In this column:
http://www.straightdope.com/mailbag/mjewishislamdiet.html
Dex wrote that there is no prohibition on alchohol in Judaism. That’s not entirely accurate - first of all, non-cooked wine (but not other alcholic beverages) if handled by non-Jews becomes unkosher. Also, while there isn’t an overall prohibition on alcohol, it is prohibited before certain ritual acts, like the priestly blessing.
Otherwise, great column!
Incidentally, there’s a bit of a storm in the UK about halal and kosher slaughter at the moment from the animal rights lobby, and Jewish and Islamic groups have come together to attempt preserve the practice.
Being a fully-lapsed Catholic, I have no idea where I might go to get this question answered, other than right here on the SD Message Boards:
Are dust mites kosher?
In the table, Dex mentions that many observant Jews avoid vegetables (like broccoli) with little crevices where things that “creep” and “crawl” might live. Well, modern science has shown us that there’s creepy and crawly stuff like dust mites all over everything, including the food we eat. No amount of washing will get rid of all of them.
And there’s wild yeast all over, floating in the air. It would be impossible to keep from eating food that had been leavened at least a tiny bit on the surface, right?
Given these modern scientific insights, wouldn’t just about every food be disqualified? Could you invent a super-cleaning process and super-hermetically-sealing process that would make food truly kosher, down to the microscopic level?
I’m not trying to show disrespect, although I do think we shouldn’t simply follow tradition for tradition’s sake. I really am just curious if any religious scholars have asked/answered these questions.
Anybody?
Or, more properly, performing certain acts (such as the priestly blessing) is forbidden after one has drunk wine (not that the drinking of the wine itself is forbidden).
Zev Steinhardt
**
Firstly, no, down the microscopic level does not apply. For example, I can breathe, despite the fact that I may be breathing in microscopic organisms. The prohibition generally applies only to those creatures that are visible to the naked eye.
Well, Orthodox Jews who keep kosher aren’t simply keeping it “for tradition’s sake.” We’re keeping it because we believe that we were commanded to by God. That’s a whole other kettle o’ fish than simply keeping it “for traditions sake.”
Zev Steinhardt
Ah, but did God command you not to apply His word to the microscopic level, Zev? 
curwin, did you mean “non-cooked wine” or “non-cooking wine”? (I’m not sure there is a difference; I just want to get it clear in my mind.)
Zev, no offense intended. You may take comfort that I considered using the term “pig-headed”, but thought better of it. Or not.
Is there a good on-line source for kosher laws, one which addresses such issues as the microscopic question directly? I guess, as Dex says, the full rules fill volumes and are sometimes in dispute; is there somewhere on-line where Orthodox Jews discuss/debate these matters, or can get their kosher questions answered?
The Orthodox Union is the leading kashrus organization in the United States today. They have a basic primer on kashrus. They also have a section of the website where you can ask questions.
Zev Steinhardt
No, he said “non-cooked,” which is correct.
Zev Steinhardt
I thought this article was one of the most interesting to come out of Straight Dope.
What jumped out at me from the comparison table is that both religions prohibit, above all, hunting, preferring to draw their food sources from domestic creatures that can be killed in a controlled and humane way.
This obviously would have strong social implications, and seems to me to be a kind of homage to a prehistoric period of human transformation from hunting societies to societies that "settle the land”, a theme that continues to have strong influence in Jewish culture.
“Ah, but did God command you not to apply His word to the microscopic level, Zev? ” ~dantheman
Yes. Topics such as this are covered in the Talmud. (It should perhaps be noted that what the Talmud states as the law is by definition the law, regardless of what Moses was commanded by God at Sinai. Doubtless the oral tradition got confused before it was written down. This concept is called lo bashamayim hi, “it [Jewish law] is not in the heavens.”) You would be amazed at what’s covered in the Talmud, which is incidentally several thousand pages long. One interesting then-academic discussion that is pertinent today is one concerning a woman who bathes in sperm and thus becomes pregnant. It is relevant to artificial insemination.
