I know that the Jews have a prohibition against eating the flesh of pigs (porK). However, is there any prohibiytion againsts a jewish butcher preparing and selling pork to others? As log as he himself doesn’t eat the stuff, is this kosher?
The base answer is that the mere presence of pork would render everything else no longer kosher. I’m sure the experts will be along shortly with the particulars.
From Leviticus, Chapter 11, verses 8&9:
“And the pig, though it has a split hoof completely divided, does not chew the cud; it is unclean for you. You must not eat their meat or touch their carcasses; they are unclean for you.”
A kosher butcher or any law-abiding Jew would not willingly touch a pig.
They can’t touch a pig but they can sell non-kosher cuts of meat to gentiles.
Hmmm… can the Orthodox pet a live piggie and feed it some Purina Pig Chow in a bowl, or are they to be avoided entirely?
Just his reputation.
The prohibition on eating is biblical but the Rabbi’s precluded other if not all uses. Kosher foods preapred on nonkosher surfaces or prepared with nonkosher utensils are no longer kosher. That is why you will find kosher soaps, palstic bags, etc., I have box of Ziplock bags with an OU in front fo me at this very moment.
If you are religious enough to buy kosher meats would you trust the kashruth of a butcher who also handled nonkosher foods?
AHunter3 raises another point that I don’t have an answer for. What about zoos? I believe that there is at least one zoo in Israel. Would the ultraorthodox avoid work there or is it permissible since you can’t very well let them starve?
There’s no prohibition on the butcher handling pork, and certainly no prohibition of touching living animals, as in zoos, whose flesh would not be Kosher to eat. An Orthodox Jew could be a zookeeper and have no problem religiously.
The only issue would be if the non-kosher stuff would likely come in contact with food. That contact (under certain circumstances) would then render the food non-kosher. That’s why those Ziploc bags need the Kosher certification. Not because the Rabbis said we can’t use bags made of non-kosher substance in general, but because these bags are likely to come in contact with food.
Naturally, then, a butcher who deals in Kosher meat wouldn’t deal in pork - unless he did kept the stuff fully segregated from all his Kosher meats, but that’s unlikely to be cost-effective, given the demographic he’s largely serving.
I think there’s another issue, because I’m pretty sure there’s some non-kosher food, including animals that are inherently non-kosher, that it’s also forbidden to buy or sell. Or am I wrong, and pork wouldn’t be under this restriction?
I’m pretty sure that restriction is somewhere in Yoreh De’ah, btw.
It could definitely be worth the cost if it helps him serve a greater Jewish clientele (enough to make up for the extra effort or expense, anyway). I’ve seen places that do this.
There are Kosher soaps because soap could conceivably be made from pork fat or porcine glycerine. Glycerine from pigs would be chemically identical to glycerine from any other animal; fats from pigs would be chemically identical to the same fats from other animals, but the fatty acids would exist in proportions unique to pigs. (That is, once the triacylglycerols themselves were extracted from the cell material; raw fat from an animal would still contain cells from that animal.)
But chemical composition is not what matters here, so soaps made from porcine fat would be prohibited, and thus natural soap would require Kosher certification to indicate that it doesn’t contain such fats. Soaps which contain milk ingredients would require a kosher dairy certification because problems could arise if such soaps were used, for example, to clean utensils used in preparing meat.
Modern detergents are usually made from petroleum and are therefore kosher except for the handling requirements already mentioned – again the certification would be needed to indicate that they had taken place.
Captain Amazing:
AFAIK, there are only three types of non-Kosher food (and I’m using the term “non-Kosher” merely as a synonym for “Orthodox Jews can’t eat it”) that it’s forbidden to derive benefit from as well as eat:
- Any milk-meat mixture
- Leavened grain products, if in Jewish possession on Passover
- Consecrated substances (even though there’s no Holy Temple these days, if someone is foolish enough to verbally designate an item as consecrated to the Temple, it is forbidden for further use, and if it’s a living cow, sheep or goat, forbidden to be slaughtered or eaten except on the Holy Temple’s altar, which nowadays means not at all).
Roches:
As I said ealier, there would be no problem with an Orthodox Jew washing his hands with such a soap. It’s only a problem due to the likelihood of the soap’s coming in contact with food.
Now, THAT would require Kosher certification merely for use - because the mixture of milk and meat is, as I said earlier, forbidden for any use, not just consumption.
Right, but isn’t there a seperate category of foods it’s permitted to “derive benefit from”, but not to “do business in”? I’ve found this discussion by Rabbi Doniel Neustadt.
http://www.torah.org/advanced/weekly-halacha/5760/vayishlach.html
Is there any procedure to “decontaminate” Kosher items tainted by non-Kosher stuff?
Captain Amazing - well, live and learn. I always thought “doing business” was exactly the same as “deriving benefit”. I guess your link proves me wrong.
Enola Straight - for food, no. For dishes/vessels, there are procedures for making them usable for Kosher again.