Which, it seems, proves that intelligence and knowledge of a subject is not a prerequisite for writing books.
Where to begin?
Kosher rules by no means made Jews vegetarians, they ate plenty of meat.
Fishplant? Seriously? Sounds like the teetotalers who claimed Jesus was drinking grape juice, not wine. (In a place where alcoholic drinks were far safer than water)
I guess some of the apostles were scraping the bottom of the Sea of Galilee with nets for fishplant.
the Essenes also didn’t believe in sex… plus, their base was Qumrum along the Dead Sea, about as far from Nazareth as Jerusalem if not farther. (i.e. a long way away) Speculation is John the Baptist and Jesus spent some time there, but as we see, both left.
Kosher rules probably helped provide some degree of food safety in a hot environment.
Meat is a convenient compact source of protein, which is why humans evolved to at it. Speculation is that hunting and the protein it provided was what allowed humans to evolve large brains - which require a lot of calories to maintain. You gotta spend a lot of time and collect a huge amount of wild beans to equal the protein found in one helping of meat.
I believe that nowadays, ostrich and emu are raised on farms for food, those are not kosher. Peafowl are also generally acknowledged as non-kosher nowadays (though some medieval rabbis might have permitted it…translations are not entirely clear), and I think they’re eaten by some.
Overall, I am not aware of birds commonly eaten by Western consumers that are not considered Kosher.
The Law forbids birds with hooked beaks and/or talons. Birds with hooked beaks are condors, buzzards, and vultures. Carrion eaters. I say go ahead and dig in if you want to. Birds with talons are predators. Eagles, falcons, hawks. Other than Bald Eagles, I say kill all you want but eat all you kill.
Kangaroos are land animals which do not have hooves and do not ruminate (although I’ve recently read a book which analyzes the Torah’s concept of “rumination” and concludes that the kangaroo’s digestive system shares similarities with that of hares which might mean that they would come under that category by the Torah definition - nonetheless, they definitely do not have hooves, much less split hooves) so would not be kosher.
Why do we outlaw the human consumption of horse meat in the US? Or dog meat? Or have rules about how healthy livestock intended for human consumption have to be? Or how animals have to be handled before/during slaughter and rules for handling the meat and other products afterward? Doesn’t that make things complicated? Doesn’t that forbid food that is otherwise wholesome and nutritious?
The thing is, if you live in a society were everyone, or nearly so, keeps kosher and kosher dietary laws are synonymous with the societal laws for food handling then it’s really not bothersome to the average person. If everything in the store is kosher you don’t have to put that much though into it, and keeping meat and dairy separate isn’t any more difficult than, say, making sure meat juices don’t contaminate the produce.
It’s only unusually bothersome when you live in a society were kosher laws are kept by only a small minority of people (Muslims and their hallal rules are the same).
Every society has rules about how food it produced, handled, stored, prepared, and served. The kosher ones only seem strange and burdensome because they are so different than what you are used to, and in most of the world different from the mainstream.
Modern food handling rules are based on what we now know about how food contamination is spread. (And aren’t perfect or frequently abused, as several recent outbreaks demonstrate). There have been plenty of laws over the centuries usually aimed at public health, or other motivations; usaully the motivations driving laws are apparent. I don’t so much think it’s “strange” so much as people try to understand (or make up reasons) for the motives behind these laws food safety, OCD, squeamishness, tribal rivalry, etc. since the reasons were never spelled out.
There is no evidence that Essenes had a “base” in Qumram. It had been a Roman fort at the start of the First Jewish–Roman War. There might have been a few there during the war. It’s widely believed that the documents were stashed there as they fled along the road away from the general area of Jerusalem. Maybe towards Mt. Carmel or somewhere in the Transjordan where they had communities. The treasure plate lists sites all over the region where members stashed goodies.
(In fact, there are more than a few people who think the Essenes had nothing to do with the Dead Sea scrolls.)
Okay. Back to the topic.
I always like to consider the oddity of how certain rules like no meat and dairy get stronger over time (to the point that some keep two sets of dishes) while others like the Eruv get weaker over time.
So any explanation that dietary laws must be strictly observed so they are stronger than what’s in the Torah don’t hold much with me when there are so many things that go the other way.
The learned rabbis who have discussed this for millennia wouldn’t hold with your interpretation. They would say that we’ve gotten better understanding of the law and how to observe more accurately.
My rabbi said he has 7. 2 sets of every day for meat and milk. 2 sets of formal for meat and milk. Two sets for passover. And a set of dishes in case he goes to a pot luck.
What about Chicken Cordon Bleu (made with turkey ham, natch)? Chickens are kinda famous for not producing milk (as are turkeys). Is that okay?
Also, wrt the OP, ISTR something in the Book of Job that went along the lines of “Where were YOU when I was creating the Universe? You don’t get to question Me.” (at least that was the way it looked to me. Admittedly, I read it in the Brick Testament, so take that for what it’s worth.)
Anyone know offhand or by cite the status of “reasoning”–that is, normally acceptable and with some sort of answer provided in Oral Torah–for groups mitzvoth as a whole? Cited above is a “don’t even bother” mitzvah, like kashrut, the ban on mixed-material one (which surely, sociologically speaking, has roots in “why can’t the farmer and the rancher be friends” situations).
The other 611 mitzvoth: haven’t they been divided, more or less dogmatically–I believe even the 613 was ironed out by Maimonides in the 12th C. AD, but don’t quote me on that–into other epistemological frameworks within Halacha (Jewish law per se).
Hey…you know, the slimy white stuff inside of an egg…I think it’s called the “white”, yeah, that’s it…it looks an awful lot like milk. And it’s in there to sustain the life of the creature inside the egg, just like milk. Really, when you think about it, it’s a hell of a lot like milk. I mean it basically IS milk.
Again, this “more accurately” stuff isn’t supported by the observances that get weakened, not strengthened.
Having 2 or more sets of dishes when clearly the average Hebrew 2000 years ago wouldn’t have practiced any such thing is purely a social thing, not from the Torah.
There is a lot of stuff that is cultural and not biblical. It gets complicated quickly largely because there isn’t a single defining body who rules on things. Everything is an interpretation. Frequently an interpretation of an interpretation. This is by design. Back in the old days it was community by community no big deal. You had Torah, Mishna, Talmud and Midrash and you had a rabbi who tied it all together. Communities who were close did things that were similar but not the same and stuff
evolved like a game of telephone. Which is why Ashkinaze and Sephardim are so very different on certain interpretations. But, we live in a more global world now and stuff gets borrowed and passed around. The Reform movement happened. Mordicai Kaplan came along and shook things up later. Hassidism took off. Stuff changed and evolved.
It’s a convenience/affluence thing. However, the underlying reasons behind it are still from the Torah. The principle that “mixing” of foodstuffs (not only meat and milk, but other mixtures of forbidden and permitted foods) occurs through transfer of flavor, which in turn occurs by way of heat, and that eating and cooking utensils can absorb and disgorge flavor when heat is applied to those is a constant that goes back thousands of years. At no point since the giving of the Torah would an observant Jew have used the same plate for hot dairy food and hot meat, at least not without boiling the flavor out with hot water in between. But the mass manufacture of durable tableware, combined with the increased affluence of Jews in the modern world (plus the fact that in significant ways, eating modes have changed between the ancient Middle East and the modern West) have made it more convenient for people to own multiple sets of dishes for long-term use than to either a) have one set that they keep track of the meat/dairy/hot food/cold food last use of, or b) never really have a “set” at all, but just have crappy, not-long-lasting utensils that are acquired and replaced as needed.