By the way, two things: first of all, some Sephardic Jews have a tradition concerning which grasshoppers are acceptable for consumption. Such Jews are permitted to eat those grasshoppers, although others are not. I know someone who used to eat grasshoppers when he lived in Yemen. (I assume he didn’t have much else to eat, so of course he would have been allowed to eat anything at that point. But nevertheless, he was permitted to do so.)
Second, Yom Kippur does not actually last 24 hours. It lasts approximately 25 hours, just as the Sabbath does. This is due to a dispute in the Talmud as to when exactly night begins – one opinion holds that it’s at sunset, and one holds that it’s when the stars actually come out. Because this is a matter of Biblical law (as opposed to Rabbinical law), we rule stringently: we begin at sunset and end at nightfall. The two times are approximately an hour apart.
A few corrections:
curwin: << Dex wrote that there is no prohibition on alchohol in Judaism. That’s not entirely accurate - first of all, non-cooked wine (but not other alcholic beverages) if handled by non-Jews becomes unkosher. >>
I didn’t want to get into fine distinctions, other than to say that some (mostly Orthodox) authorities consider only certain types of wine to be kosher. Most conservative authorities consider the “handled by non-Jews” to be outdated, from a fear that non-Jews would do something like drop bacon grease into the wine. Things like wine and cheese get into WAY more detail than was relevant for this report: the focus was on comparison between Islamic and Judaic rules, not on expounding all the details of each.
<< Also, while there isn’t an overall prohibition on alcohol, it is prohibited before certain ritual acts, like the priestly blessing. >>
Already answered by zev: the prohibition is not on drinking but on performing certain ritual acts after you’ve drunk. Similarly, there are rules against drunkeness etc, but that’s not really dietary, that’s behavioral. And again, more detail than I wanted to go into.
dantheman: << Ah, but did God command you not to apply His word to the microscopic level, Zev? >>
And the answer, surprisingly, is yes… mostly. All traditional Jews (whether Orthodox or Conservative) accept that the written word of the Bible is insufficient, and that rulings by rabbinic authorities over the centuries are binding, because they are divinely inspired. The more egregious example: the only biblical prohibition against mixing milk and meat is “Do not cook a kid in the milk of its mother,” repeated three times in the Pentateuch. There is great debate in the Talmud about what that means, with some rabbis holding it means literally what it says, and other rabbis holding it prohibits the mixing of milk and meat from any animals. Then there is debate about whether chickens (whose mothers do not have milk) are subject to this. And on and on. An entire complex of rules have come down from the rabbinic authorities on this topic. Similarly, when the existence of microorganisms were discovered, rabbinic authorities debated and decided, divinely inspired, and this is taken as coming from God – God abides by the halakhic rulings of His people. It’s a concept quite foreign to Christianity.
Aryeh << Some Sephardic Jews have a tradition concerning which grasshoppers are acceptable for consumption. >>
Yes, again, there was a limit on how much information to give without making this report massive (as if it weren’t already.) I just didn’t want to get into the details of what some small communities do, I wanted to stick to mainstream as much as possible.
And, by the way, welcome to the Straight Dope Message Board, a great first post! We hope you keep it up.
<< Second, Yom Kippur does not actually last 24 hours. It lasts approximately 25 hours, just as the Sabbath does. >>
Yes, fair enough. It actually lasts longer, because we usually get to the synagogue earlier for minha so it’s usually closer to 26 hours or more… depending on how slowly the guy davens ma’ariv at the conclusion (you wouldn’t believe…) Again, I wanted to paint the comparison of the two fasts, Islamic and Judaic, without getting into the elaborate details of how each one works.
**Jaiken[/b[: << What jumped out at me from the comparison table is that both religions prohibit, above all, hunting, preferring to draw their food sources from domestic creatures that can be killed in a controlled and humane way. >>
Yes, I tried to make clear that the underlying premise of both religions is respect for life. Welcome to the Straight Dope Message Board, and thanks for the fairly profound first post! Keep it up!
