138 Comments

Most likely a combination of ignorance, superstition, availability, experience and foresight just like the taboos of every other ancient people. For example perhaps the levant swine carried copious amounts of disease and parasites. People ate it and got sick. So the people decided swine was an abomination perhaps contaminated by evil spirits and declared do not eat it. Or perhaps some animals such as the calf had limited parasites and was more healthful to eat. It became allowable. Also, the calf was associated with their deity and by eating it it was as if they were partaking of their deity. ACJA

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Dec 27, 2022·edited Dec 27, 2022

@Rav Slifkin

“…Another theme is avoiding creatures that are disgusting, as discussed in the previous post. This is clearly the reason for the prohibition of most insects, which the Torah explicitly refers to with the word sheketz, repulsive…”

What is not halachically disgusting to your religion may be “sheketz” to others. Consider slitting a cow’s throat and watching it writhe in awful torment as it dies. Thats the only avenue to render it halachically acceptable to be eaten. To you it is not sheketz, to animal ethicists it’s a very abominable sheketz — an unholy recipe for animal torture. There’s nothing kodesh about shechita when an electric shock to the animal’s brain renders the same result, sans the ungodly torment wreaked on the cow.

What’s kodesh to you is an contemptible abomination to others.

Why isn’t rendering the animal numb to pain before slitting its throat kodesh? After all, we know a lot more about the notion of צער בעלי חיים and methods of reducing or eliminating today than was known 1500 years ago.

Sheketz, kodesh and repulsive is in the eye of the beholder and shechita without first stunning is certainly in a very repulsive category.

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Whether one can come up with rationalizations for various mitzvos is not the question. Of course one can. There is no arbitrary religious law that one could not come up with a "reason" for. If the Torah commanded us to not sit on chairs, we could easily come up with a reason for it. If the Torah commanded us to hang a basket of chicken bones from the ceiling, we could easily come up with a reason for it.

The great Rabbis throughout the centuries came up with many and diverse reasons for various mitzvos. They also understood that those reasons are insufficient or not very convincing, as they said many times. אמרתי אחכמה והיא רחוקה ממני.

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I am surprised that neither R. Slifkin nor any other poster has brought up Marvin Harris, whose hypothesis is that originally many prohibitions - not merely in Judaism - arose for ecological, not religious, reasons and only later were transformed into religious reasons.

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How is a cicada "disgusting" but a locust is not? Disgust is in the eye of the beholder - consider the variety of world cuisines.

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To become holy is the go-to answer for mitzvot that seem illogical. 1 size fits all. But, what does "holy" even mean? I assume it means closer to God, but I do not buy into that goal. What is so great about being "close to God"? I have never found that God particularly wants me to be close. Whether I performed mitzvot or not, I never felt that God was welcoming me in. He seems happier when I keep my distance.

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great post, keep em coming

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Dei, dei, dayenu. Dayenu dayenu.

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Dec 29, 2022·edited Dec 29, 2022

So the Israelites developed the laws of Kashrus when and where according to this post? What did God do? Ratify whatever was developed? Anything happened at Har Sinai?

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No, won’t. Because each survivor had a different experience, some suffered more than others and you have acknowledge the validity of each survivor’s unique personal experience and response to what happened to him or her.

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The answer in one word is ignorance. ACJA

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Great post.

Shadal in Vayikra 11:1 shares many of your observations.

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So how long and where were we practicing Kashrus then before it gets commanded to us in the Torah?

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"Not Kosher" is also a colloquial inaccurate term. The Torah refers to these animals as "impure." A goat is also "not kosher" until properly slaughtered and prepared for legal consumption.

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Why does everything need to be scientifically sustainable? Do you have a scientific explanation for Hashem's existence?

Animals that have cloven hooves but so not chew cud are hypocrites. There is a Yiddish expression for someone who is not what is pretends to be - chazir fisl kosher (pigs have kosher feet). I think that the pig is especially hated because during the Hasmonean civil war, Hyrcanos' supporters sent a pig up the wall instead of a kosher sacrifice. This may also be a coded reference to the Romans, as, for the Jews, the pig symbolized Rome. Several legions had a wild boar as their symbol as it symbolized power in Roman culture.

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All of that, plus preserving the environment and viability of species.

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