tradition of eating pheasant, they still do not permit it.

If you are unsure that the bird you want to eat is a kosher bird, you have no recourse but to show it to a rabbi for a ruling on if that bird is permitted. Or you can just shop at a kosher butcher where only accepted kosher birds are sold.

The Talmud also notes that since birds do not produce milk for their young, they should not be considered meat but in fact they are meat and NOT parve. The sages were concerned about people eating fowl and thinking they were eating meat and get confused. Fowl is considered to be Meat today.

4-5771 Mitzvah N-93

Torat Emet

4-5771 Mitzvah N-93
11/07/10

Negative Mitzvah 93– This is a negative commandment: do not eat meat from a non-kosher domestic or untamed animal.

Hafetz Hayim – As Scripture says: “But these you shall not eat, etc....” (Leviticus 11:4); and whatever does not chew its cud or does not have a parted hoof is non-kosher. If anyone eats an olive's amount from a non-kosher animal, whether domestic or untamed, he should receive whiplashes. Human flesh is under a prohibition derived from a positive commandment since it not within the scope of the instruction, “These are the living things which you may eat …” (Lev. 11:2) [The Torah did not include it among the permitted kinds]. Whatever comes out of the forbidden kinds, such as milk from non-kosher domestic or untamed animals is forbidden to be eaten by the law of the Torah. However, honey from bees or wasps is permissible since they do not emit it from their bodies. Human milk is permissible: but a grown person is forbidden to suckle at the breast. If there is milk in a heathen's possession and no Jew saw him doing the milking, it is forbidden, since he may have mixed into it milk from a non-kosher kind of animal. The cheese of a heathen is permitted by the law of the Torah, because we are not apprehensive that perhaps it came from a non-kosher animal, since the milk of a non-kosher animal cannot be made into cheese. Only the Sages of blessed memory forbade the cheese of a heathen for many reasons.
This applies everywhere and always, for both men and women.

The Hafetz Hayim is all over the place in this lesson and there is a lot to cover. Non-kosher animals are different from kosher ones for a number of reasons. In the category of large four legged mammals, kosher animals must have both a fully split hoof and must chew its cud. In the category of fish, the kosher fish must have fins and scales. Kosher birds have no sign if they are kosher or not. We don't eat birds of prey and the kosher birds appear on a list in Leviticus chapter eleven. Reptiles cannot be eaten and only kosher locusts can be eaten but since we don't know which locusts are permitted, we just don't eat them anymore. (Most people are happy about this!) These rules apply to both domesticated animals and wild animals. [There are also rules as to how the animals are slaughtered but that is not part of this Mitzvah]

If the animal is not kosher, then the products of the animal are not kosher. You can't use the milk from non-kosher animals and you can't eat the eggs from non-kosher birds. Bees are not kosher but you can use the honey since the sages did not consider honey to be in the same category as eggs and milk. I am not sure if they are correct in this assessment of bee anatomy but I am not going to be the Rabbi who declares honey treif.

Human flesh is not listed in these categories and so we are reminded that human flesh cannot be eaten because of a different Mitzvah. Just because it is not listed here should not tempt you to give human flesh a try. Human milk is permitted for everyone to drink but simple morality tells us that grown human beings have no business suckling at the breast. This should be obvious but I guess it has to be stated somewhere and here, in the laws of Kashrut, it can be found.

As usual, Kosher laws prohibit us from buying milk from a non-Jew if we don't know where he got his milk. It is possible that he may have milked a non-kosher animal and mixed it in with the other milk. Since milk today is regulated and must state where it is from, we don't usually have to worry about this prohibition. I am not an expert in cheese production so I can't vouch for the fact that cheese cannot be made from the milk of non-kosher animals. I have never heard of horse cheese or pig cheese, only cheese from cows and sheep and goats. If any of my readers know of cheese from non-kosher animals, please let me know.

Cheese today is or is not Kosher because of the use of rennet as a catalyst for cheese making. Rennet comes from the stomachs of animals and if those animals are not kosher or slaughtered in a kosher manner, the rennet is not kosher and in any event it can't be used in milk to make cheese. There are other ways to make cheese that does not involve rennet that are used in kosher and vegetarian cheeses. There are some authorities in Conservative Judaism who see rennet not as a meat byproduct but as a refined chemical and therefore can be permitted in all cheeses. There is not a lot of uniformity in our movement about this so one should check with your Rabbi as to whether or not non-hekshered (unsupervised) cheeses are permitted. In any event, the problem with cheese is not the source of the milk but the process of making the cheese.

3-5771 Mitzvah N-92

Torat Emet

3-5771 Mitzvah N-92
11/01/10

Negative Mitzvah 92– This is a negative commandment: do not eat meat that was cooked in milk.

Hafetz Hayim – As Scripture says: “You shall not boil a kid in its mother's milk.” (Exodus. 34:26); For eating an olive's amount of the both, one should receive whiplashes. He is punishable even if he has no enjoyment in eating it: for example, if it was so unduly hot that it burned his throat when he ate it, or he put something bitter into it with the result that he had no enjoyment whatever in eating it. Nevertheless, he should be given whiplashes. If meat and milk were prepared not by cooking but by steeping (soaking), or they were salted together, it is forbidden to be eaten by the law of the Sages, but benefit from it is permitted. If the meat of an untamed animal or a fowl was cooked with the milk of either a domestic or an untamed animal, the ban on eating it is only by the law of the Sages. It is permissible to cook fish or locusts with milk, and permissible to eat them.
This applies everywhere and always, for both men and women.

