VI. The Dietary Laws.
“Thou shalt not eat any abominable thing” (Deut. xiv. 3); that is, according to our traditional explanation, everything that the Word of God declares to be abominable (Sifre, ad locum). One of the sections of the Dietary Laws concludes thus: “For I am the Lord that brought you up out of the land of Egypt, to be your God: ye shall therefore be holy, for I am holy” (Lev. xi. 45).
Holiness is therefore the only object of these laws that is distinctly mentioned in the Pentateuch. But what is the nature of the holiness which they are intended to produce or to promote? “The Dietary Laws,” says Maimonides, “train us in the mastery over our appetites; they accustom us to restrain the growth of desire, the indulgence in seeking that which is pleasant, and the disposition to consider the pleasure of eating and drinking the end of man’s existence” (“The Guide,” III., chap. xxv. p. 167). And, indeed, [[456]]wherever the Law commands restraint of some bodily enjoyment, or restriction of any of our appetites, such commandment is followed or preceded by the exhortation to be holy, or the warning not to defile oneself.
Is there any secondary object in these laws besides the motive distinctly mentioned? It has frequently been observed that Jews have enjoyed a certain degree of immunity from epidemics that raged among their non-Jewish neighbours. It has further been noticed that they have a lower rate of mortality and a greater longevity. These facts are generally explained to be the result of a temperate life, regulated by the Divine Law. Finding that such is the consequence of obedience to the Dietary Laws, we may fairly assume that in distinguishing certain things from the rest, in prohibiting some and permitting others, the Lawgiver aimed at the health and the well-being of man’s body. Our conception of the goodness of God compels us to believe that in recommending certain things for our use He intended thereby to promote our well-being, and to show us what is good for our health, and what is injurious. But we must take care that we do not on that account consider these precepts exclusively as sanitary regulations, however important such regulations may be. We must not lose sight of the fact that Holiness is the only object of the Dietary Laws, mentioned in the Pentateuch.
But what difference can it make to the Almighty whether we eat this or that? Surely it makes no difference to the Almighty; but we have faith in His Goodness and Wisdom, and are convinced that He knows by what means we may best attain to that [[457]]holiness which we are so frequently exhorted to seek, and that the Divine Laws which He revealed to us for this very purpose show the shortest and the safest road to this aim.
With the following exceptions, the Dietary Laws concern only animal food:—
(1.) ערלה “Forbidden fruit,” i.e., the fruit of a tree during the first three years after its planting (Lev. xix. 23).—The fruit of the fourth year (נטע רבעי) was formerly, in the time of the Temple, brought to Jerusalem, and consumed there amidst praises and thanksgiving to Him who is the source of all blessing (ibid. v. 24). Those who lived far from Jerusalem were allowed to redeem the fruit of the fourth year with silver, and to spend the latter in the holy city.
(2.) חדש “New corn.”—The Omer of barley offered on the second day of Passover is called “the first of your harvest” (Lev. xxiii. 10), and it was enjoined, “Ye shall eat neither bread, nor parched corn, nor fresh ears,[140] until this selfsame day, until ye have brought the oblation of your God” (ibid. 14).
These two laws (ערלה and חדש) seem to have their source in the dictum, “The first of the first-fruits of thy ground thou shalt bring into the house of the Lord thy God” (Exod. xxiii. 19).
(3.) כלאים.—Mixture of different kinds. “Thou shalt not sow thy field with two kinds of seed” (Lev. xix. 19).[141] “Thou shalt not sow thy vineyard with [[458]]two kinds of seed” (Deut. xxii. 9). In the former case only the sowing of divers kinds is prohibited, but the produce of such sowing is not forbidden; in the latter case, if the law is transgressed, the produce of both the vine and the seed is not to be used for any purpose whatever (אסור בהנאה), for the law is followed by the words, “lest the whole fruit be forfeited, the seed which thou hast sown and the increase of the vineyard.”
Although these and similar[142] precepts are introduced by the words “Ye shall keep my statutes (חקתי),” and no reason is given for the enactment of these statutes, it seems, from the position occupied by these laws in a section of moral precepts, that they serve as reminders of the important lesson that our conduct should be regulated by the principles of contentment and simplicity of life, principles which are the best safeguard against undue desire for luxury and superfluity. The prohibition of sowing divers kinds of seed further reminds us of the importance of preserving our heart in a state of simplicity and purity; that twofold weights, twofold measures, and especially a twofold heart are an abomination to the Lord.
In reference to animal food the following principles are observed:— [[459]]
1. The killing of animals and the consuming of their flesh must not tend to create savage and cruel habits. It is therefore forbidden—
(a.) To cut off a piece of flesh from a living animal for our food (אבר מן החי “a limb of a living animal”).
