The Hebrew Dietary Laws

Overview

The Hebrew dietary laws, or laws of kashrut, were first set forth in the biblical books of Leviticus and Deuteronomy about 3,000 years ago. As such, they were among the earliest such restrictions ever promulgated, although they do have parallels in other ancient civilizations. By slowing the assimilation of the dispersed Jewish people into other cultures, the dietary laws helped to maintain the Jews' uniqueness and thus facilitated their role in history.

Background

The Hebrew way of life evolved in the context of the ancient Middle East. In many cases, Hebrew customs were similar to those of other Semitic tribes, or adopted from other peoples in the region such as the Egyptians or Sumerians. However, in some instances new rules or habits were intentionally put in place by the monotheistic Hebrews to distinguish themselves from their pagan neighbors.

Like other customs, dietary taboos and laws developed over time. It was their codification in the books of Leviticus and Deuteronomy in about 1000 b.c., their subsequent elaboration in the Talmud, and the central place of the Hebrew scriptures in the culture of the Jewish people that crystallized the dietary laws and preserved them over the millennia.

A central part of the dietary laws are the lists of permitted and taboo animals. These consist of general rules based on broad classifications. Among quadrupeds, only animals that both have a cloven hoof and chew their cud may be eaten. Examples of animals that fail this test are specifically mentioned in the Bible: the camel, rock-badger, hare, and pig. Food animal taboos are quite common among ancient peoples around the world, and may derive from a fear of absorbing the undesirable characteristics of a particular creature. Pigs, for example, were forbidden to many of the peoples of the Middle East (pork is proscribed for Muslims as well as for Jews, and comparable restrictions existed among the ancient Egyptians and Babylonians). They were also banned by the ancient Hindus, traditional Navajo, the native peoples of Guyana, the Lapps, and a tribe in Borneo.

For edible aquatic animals, the Hebrew law mandates both fins and scales, which eliminates all shellfish as well as eels, squid, and octopus. All insects are forbidden, with the exception of those that "have jointed legs above their feet, wherewith to leap upon the ground," that is, locusts, crickets, and grasshoppers. Reptiles and amphibians, carnivorous and aquatic birds, bats, and animals with paws such as rodents and members of the weasel family are also banned.

In addition, laws apply to the conditions under which an animal may be eaten. Animals that died naturally, as well as carrion, are forbidden. Detailed procedures for slaughtering food animals require cutting the throat in a single slash with a razor-sharp knife. This ensures that death is immediate, thereby minimizing the animal's pain. The laws also mandate that neither the blood nor the fat around the internal organs is consumed. Scholars believe that such laws derive from ancient notions that the vital essence or soul of an animal resided in these substances. Similarly, eating the sciatic nerve of the thigh, associated in Biblical times with the function of procreation, is banned.

Meat and milk may not be eaten, cooked or stored together, based on a Biblical proscription against boiling a kid goat in its mother's milk. In fact the law may have been intended to be more specific than later interpretations held. It has been suggested that it was meant to ban a particular Canaanite fertility ritual known from a 3,400-year-old text, in which a kid was boiled in milk. The first five and most ancient books of the Hebrew Bible, called the Torah, repeatedly command the people to avoid such pagan rites and customs.

Impact

In the Hebrew dietary laws, the words for permitted or forbidden foods (familiar to many in the Yiddish kosher and treif) are generally translated "clean" and "unclean" respectively. However, the dietary laws are couched in terms not of physical cleanliness but of religious or ritual purity. Some people believe that they were in fact a way to institute health practices under the guise of divine authority. Others believe that the laws exist purely for religious reasons, to improve human nature and enhance mindfulness of God by investing everyday activities with spiritual significance. In this view, health benefits were either incidental or a natural consequence of following God's law. In any case, some of the dietary laws did turn out to result in a healthier food supply.

For example, an animal that died naturally might be diseased, and carrion might have started to rot or be infested by vermin. Prohibitions against eating carnivorous birds and animals force the people to use animals a bit lower on the food chain, where any toxins in the environment are less concentrated. "Bottom-feeders," scavengers, and filter feeders such as shellfish, which tend to carry parasites, are also prohibited.

The strictly monitored slaughtering procedures elaborated in the Talmudic writings of about a.d. 500 and later rabbinical texts require extremely careful handling of meat. All animal carcasses are inspected, and any evidence of disease renders the meat not kosher. To remove any traces of blood, the meat is soaked in cold water, salted, and washed three times. Concern about the forbidden sciatic nerve has in practice generally meant that the entire hindquarters of the animal, the most difficult part to clean effectively, are not used. Meanwhile, all fruits and vegetables, which are nutritious and less prone to carrying disease than meat, are permitted. They may be eaten with any foods, as can grain, fish, and eggs.

Despite the health benefits of the dietary laws, the result was not always salutary for the Jewish people during their long diaspora—the period after they began migrating from their traditional home in the Middle East to other regions around the world. When waves of disease hit Europe in the Middle Ages, Jews often were, or at least were perceived as, somewhat less susceptible. This may have been due to a combination of their dietary laws, additional religious edicts requiring more bathing and hand washing than was common in medieval Europe, and their relative social isolation from the non-Jewish community. Whatever the reason, the result was that they were sometimes suspected of actually causing the epidemic. This often brought on murderous attacks against a group for whom religious and racial persecution was common in any case.

Another important effect of the Hebrew dietary laws was to help preserve the unity of the Jewish people for thousands of years, despite the pressures of dispersion. Strict regulations about what one could eat served as a powerful tie binding Jews to their own community. Social relationships with the outside world were of necessity limited, and Jews tended to congregate in groups large enough to ensure a reliable source of kosher food.

The requirement of ritual slaughter meant that the tradition of hunting never took hold among Jews, and they were not likely to be found alone on a frontier. In addition, since they could never be sure that food sold by non-Jews had been processed in accordance with the dietary laws, many Jews became involved in the food trades. They were butchers and bakers, dairy and egg farmers, and producers and merchants of grains, oils, and wines for Jews and non-Jews alike. However, beginning in the late Middle Ages, European Jews were excluded from most trades and forbidden to own land. As a result, many communities became desperately poor.

There have been only a few times and places in which Jewish adherence to the dietary laws was seriously questioned. These included the Greek-influenced period of the early Christian era, and again since the nineteenth century, with the rise of Reform Judaism and the mass emigration of European Jews to the United States. In both cases, large segments of the Jewish people assimilated into the general population and lost their identities as Jews.

The cohesiveness of this small Middle Eastern tribe over thousands of years is of significance to the rest of the world because of the impact it has had on history. Jews, particularly through the influence of the Hebrew scriptures, helped build the worldview of the ancient Fertile Crescent into the bedrock of Western civilization. Christianity began as a Jewish sect, later spreading around the globe. The Jewish tradition of scholarship has resulted in many important contributions, particularly in science and medicine. Today, Jewish leaders, engaged in the modern world but concerned about assimilation, continue to wrestle with the place of the dietary laws in their community as it encounters the twenty-first century.

SHERRI CHASIN CALVO