Some grape sodas might be problematic, or “fruit punch” flavors which contain grape.
This is true - it might also be noted that the foreskin is in fact buried right after the circumcision ceremony.
Shinna Minna Ma:
Pet food needs to be certified to be free of meat-milk mixture, and free of leaven on Passover, as those categories are forbidden in all manner of usage, not just consumption. It does not need to be kosher in other ways.
Touching a menstruating woman transmits ritual impurity, but that’s irrelevant in modern times, as all people in modern times have had some contact with ritual impurity, and there’s no valid way to be cleansed of it in the absence of the Holy Temple in Jerusalem. This aspect of it only affects consecrated objects. The only application of the menstrual impurity that still has application to daily life in modern times is not having sex with a menstruous woman, and that would only be relevant between husband and wife in the first place.
I don’t think the OP even said that the soda in question wasn’t certified kosher, just that the homeowner checked for said certification before allowing it in the house.
Well, there are certain foods that don’t specifically require certification - most fresh fruits and vegetables, for example. The certification is simply the best way to know that packaged food is kosher. And it is common practice to not bring food that is not known to be kosher into one’s house. As I said earlier, stopping it at the entry point is the easiest way to avoid problems.
I seem to recall that Islam also had the debate about wholeness of corpses, at one point, but that a prominent philosopher quashed it by pointing out that since God created our bodies from tiny specks to begin with, surely He could re-create them just as well.
In the olden days when I was a kid - the 60s and 70s - there were items that were known to be kosher, but did not have a kosher certification on the label. One of the more well known items were Hershey bars, which didn’t have a label certification until much later. Nowadays, because of the proliferation of ingredients which come from all over the world - I would not eat something that didn’t have a certification that I trust. (And yes, there are certifying Kashrut agencies that are more trustworthy than others.)
for clarity, we found the “OU” symbol on the bottle after the conversation. her husband also clarified that “all coke products are kosher.” it would appear most soft drinks in general are kosher.
nevertheless, she requested i never bring drinks with me when i come over any more.
what is odd (and a little off-putting to me) is that she requested a Starbuck’s Mocha be brought back for her when the husband brought back a diet coke.
i asked if that was kosher and she didn’t know.
now, i feel like i might be painting an ugly picture here. i love these people (they’re practically my favorite humans ((i don’t like humans))). but she really goes over the top about stuff like a tsunami of interest. i still have the utmost respect for her and her beliefs, but i also don’t think i really need to be worried about gum or candy if there’s no breech of doctrine.
but a great example is about how she went vegan a few years back. she hit it equally as hard, declaring them a vegan household and even making the dog eat vegan (that lasted approximately a millisecond before the vet was like “NO.”)
right after becoming vegan to ^that degree, she bought a new toyota hybrid camery. that model’s options didn’t include leather seats, so she sent the new car back to the factory to have custom leather seats installed.
it’s another thing i know better than to ask about, but it seems like a glaring contradiction to me. perhaps i am missing something (i miss a lot of things)…
i guess my point is these people aren’t orthodox. i know she isn’t strict about shabbot observance (they go places, drive, cook, etc) and the husband is philosophically interested but utterly ambivalent to the religious rigors.
so i feel like i have an answer: this is just a waaay over the top stricture. it’s her house, so that’s cool–whatever she wants.
btw, for clarity on the skulls comment, i think what she said was more close to
i don’t know if that changes anything, but that’s more closely verbatim the conversation.
Actually, with the way that’s worded it sounds much more in line with tradition. Roughly, Jewish tradition teaches that the separation of the soul from the body is a difficult thing. If the body is destroyed or damaged post mortem accidentally, G-d is believed to step in and spare the soul that trauma. But if some one specifies that they be cremated or donated to science, G-d sits back and lets the soul experience the trauma. So, it isn’t that the soul can’t reach heaven. It’s just that the journey will have a few very unpleasant stops.
typically, a lot of medical specimen are from india or china.
and i really appreciate your input and perspective and clarity…
but…
it doesn’t make sense to me. not that i am areligous (father was a Protestant minister as stated before…i am now a Deist)…but i still can’t understand the application of strictly jewish ideals to any dead body any place at all.
edit; got sidetracked and forgot my point:
part of why it doesn’t make sense to me is where does the soul go? if your head is missing, does your soul have to like, go find it? i am just not sure i follow. not that i really believe in any traditional ideas of heaven–but i thought the whole point of the afterlife was transcendental to the human form. so i guess i don’t understand the concept of a soul having to go some other place because the body was parted out. where would it have to go?
First, Judaism is founded on the basic idea ‘This religion is the one true one’. So it follows that whatever decision the person made while alive, their soul is faced with the G-d of Abraham now.
Second, Jewish law and tradition say that a corpse must be treated with respect. It doesn’t matter what culture or tradition the person came from. Respect in this case is defined very carefully. It doesn’t matter if the person came from a culture that practiced sky burials. Judaism says you wash the body ( a whole ritual in itself) and bury it.
