Why separate plates?
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Reason, ritual, and the root of kashrut
- Thread starter Jayhawker Soule
- Start date
Deut 13:1
Well-Known Member
I thought it was pretty obvious but if one tiny amount of meat is left on the plate and then you plop down this gorgeous bagel with cream cheese and nova (Yum....) it would no longer be kosher. Are you asking me to look up where these rabbinic requirements came from and how we today use two of everything? I just want to be clear what type of answer you're looking for.
Just noting that it has little or nothing to do with Torah.
Deut 13:1
Well-Known Member
Yes and no Jay.Just noting that it has little or nothing to do with Torah.
The Torah tells us several things about keeping kosher. I'm doing a quick summary before I run off to Shul so don't be too brutal on your response. :slap:
The Torah tells us that we are not to mix dairy and meat. What does that mean Jay? Do you think that when Moses was wondering the desert with the Jews and telling them they are no longer allowed to mix dairy and meat they wouldn't ask him to explain. "But moses, what about that dishwasher, and electricity during the Sabbath". They were not around thousands of years ago but I believe the Torah still has the answers to the questions. As technology has advanced, we look to the Rabbi's on how HaShem's commandments affect us. Do you think the Talmud had a stance for electricity and cars and how they relate to the Sabbath thousands of years ago? No.
I do think we can both agree a lot of the Kosher laws came from rabbinic interpretation and study of HaShem's laws. If anything you're arguing that we are too careful and we err on the side of caution too much. Both of which, I can live with.
Mostly no ...
The walls around the Torah are too often built by the well intentioned ignorant, the same type of uber-pious folks who today seek to eliminate the face of women from the streets of Jerusalem while arresting the Women of the Wall for praying at the kotel. May God protect us from this kind of Judaism.And then HaShem spoke to Moses saying:Moshe! Instruct the people of Israel saying: "You shall not boil a kid in its mother's milk!" And Moses replied:Got it! You don't want us to mix meat and dairy products. Right?And then HaShem spoke to Moses saying:Moshe!! Again - instruct the people of Israel saying: "You shall not boil a kid in its mother's milk!" And Moses replied:No problem. After eating something like a burger you want us to wait at least six hours before eating ice cream and the like. Yes?And then HaShem spoke to Moses saying:Moshe!!! One last time - instruct the people of Israel saying: "You shall not boil a kid in its mother's milk!" And Moses replied:I understand. So you want us to be sure not to use the same knife for cutting the brisket that we use for slicing our pizza. True?And then HaShem spoke to Moses saying:MOSHE !!!! ...Oh ... never mind ... do it your own way.
Talk of who's "more religious" strikes me as more than a little silly.
Deut 13:1
Well-Known Member
So what would you imply is the meaning of keeping kosher?
Okay, I'll play along...
I assume you're referencing this... Woman Arrested For Carrying Torah Near Western Wall
I'm not a big fan of woman being denied the right to read from the Torah, but I understand why they are not allowed.
It is no different then the U.S. not allowing the KKK to walk down the streets of southern Chicago. Or yelling Fire in a crowded movie theater. There are laws against doing things for the sole purpose of causing issues.
If you were making the argument that women be allowed to pray at the wall, I support that. I don't support trying to change the laws by breaking them.
The question (while interesting) is irrelevant. The point is that "keeping kosher" has ventured so far beyond the Torah as to become laughable.
Or this.
As a veteran of the Civil Rights Movement let me suggest: "We shall overcome."
Deut 13:1
Well-Known Member
I guess we just agree to disagree on that point.
If you think things are so far beyond the Torah when it comes to kosher - I'm afraid to ask you - What are your thoughts on the Sabbath? and how modern-Orthodox like Chabad honor it?
I had not read or seen that article, but if you are looking for me to endorse that, I would not. I don't agree with that. I think in some ways, things have gone too far. At the same time, even you wouldn't agree with advertisements like this. That was the first google search item I found. There are much much worse that I've seen on TV and driving around.
Dena
Active Member
It's vastly different. I'm quite surprised you'd even make that comparison.
Heschel's book I love ... this not so much.
TheKnight
Guardian of Life
The KKK are not legally or constitutionally prohibited from walking down the streets of southern Chicago. They may face restrictions that any group faces when trying to organize a large public event, but it certainly isn't because of the type of event they're having.
Man-made laws are arbitrary. And God allows you to, more or less, break His laws without any immediate or over-archingly obvious punishment. What is the lesson to be learned from that?