(b.) To kill the parent with its young on the same day (Lev. xxii. 28; comp. Deut. xxii. 6).
(c.) To give unnecessary pain to the animal in killing it. The various regulations for the lawful killing of animals, שחיטה, handed down by Tradition as Mosaic, הלכה למשה מסיני, are not only in harmony with this principle, but seem in many instances to have been dictated by it.
(d.) To eat the blood of beasts and birds (Lev. xvii. 12, 14). The blood contained in the meat is removed as far as possible by having the meat soaked in water for half-an-hour, and then kept covered with salt for an hour, the salt being again removed by rinsing. This process is called kasher; that is, preparing the meat so as to make it kasher (כשר “fit for food”).
2. The flesh of beasts and birds that have died from any other cause than having been killed in the manner prescribed is forbidden. The flesh of animals that have been killed in the prescribed manner, but are found to have been affected with some dangerous disease, is also forbidden as t’refah (טרפה).[143]
3. With regard to the distinction between animals allowed for food and those forbidden, all animals are [[460]]divided into בהמה and חיה “cattle and beast,” וף “bird,” דג “fish,” and שרץ “creeping thing.”
(a.) With regard to cattle and beasts, the rule is given, “Whosoever parteth the hoof and is cloven-footed and cheweth the cud, that you may eat” (Lev. xi. 3).—The clean cattle (בהמה טהורה) and the clean beasts (חיה טהורה) are enumerated in Deut. xiv. 4 and 5 respectively.
(b.) A number of birds are enumerated (Lev. xi. 13–19) as forbidden, but no general characteristics of the clean or the unclean birds are given; and as we are uncertain as to the exact meaning of the names of many of the birds, we only use for food such birds as are traditionally known as “clean birds.”
(c.) Fish that have scales and fins are permitted; others—e.g., the eel—are “unclean” (ibid. xi. 9–12).
(d.) “All winged animals that creep (שרץ העוף), going upon all four, shall be an abomination unto you. Yet these may ye eat of, every flying creeping thing that goeth upon all four, which have legs above their feet, to leap withal upon the earth; even these of them ye may eat; the arbeh with its kind, and the soleam with its kind, the chargol with its kind, and the chagabh with its kind” (ibid. 20–22). These are certain kinds of locusts that satisfy the above condition. (Comp. Maimonides, Mishneh-torah, Hilchoth maachaloth asuroth i. 21–23.)
(e.) “And every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth shall be an abomination; it shall not be eaten” (Lev. xi. 41). In this prohibition are included all kinds of worms such as are found in fruit, and mites, snails, oysters, lobsters, crabs, &c. [[461]]
4. The milk of “unclean” cattle or beasts (e.g., asses’ milk), the eggs of “unclean” birds, and the roe of “unclean” fish (e.g., caviare prepared of the roe of the sturgeon) are likewise forbidden.
5. “Ye shall eat no manner of fat, of ox, or of sheep, or of goat” (Lev. vii. 23). From the context we learn that only those portions of the fat of cattle are forbidden which in the case of sacrifices were burnt upon the altar as an offering made by fire unto the Lord, viz., “the fat that covereth the inwards, and all the fat that is upon the inwards, and the fat that is upon the kidneys which is by the flanks” (ibid. iii. 3, 4). The forbidden fat is known by the name חלב, chelebh, whilst the fat permitted as food is called שומן, shuman.
6. “Therefore the children of Israel do not eat of the sinew which shrank, which is upon the hollow of the thigh, unto this day: because he touched the hollow of Jacob’s thigh in the sinew that shrank” (Gen. xxxii. 33). This law is designed to remind us of the wrestling of Jacob with the man who attacked him, which struggle forms a type of Israel’s fight against the evil threatening him from within and from without, and teaches us the lesson that, despite temporary troubles and struggles, Israel will ultimately be victorious. The hind-quarters of cattle are not eaten unless the forbidden fat and “the sinew that shrank” (גיד הנשה) have first been removed from them.
7. “Thou shalt not seethe the kid in its mother’s milk” (Exod. xxiii. 19). Tradition explains this law as forbidding all mixture of meat and milk (בשר בחלב). In its literal sense the verse in which this law is [[462]]mentioned seems to point to the duty of self-restraint, as if to tell us that we should not greedily devour the first ripe fruit, or the young immediately after their birth.
The significance of the law may be learnt from the fact that it is mentioned three times in the Pentateuch. Hence the strictness with which this commandment is observed in Jewish homes. In a Jewish household, established in accordance with Jewish law and tradition, there are two separate sets of utensils, the one to be used for the preparation of meat-diet, the other for the preparation of milk and butter diet.
The flesh of fish is not considered as meat in this respect, nor are fish subject to the laws of shechitah.