The concept of gezeirah(building a fence around the torah) is very unevenly applied in practice. For instance, the prohibition against wearing wool blended with linen into woven fabric(called shatnez) is interpreted pretty strictly. Blends of polyester, rayon, wool and bamboo, etc. are all fine. Blended fabrics of pretty much any type except the very specific mixture of wool and linen are allowed. Even certain types of wool(goat and camel wool for example). The fence around this mitzva is very weak. It’s typically interpreted as being fine to wear a wool-linen blend if the wool is 51% non-sheep wool. Garments of wool and linen may be layered, despite the fact that the fibers will certainly blend somewhat when in contact with each other.
On the other hand, the prohibitions regarding food are EXTREMELY strict. Having a cow milk-based dessert when eating chicken? Not allowed. Of course there is nothing about such a meal which would come within light years of the prohibition of cooking a kid in it’s mother’s milk. A cow is not a goat, and a chicken is not a kid. Nor do you boil your meat in your dessert. There’s just no way a kid could get boiled in it’s mother’s milk during this meal’s preparation. In fact, if you simply don’t eat goat(easy to do in the US) you would never run afoul of this no matter if you didn’t wash your dishes well or not.
I largely think of the gezeirah more in anthropological terms. Food is a necessary part of daily life. Therefore the Rabbis would have been involved in preparing it daily. They think about it a lot, and get a lot of daily questions. Over time this becomes a very detailed set of instructions. While the weaving of cloth, especially from these specific fibers, would not have been as common an activity or engaging as many people. Therefore the gezeirah is very close to the actual mitzva.
That would be the aforementioned “certain segment of the Orthodox population that wants to believe that the tanaim and amoraim were scientific geniuses and that the Torah and Talmud are scientifically inerrant and inherantly superior to modern science.”
The arguments for a literal reading of Genesis can’t be supported by the evidence we have. We know the universe wasn’t created in a week thousands of years ago, we know that the animals all didn’t come into being at the same time, we know there was no global flood, and so on.
The tanaim and amoraim believed in it all literally, in the week of creation, in the global flood, of languages being created at Babel and so on. It would have been crazy for them not to, and I think most intelligent people back then would have. Even down through the centuries, it was a plausable thing to believe; there wasn’t evidence against it.
But now, things have changed. We have so much scientific knowlege to show it can’t be taken literally; we have evolutionary theories, and genetic and genetic inheritance, and plate tectonics, and archeological results, and radioactive dating.
Does this mean that the Torah is to be replaced; that it’s no good? We know that the Torah is for all time and for all creation, and we also know that a literal scientific reading can’t be supported by the evidence. So that means that its our understanding of the Torah is wrong, and that we need to come to an understanding that reflects both the divine and timeless nature of the Torah and scientific knowledge.
Well how would you explain this encrustation of complication on top of the simple statements in the bible? Anyway, that is certainly what I think–right or wrong.
I worked out that the ratio of rennet to milk in the making of cheese is on the order of one part per ten million (a rennet tablet the size of an aspirin tablet–375mg I think–will curdle 100 gallons of milk) and that makes ordinary cheese non-kosher. What is the concentration of bee enzyme in honey? But this argument about traces is nonsense. Honey is in the bible. End of story.
It’s pretty obvious that there WAS an explanation for it, but science has proved that the explanation is quite wrong. So now there’s an extremely weak clarification of the explanation, which, if it were taken at face value, should really either mean that honey is NOT kosher, or that lots of other things that are forbidden really SHOULD be kosher.
If the clarification is that
… then clearly there should be no problem with boiling a kid in its own milk. The boiling milk bath is just an AGENT, not an ADDITIVE. Thoroughly pat dry the meat after the cooking is done, and you’ve surely reduced the level of milk you’re consuming to the same amount of bee enzyme that remains in honey.
The problem with the dietary laws is that the real answer to “what makes my honey kosher” can either be (a) Fiat declaration in the sacred texts, with no real reason or (b) a reasoned explanation, which, if shown to be incorrect, should be changed.
But (b) never happens. People should just say, “Because we said so. There is no other reason. Now be quiet and eat your honey.”
Turns out I was wrong in my understanding of bee honey in Halacha. What I read was in the Talmud, but the Talmud later indicated that that was incorrect reasoning, and that the real reason that bee honey is Kosher is that a verse in the Torah explicitly excludes flying insects (including bees) from the general principal of “that which comes from the unclean is unclean.” In the case of flying insects, while it is forbidden to eat the flesh of the bodies of the bugs, we are allowed to eat substances that they produce. (However, that’s not from the verse stating that Israel is referred to as land of milk and honey.)
So, in principle, you all are correct that if bee enzymes were not kosher, then honey wouldn’t be, as non-kosher rennet would do to cheese. My “agent not additive” argument was fallacious. But in fact, enzymes produced by bees are kosher after all.