I think it is important to keep in mind that many of the fences that were put in place were put in place because of the times during which they were established. There may have been a time where certain practices made sense because of the nature of the time. I'd be willing to bet that given current circumstances, the Rabbis of the Talmud would not proscribe the same lifestyles as they did when they lived. If anything, they'd look at us currently and wonder why we haven't, with all our capacity for knowledge and the greater access everyone has to the tradition and to Torah, changed many of the things they've implemented. It seems to me that Orthodoxy debilitates itself with the mentality that because we are not those who came before us, we cannot affect Judaism as dramatically as they did. The past is important, but if tikkun olam is our goal we cannot limit ourselves to what the past has done when the past did not succeed (I acknowledge that to a degree I am oversimplifying the entirety of what this discussion could be).
Ultimately, an approach to Torah which almost forgets the point of Torah in order to maintain that which was implemented by men is ab approach that will ultimately lead to failure.
We are in times where individual average human beings have the capacity to majorly affect the world around them. How many people (but religious Jews especially) in our current times pass through life being wholly unnoticed? Not because of their inability to make the affect, but because of the sheer lack of effective people. For a people with tavlin l'yetzer hara I'd say that we could be doing much better.
Levite
Higher and Higher
Notein ta'am (transmission of "flavor," but more idiomatically, "essence"). The Rabbis teach us that the ta'am of the foods we cook gets infused into the cookware and the plates-- anything made of metal or pottery or wood is considered to be mekabel ta'am (prone to absorption of the ta'am), and thus cannot be used for both meat and dairy.
In theory, glass, which is not mekabel ta'am, could be used for both (though not at the same time, of course), but the Rabbis tell us not to use glass dishes in this manner, as a siyag l'Torah ("a fence around Torah," that is, a secondary prohibition made in order to prevent transgression of a primary prohibition).
Our Rabbis treat ta'am as a literal physical phenomenon, and indeed, it might have been for them: metal items were seldom cleaned to modern standards in those days, and had far less smooth and regular surfaces, so one way or the other, it was common for minute amounts of food to remain on the surfaces. And pottery, when it was glazed at all, tended to have much more imperfect, diffuse glazing than modern pottery, and it would have been quite normal for oils and juices to work their way in, potentially to rise to the surface when the dish was heated again by the next serving of food (this will also happen with wooden dishes, which are similarly porous).
In later times, when pottery glazing and metal production had improved enough that for the most part the ta'am is not a literal physical permanent or cumulative transmission of food essence, later halachists still uphold the separation of dishes, but they treat the concept of notein ta'am more metaphysically, IMO; like an extension of tum'ah and taharah (ritual impurity and purity) almost.
It's true that this all seems a little withdrawn from the pshat of the Written Torah text-- even the Rabbis admit in the cases of kashrut and melachot Shabbat (the halachot of work on Shabbat), "hakol talu'i b'chut ha-se'arah." "The whole enterprise hangs on a single strand of hair." But these are just examples of how Written Torah and Oral Torah are halves of a whole, and sometimes the halves can be a bit unevenly divided.
jazzymom
Just Jewish
Then why is it problematic for the law to change? If there is not a cumulative transmission of food essence because we know in the modern world that the production of metal and glazing has changed so that there is not transmission then why does it stay the same ?
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Yes. As is arresting women at the wall.
Levite
Higher and Higher
I am at a loss to understand what Nashot ha-Kotel have to do with kashrut. Being friendly with many of the founders and mainstays of that excellent group, I happen to know that they are observant, including keeping kosher. These are people who want to keep more mitzvot, not fewer.
In part, this is because the rabbis have long since ceased to treat ta'am as a purely physical phenomenon: elements of ritual purity and impurity have come to be invested in the concepts of kashrut, which, being metaphysical, are harder to do away with.
However, even for those of us halachists who do not accept the investiture of ta'am in kashrut with metaphysical aspects, there is still a strong position of wishing to retain the keeping of separate dishes-- even if one had dishes of glass, even if one could make a properly supported halachic argument that pottery (metal is halachically always subject to ta'am: there is simply no precedent for saying otherwise, and halachah generally demands precedents) as a siyag l'Torah-- a "fence around the Torah."
Most Liberal Jews are not well-educated about the halachot of kashrut. If they keep kosher at all, they tend to know only broad rules, not the fine minutiae, and thus their practice is served by keeping the idea of separation of meat and dairy very strong.
And finally, there is simply a dearth of halachic precedent to make such fundamental changes in hilchot kashrut. There are some radical halachic principles that can allow for the making of changes to the law without precedent, but these must be used sparingly, lest over-use destabilize the entire system. And most Liberal halachists today would prefer to use those radical principles to attack halachic problems involving social justice, such as the problems faced by gay and lesbian Jews.
There simply is not adequate motivation to make sweeping changes in the halachot of kashrut, because it doesn't really harm anyone to keep kosher according to the tradition. We change the traditional halachah when there is acute need, not merely to serve the sake of minor convenience. Too much change too quickly destabilizes the halachic system.
Rakhel
Well-Known Member
Tradition