Assad: << 1. The Muslim system of law is called the shariah, but the term for jurisprudence, of which there are five schools, is Fiqh. It is under Fiqh that one would look for rules, and divergences, on dietary laws.
2. Not only animals that eat carrion but carrion itself is forbidden for Muslims to consume.
3. During Ramadan, eating and marital relations are forbiddden from dawn to dusk, but also the consumption of any beverage. >>
Welcome to the Straight Dope Message Board, Assad, a great first post and we hope to see more of you!
I did run this report by two different Islamic authorities in Chicago, and neither corrected the term shariah. I will check with others, to see whether this is a correction we should make. Again, there’s a limit to how much detail I wanted to provide about where and how local/regional/sect differences arose, both for Islam and Judaism.
On carrion, I thought I’d covered that (at least, implicitly) under slaughter. An animal not killed by approved slaughter is not permitted, if you’ll pardon the double negative.
I thought that “eating” would have included “drinking”, but I’ll be glad to edit in that additional comment. As an aside, similarly, eating, drinking, and sexual relations are prohibited to Jews on Yom Kippur.
I’m very glad for all the comments here. I knew there was no way to cover all details, so I drew a line in the sand, trying to focus on the comparison of the two. I know that we have experts on the Message Boards here in one side or the other, and I knew that they would each offer additional fine points, which are very welcome. My focus was on education for the other side – letting the Muslims know what Jewish rules are all about (and hence why it’s OK to eat kosher food), and letting the Jews know what Islamic rules are all about, and letting Christians and others understand both Jewish and Muslim approaches.
I also hope that it’s one small step towards bringing about better understanding between Muslims and Jews – their two religions are closer to each other, by far, than either one is to Christianity. And it’s time for the various children of Abraham to stop the religious hatreds – mostly springing from modern (last hundred years of so) political disagreements. We can resolve the political disagreements more peacably and more effectively if we can remove the religious hatreds.
I have been very interested in this thread, as a vegetarian I find the dietary laws to be very complex indeed, but I have been most fascinated by the image of the desert island of ham sandwiches…
I digress. My question is this: If it is permitted in both religions to violate these laws to save one’s life, what about the consumption of human flesh in the same circumstances? I am not even certain of the Christian position on this, but I remember when the soccer players consumed the dead after their plane crashed, it was not treated as a great taboo. Don’t all religions offer exceptions in extreme circumstances?
I actually just read a responsum of a rabbi who said that while according to the punishment indicated by the Torah eating certain fats is a more severe sin than eating human flesh, if one is in a circumstance with nothing else to eat, he should eat the forbidden fats before eating human flesh.
Ekk - I don’t profess to know anything much about it, but surely water would be allowed? Otherwise, a whole month without water…??? 
That’s if you’re lucky and live (relatively) near the equator - say in Israel. I should think that the length of the Sabbath/holiday would increase exponentially as one goes north in the summer - taken to the logical extreme of “Midnight Sun” starting sometime, somewhere on a Saturday morning - Sabbath may last several days/weeks. Wonder what kind of time an observant Polar explorer would have trying to keep Sabbath?
Dan Abarbanel
Read carefully: dawn to dusk. Not 24/7. It does get to be a pain when Ramadan falls in the summer I am led to understand.
There is some recent (and by recent, I mean within the last 250 years) halachic literature covering this. Unfortunately, there are no clear cut answers. Some authorities hold that if one is in a place where there is no sunrise and/or sunset in a 24-hour period, then one should use the local time of the place he came from. That, of course, only works for a visitor to said areas. A resident of these areas is in a situation that is a bit more complex. Other authorities hold that Sabbath laws may not even be operative in such areas. As a result, these authorities rule, Jews should not live in said areas.
As a practical matter, there is no clear-cut decision on this, and therefore, one should consult his local rabbi before living in such areas.
Zev Steinhardt
But what about “Merely” 30-hour Sabbaths (as may possibly be experienced, say, in Sweden, Scotland, Canada), caused by sunset being followed VERY BELATEDLY by full darkness?
Dan Abarbanel