Captain Amazing:
I don’t think that it’s such a small segment, although I also don’t think that those who remain literalists (myself included) do so out of conviction that the tanaim and amoraim understood the Genesis creation story in any scientific sense. They believe what the Torah says is literally true out of a sense of faith that this is the word of G-d, dictated directly to Moses. If there’s no internal indication that a passage is meant non-literally, then it must be assumed that the intent was literal.
How exactly that aligns with newly-discovered scientific fact is up for discussion, sure. But there are several other approaches to the issue which preserve the literalism of Genesis, and much of Rabbi Slifkin’s dismissal of some of those are as much personal distaste as genuine flaws. And there are some serious holes in Rabbi Slifkin’s approach as well.
The Kosher certifications help ensure not only that bee particles are not in the honey itself, but also that the company isn’t producing an unclean product on the same equipment and then part of that unclean product getting mixed into the honey in small amounts. Some honeys are supposedly also not really honey but have been supposedly said to have corn syrup put in them which then becomes a possible issue around the Feast of Unleavened Bread.
As for what the Torah (Laws) require, obviously we are forbidden to eat a dead bee itself per Deuteronomy 14:19 “And every creeping insect that flies is unclean for you, they are not eaten.”
However, can a warrior ride on a horse during battle?
The obvious answer to that is “Yes”. But why can he touch the horse - isn’t it an unclean animal? Because the Torah only forbids touching of the dead carcasses, not the bodies while the animals are alive. This is why warriors could ride on horses in battle - because the horses are alive.
So touching a bee when it is alive is not forbidden, but only its’ dead carcass would be forbidden to touch.
But what if the honey touches an unclean dead bee or an unclean dead lion’s carcass? Is the honey unclean? What if a company has a rodent problem and a dead rat falls into the vat of honey - is the honey unclean? That’s no different than a bee particle falling in, correct?
After speaking with someone I know who also eats clean (kosher) and who runs a small bee business, he explained to me how it is probably even more difficult for the larger businesses to keep from ever having a dead bee in the honey because the bees follow the honey out even after you remove it. This made me question why is that honey not unclean if a dead bee particle falls into it. And thus, the example of a dead rat, or some other dead unclean carcass falling in, is an equal comparison.
After prayer and searching the Scriptures and the Torah for understanding, it appears that this situation of a dead bee falling into a vat of honey (or a rat or whatever) - that all this actually falls under the authority of Leviticus 11:34. Leviticus 11:34 states:
Leviticus 11:34 Any of the food which might be eaten, on which water comes, becomes unclean, and any drink which might be drunk from it becomes unclean.
This verse specifically singles out food “on which water comes”. This word food is the same as in Genesis 41:35 which shows that this is a broad, general word just meaning food.
So this verse only states food on which water has come would be unclean. In discussing with the small bee honey business owner who eats clean (kosher), he stated that if water had come into contact with honey that is the one thing which can ruin honey. After speaking with him, it sounds like water would only be mixed with honey if a company was trying to ferment the honey not preserve it in its’ natural form.
The implications of this mean essentially, for example, if I have a stack of wheat in a barn and a dead rat is found amongst the sheaves, the dead rat is to be removed but the wheat itself is still edible if it was kept in a dry area and was not exposed to water. The same could be said for a stack of raw potatoes, etc…
Some may say, “No no no… this is not Kosher.” But here is another example in the Torah where something is still clean after something unclean falls on it:
Leviticus 11:36 But a fountain or a well, a collection of water, is clean, but whatever touches their carcass is unclean.
So waters in lakes, rivers, wells, creeks, and natural bodies of water in nature do not become unclean because of what dies in it.
Leviticus 11:37-38 And when any of their carcass falls on any planting seed which is to be sown, it is clean. But when any water is put on the seed and any part of any such carcass falls on it, it is unclean to you.
So if you had a stash of seeds for planting and you find a dead bug in the pile of seeds, the same rule applies to the seeds as to food from Lev. 11:34. That is - it DOES make a difference if the seeds were exposed to water or not. Just as with the food - if water was in contact with it, then it is unclean. If water was not, then the seeds are clean as it says here. Since the Torah only calls food unclean which had water upon it, and we see a similar ruling that seeds exposed to water were unclean but also specifically states the seeds without water on them were clean, it seems logical to conclude that only the food with water on it becomes unclean and that all other food is still clean just as the seeds are still clean if water were not on them.
So things like bread (cooked wheat with water and oil), stews, sprouted beans, etc. which have had water contact after harvesting seem to be those which would be unclean if an unclean carcass touched them. But foods like raw uncooked potatoes, dry sheaves of wheat, honey, are foods which have not had contact with water after harvesting and therefore I must conclude they are still clean – we simply must remove the unclean carcasses from those food items before cooking or consumption. (Use gloves and items to move the carcass so you don’t touch it yourself and become unclean).