ETA Cuz I just saw your edit
The idea is that after death, the soul slowly pulls away from the body. If the body is damaged (by dissection or cremation for example) that pulling away is violent and painful. It’s roughly like the difference between just getting out of a car and getting hit in the face with an airbag, spilling hot coffee on yourself, and hitting your head on the frame. Both ways get you out of the car but one is much more pleasant.
i admit i do not know all the ins and outs of judaism (but i do really respect i and am fascinated by the whole thing).
considering the strict fundamentals and how everything relates to all aspect of life, death, food, etc etc, i would presume Judaism functions on some variation of the concept of salvation?
as in you must believe in and/or worship God, do religious duties, etc etc in order to be granted entrance into the positive afterlife (ie heaven)…?
if that is the case, wouldn’t someone being from a different culture and religion exclude them from the Judaic afterlife altogether, regardless of their selling themselves into science?
hypothetically, if i forgot and “smuggle” some skittles in or something, does it “unkasher” the whole house if they never leave my pocket? am i creating some kind of religious problem if i accidentally bring nonkosher candy in?
wait…i just recalled unpacking a box, putting the content on a shelf for her and finding a bag of skittles in there.
are skittles kosher? (googling that right now!)
If the skittles never leave your pocket, or you’re careful when you eat them then there’s no problem. If you drop one on a table or countertop, there might be a problem.
I doubt it. Skittles are hard candies; if they happen to break, you clean up the mess and move on. It’s not something liquidy that could absorb into a counter.
With that, I will say Shabbat Shalom to all - true to form, a discussion about observant Judaism is taking place on Friday afternoon. TTFN.
It’s been answered above by DocCathode, but to elaborate - the answer is no. In Judaism, being Jewish is expressly not necessary for any sort of salvation. Being Jewish is not necessary for being righteous. People of any religion can be righteous. You do not have to believe in God (but you cannot blaspheme against God). Indeed, a major prophet in Judaism was not Jewish.
The reason for this is Biblical. Famously, in Genesis God finds Noah a “righteous man” and saves him. He became the ancestor of all of humanity. He was also a prophet - but of course he was not Jewish, as Judaism did not exist yet.
Therefore, anyone who obeys the laws incumbent on Noah would, logically, also be “righteous” just like he was. Hence, these minimum laws that apply to all humanity are known as the “Noahide Laws”. Anyone following them is just as righteous as an observant Jew, no matter what their religion.
In some ways, Judaism is sort of similar to the teachings of the Chinese philosopher Confucius. In ethics, there is an emphasis on the Golden Rule. There is the emphasis on ritual as cultivation of the good (something entirely missing in many other religious traditions). Keeping Kosher is considered good in and of itself, just like a Confucian would find maintaining proper rituals important in and of itself. Confucius performed ancestral-worship rituals but refused to comment on the literal truth of ancestral ghosts. Similarly, a Jew could be an athiest and still keep kosher.
I agree that absorption into a counter is unlikely, but if it’s left around a house where the owner thinks she has controlled the eating environment, she may mistake it for a similar-looking kosher candy. If it accidentally drops into a cup of Diet Coke (which is how the thread began, IIRC), it would probably dissolve into it and add some degree of flavor.
There’s plenty of good reason to keep non-kosher out of a house in which one intends and expects to keep kosher.
Speaking Talmudically and technically, and in response to a comment upthread on the why of this mitzvah, ultimately, despite the merits of ethical behavior (don’t boil kid in mother’s milk); setting borders for the sanctity of the body; etc.), the received tradition given by the Rabbis Who Know is that the mitzvah is in the same class with a number of other mitzvot: those that we don’t know the reason for, but God just told us so.
As to the comment on being more religious than the religious when in a conversion process, it is obviously common and not necessarily a bad thing. When was the last time you discovered something really big (more than good leather seats)? Science fiction, sand, some aspect of science? The fun of pooping in your pants or burping the alphabet? The point is with care the balance will settle down at some sort of workable pleasurable relationship to the sense of being and belonging.
I also have no problem with Jews “observing” different Kosher laws inside and outside the home–AKA the Chinese food exemption. The home is a special place, with more sanctity (family, education); that very fact alone is good enough for me. For some that is perverse “justification,” for other observant Jews it is just a joke to consider for being observant at all. Chacun a son gout, as Luther says.
A (Jewish) friend and mentor once explained it like this: “When Jews say we’re God’s Chosen People, we mean it like when you’re the student the teacher is always calling up to the board to do the math problem you don’t quite understand. Gee, I’m chosen. Thanks a friggin’ lot for the extra work and public humiliation…”
Fact that always puzzles people of different religions: you don’t really get anything for being Jewish. Christians are saved, Buddhists achieve Nirvana, and Jews … have some very tasty deli.