There is not much different here than in last week's lesson. In fact, the only real difference is that the quote is from a different chapter of Exodus. This tells us that there is another law being taught, one that is different enough from last week that it needs to be taught separately.

Here, the difference seems to be in the way the food is cooked. The law applies even if there are good reasons not to eat it. If the food is too hot to be eaten or has been prepared so that it tastes terrible, the fact that it is being eaten still warrants flogging. If the mixture was not “cooked” but mixed in another way, then one is still in violation of the law but not by Torah law, but by the extension of the Sages. Since the law refers to “its mother's milk”, untamed animals that one cannot milk or poultry that has no milk might be understood to be exempt from the law. The Sages have ruled that these too are prohibited and the mixture must not be eaten. The reason for this prohibition by the Sages is because both of these are “meat like” and if they permitted it, it would be too easy to make an error and think that other meats could also be eaten with milk. This kind of an extension of Torah law is common in rabbinic literature where it is considered a “fence” protecting us from getting too close to violate a Torah law. Fish and locusts clearly are not meat and therefore there is no prohibition of eating these if they are cooked in milk.

I should note here that not all locusts are permitted to be eaten and we are not very sure today which locusts the Torah permits and which it prohibits. For this reason we don't eat locusts anymore. (I know that will make you feel better!)

The rules of the Sages prohibit eating these kinds of meat with milk but it does not extend to deriving benefit from them. One can sell these food, cooked improperl,y to those who are not bound by Torah Law.

2-5771 Mitzvah N-91

2-5771 Mitzvah N-91
10/26/10

Negative Mitzvah 91– This is a negative commandment: do not cook meat in milk.

Hafetz Hayim – As Scripture says: “You shall not boil a kid in its mother's milk.” (Exodus. 23:19); If someone cooks meat in milk using an olive's amount of the both, he should receive whiplashes, even if he does not eat it. It is forbidden to have any benefit from it, and it requires burial, and it is even forbidden to have any benefit from its ash if he burns it. This applies, however, specifically to meat of a kosher animal in milk from a kosher animal, even if it was n'velah(see 90 & 86); then whiplashes should be suffered for cooking it. But if it was meat of a kosher animal in the milk of a non-kosher animal or meat from a non-kosher animal in the milk of a kosher one, or it was the meat of a kosher untamed animal or fowl in milk, cooking it and having benefit from it are permitted , but not eating it.

This applies everywhere and always, for both men and women.

This is all pretty straight forward except for one thing. The assumption in all of this is that the punishments for cooking meat in milk are only valid if the cooking was done with intention. None of these punishments applies if the cooking was done in error or by mistake. While there is no punishment for the person caught cooking meat and milk together by mistake still, the utensils used do become trayf and need to be re-kashered in most instances. You can see this in the halacha above when you note that there needs to be at least an olive's amount (about 45 cubic cm.) of one or both the meat and the milk in order to merit the punishment. Less than that was considered an error. Later the rule of 1/60th came into play that if the amount of milk in meat or meat in milk was less than 1/60th of the volume of the other, then it was considered as if nothing had happened.

In general, if something is forbidden, then any use of it at all is forbidden; in our case, even gaining any benefit from anything that results from the cooking: the dirty pot could not be used to feed animals, the ashes could not be spread in the garden and you certainly can't sell the trayf food to a non-Jew and pocket the money (or even get a tax deduction). In cases where there may be doubt about if the animal was cooked in its mother's milk, that is an untamed kosher animal (where we don't usually get milk from them) or fowl ( who have no milk)then we can benefit from the cooking; that is we can sell it to non-Jews even if we can't eat it. There was a time when fowl could be eaten with milk but the Talmud expressly says that since there could be confusion between the two kinds of meat, from mammal and from fowl, then we don't allow anyone to eat either meat with milk.

I should note here that, in cases of error, the dishes used are not kosher until they are re-kashered. There are some exceptions. If both the milk and the meat are mixed cold, then neither can be eaten and the plate that held the mixture needs only to be washed and not used for the rest of the day. If hot meat was placed on a cold dairy plate or hot milk placed in a cold meat bowl, the food may not be eaten but the plate or bowl needs only to be washed thoroughly. If cold meat is placed on a hot plate, or milk is put into a hot bowl, then cooking can take place and a full re-kashering, if possible, needs to be done. This means either immersion in boiling water or passing through flame. Ceramic dishes cannot be kashered and can no longer be used.

There is a common misconception that if you bury the utensil in a flowerpot or in the back yard overnight, this will re-kasher the utensil. This is just not true. If it needs to be re-kashered, then it must be heated beyond the temperature it was at when the violation occurred either through immersion or passing through a flame. If this is not possible, then the item can't be re-kashered. I suggest, however, before any item is thrown away, a Rabbi should be consulted; since there are often many exceptions and exemptions. While our neighbors may be very kosher in their home and we may have many friends who are strict in their observance of Kashrut, it is best to consult a Rabbi with any questions since there are many people who rely on “stories” rather than law in dealing with violations of Kashrut. When it comes to the rules of milk and meat, it is always best to verify what we are doing with a reliable authority.