Perhaps the water on such things permits more absorption of something from the unclean carcass into the food or seed. Perhaps that’s one of the reasons the Creator gave the law this way? Not certain but speculating. For example - perhaps a dry potato with a dead rat is less susceptible to absorbing something from that dead rat than a boiled potato in a soup that is soft and more readily able to take in/absorb anything nasty. Just a possible speculation.
So this is why a dead bee particle can fall into honey and after removal of the particles the honey is still clean - because the honey is food NOT in contact with water prior to touching the unclean bee carcass.
As for the bee enzymes, consider this question:
If you have a pet dog and that pet dog licks your face or your hand, are you unclean? The dog is clearly and unclean animal, but it is still alive. The saliva from the dog is clearly a secretion that came out of the dog’s body. So why are you not made unclean by the saliva from the dog that is alive?
Because the thing that would make you unclean is if the dog died and then you touched it.
So unless we hold the position that saliva from a living dog licking your hand can make you unclean, then how could we say an enzyme given off by a living bee makes you unclean? The bee is still alive, and therefore the enzyme itself does not make you unclean. We also know silk is a product of a live unclean animal, yet permitted to touch.
I am not saying we should go out and eat dog saliva and silk, but I am saying we can’t label something as unclean that the Torah is not calling unclean.
As for Shimshon (Sampson), we see in Judges 13:13-14 part of him being a Nazarite was the requirement to obey the clean food laws and not eat unclean food.
It does not show that Yahweh turned aside from Shimshon until Judges 16:19-20. This was a while after he had eaten the honey in Judges 14. This gives further evidence that Shimshon (Sampson) did NOT break his requirements to abstain from unclean food; which therefore supports the understanding that the honey from the lion carcass was not unclean because water had not come upon the honey.
Unless the honey had come into contact with water and THEN touched the lion’s carcass, then it would be unclean per Leviticus 11:34. But it is likely the honey was sealed as bees seal off honey with wax from what I remember learning. So he probably grabbed a honey comb out of the carcass (which may have been done without touching the carcass itself) and then got the honey from inside of that which would still be considered clean according to the Torah.
Regarding the date honey vs. bee honey question - We can see further evidence bee honey is kosher:
Psalms 19:10 More desirable than gold, Than much fine gold; And sweeter than honey and the honeycomb.
The honeycomb appears to be a reference specifically to bee honey - not date honey. There are probably other examples - this is just one.
The Creator and the Torah (Law) of our Creator is consistent from cover to cover. We even see Yochanan the Immerser (John the Baptist) eating honey:
Mark 1:6 And Yochanan was clothed with camel’s hair and a leather girdle around his waist, and eating locusts and wild honey.
Of course the camel’s hair would have had to be removed from a living camel, not a dead one.
And again, more honey:
Revelation 10:10 And I took the little book out of the messenger’s hand and ate it, and it was as sweet as honey in my mouth, but when I had eaten it, my stomach was made bitter.
This is similar to:
Ezekiel 3:3 And He said to me, “Son of man, feed your stomach, and fill your stomach with this scroll that I am giving you.” And I ate it, and it was as sweet as honey in my mouth.
So honey from bees is tasty and good for you, but don’t eat too much!
Now - this is distinguished also from feces from something we should not eat. For example -
Someone pointed out human breastmilk is also permitted to drink, yet obviously we are not to eat the flesh of the mother producing the breastmilk. But what about human dung?
Ezekiel 4:12 “And eat it as a barley cake. And bake it, before their eyes, on human dung.”
13 And Yahweh said, “Even so the children of Yisra’el shall eat their defiled bread among the gentiles, to whom I drive them.”
14 Then I said, “Ah, Adon Yahweh! See, I have never defiled myself from my youth till now. I have never eaten what died of itself or was torn by beasts, nor has unclean meat ever come into my mouth.”
15 And He said to me, “See, I am giving you the dung of cattle instead of human dung, and you shall prepare your bread over it.”
So Yechezqel (Ezekiel) was first told to make the barley cake over human dung. His response was he has never defiled himself. That implies that he believed cooking it over human dung would cause himself to be defiled. Yahweh permitted Yechezqel instead to cook it over dung of clean cattle instead.
This shows a distinction between human breastmilk (permitted to eat) and human dung (which apparently seems to be able to defile you if you eat something cooked on it). Similarly, that would make a case for stating that while we could eat honey that was in a bee’s stomach and may have come in contact with bee enzymes while the bee was alive, that doesn’t mean we would eat bee dung.
However, don’t worry. One website I saw online while searching states this:
“I’ve kept honeybees before. Honeybee poop is liquid and yellow, and honeybees almost always do their pooping while they are flying outside the hive.”
