As Reform Jews we have always had mixed feelings about Kashrut , which comes from the Hebrew verb meaning "be advantageous, proper, suitable." What we don't eat, what we do eat, and why, has had a defining influence on the way we think of ourselves as religious beings. Many Reform congregations operate under a classic cognitive dissonance: even though few members keep Kosher and the synagogue kitchen is not Kosher, they expect their rabbi to observe Kashrut. Why does this matter so much to us?
Early Reformers, especially Abraham Geiger, felt it was anachronistic and should either be observed completely (according to what we would now call Orthodox rules), or not observed at all. Michael Creizenach advocated observing the Torah mitzvot on milk and meat and forbidden foods, but discarding the rest, especially the Talmudic requirements on ritual slaughter, writing "there is probably no command where the talmudic interpretation differs so radically from the natural sense as here."(Plaut, RISE, p 212)
Bernard Felsenthal, an influential early American Reformer, wrote:
It would be irresponsible and reprehensible to advocate the total disregard of the dietary laws. It would prove Reform to be very superficial indeed. These laws not only have hygienic but also a deeper ethical significance, because they keep us apart from all that is bestial and crude. They teach us the lovely virtue of self-discipline and may thereby assist us to be come a holy people, a demand which the Torah relates to these laws. (Plaut, GROWTH, p. 265-266)
Felsenthal was, however, in the minority. Most Reform Jews came to abandon Kashrut. Some went beyond disregarding the laws and approached the abandonment of them as if that was the litmus test of a Liberal Jew:
The laws of Kashrut are generally considered by Jews themselves to be the watershed between Orthodoxy and Liberalism. He who keeps the dietary laws appears to the Liberal as an Orthodox Jew, and those who disregard them are, in return, decried by the Orthodox not only as Liberals but even as godless and un-Jewish. (Max Freudenthal--Plaut, GROWTH, p. 266)
In 1885, a meeting of 15 rabbis in Pittsburgh created a declaration of principles, now known as the "Pittsburgh Platform." Among them was:
We hold that all Mosaic and Rabbinical laws that regulate diet...originated in ages and under the influence of ideas altogether foreign to our present mental and spiritual state. They fail to impress the modern Jew with a spirit of priestly holiness; their observance in our days is apt rather to obstruct than to further modern spiritual elevation. (Plaut, GROWTH, p. 34)
In 1883, a banquet held in honor of the first rabbinical class to graduate from the Hebrew Union College, included, some historians say deliberately, Little Neck clams, soft-shelled crabs, and shrimp salad. Reaction to this menu ultimately led to the creation of Conservative Judaism. (Isaacs, p.60.)
Another way we modern Reform distinguish ourselves on this issue is our lack of knowledge about what the Torah actually says about food and the animals we use as food. Most of what we think of as the laws of Kashrut do not derive from the text of the Torah, but in Talmudic expansion and rulings.
"Dietary Laws," THE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF THE JEWISH RELIGION, NY: Adama Books, 1986, pp. 115-116.
Isaacs, Ronald H. and Kerry M. Olitzky, CRITICAL DOCUMENTS OF JEWISH HISTORY: A sourcebook, Northvale, NJ: Jason Aronson, 1995.
Plaut, Gunther, THE GROWTH OF REFORM JUDAISM, NY: World Union for Progressive Judaism,1965.
Plaut, Gunther, THE RISE OF REFORM JUDAISM, NY: World Union for Progressive Judaism,1963.
|
|
4/25/99
Count: 2/19/98 -