WHO DOES SHE THINK SHE'S TALKING TO?
Tue, 2010-08-17 13:38
The author of this book probably knows that people who live halachically and eat kosher are more thoughtful about the food on their plates than anyone else. We have to know where everything comes from and how it is prepared. I have had guests in my home who won't eat meat at my table because they're not sure what pains I've taken to separate meat from dairy in my kitchen. So the tone of the book, sort of a "Did you know?" is a bit insulting. What works best in the book is the discussion of the original intention of the kashrut laws and how out of synch it is with the modern diet.
Sun, 2010-08-29 13:19
#1
Kashrut and what is known---and not known by Jews
I had thought that the Jewish people would be foremost in their understanding of the morality of food issues, since they indeed have one of the longest records of thought about food but, in fact, I discovered that this record was an impediment to their understanding the modern food crisis. Laws regarding the separation of dairy and meat does not prepare one to understand the crisis in egg production; assumptions about past regulations regarding the kashering of meat does not qualify one to understand the overuse of antibiotics in the modern cattle industry, or the dangerous increase of the infectious e:coli pathogen---in both kosher and non-kosher meat. It is precisely because we face radically new conditions in husbandry and in the slaughterhouse (except for a handful of individual Jewish farmers), that Jews cannot rely on past standards of the definition of kosher.
Sun, 2010-08-22 09:03
#2
An enlightening look at what it means to be kosher, really
One of the more interesting points in this book is that in today's world, kosher rules are limited to the way the animal is killed and the combinations it's eaten in. But meat is considered kosher even if the animal, while alive, has been raised in the the most cruel conditions deprived of light and space to move, fed an unpaletable diet, animals bodies distorted by nutritional and genetic engineering, and so forth. It is considered kosher to feed the children at the table meat that contains large amounts of residual antibiotics and hormones without concern for potential health effects.
So, people religiously focus on rules like separation of milk and meat, and consider themselves thoughtful about food. Here is an author who thinks more deeply about the religious significance of diet. She points out, modern kosher rules fail to take into account vast changes in food production that occured in the late 20th century, undermining much of the moral signficance of kosher practices. The author also tries to show how basic Jewish principles might be applied to restore a deeply religious basis to dietary rules. You can call that insulting. I call it enlightening.
Sun, 2010-08-29 13:25
#3
The problem with "Kosher" today
Thank you. You have understood what it is I was trying to do with this book. But I am also trying to open and widen the discussion beyond this book. The Jewish community needs to address the issue of whether kashrut, as traditionally understood, is compatible with modernity.
