Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Why do you think there is any connection between health considerations and laws of kosher? Correlation does not prove causation. For example, giraffe is kosher because giraffe has such a long neck, and to shecht an animal, to slaughter it in a kosher way, you have to cut it in a neck. So actually, giraffe has a very large area where it could be killed, and it's very easy to slaughter it the kosher way. Do you know why your stores here do not sell giraffe meat? Why are they farming giraffes? They're not farming giraffes just because its meat gets spoiled so fast, it's just extremely hard to preserve it. And that's the only reason why people don't eat it. So here is an animal which is kosher on one hand, but on the other hand spoils faster than any other meat that you could think of. And horse's meat is not kosher, yet it preserves as well as cow's meat.
[00:00:55] In the secular Jewish world, there has been a lot of effort to marginalize the laws of kosher. What I mean by marginalize is to explain why they are not needed today in law, in jurisprudence, there is a term called strawman tactic, which means if I am the defendant's lawyer and I have a chance to speak before the the plaintiff's side had a chance to make their case, then I would present to the judge what I want the judge to think the plaintiff's reasoning is, and then I will destroy the plaintiff's reasoning in judge's mind. So I, the way judge now sees the situation, has destroyed the plaintiff's claim.
[00:01:47] That's called strawman tactic. Why? Because I created the plaintiff's claim that I destroyed. Really? This wasn't his claim. I confused the judge. I made a claim for him, which is convenient for me, and I destroyed it. So this is why one of the first things in law, whenever a lawyer is making his presentation, is to make his position very clear, to present his position, to define himself, to define his stand. And by the way, in politics, the same thing. If you have a campaign and you did not define your campaign fast enough, then your opponent is going to define your campaign for you. And he will do it the way he wants. And then he will say, look at this person. He claims abc, and then he's going to destroy abc. Well, you never claimed abc. ABC was a straw man tactic.
[00:02:39] So that's why people that want to marginalize another person's position, they make ability a claim for them. They create A reasoning for them, and then they destroy this reasoning and then it's very easy to do away with them.
[00:02:57] So there was a very large push in the secular world to explain that laws of kosher were needed once, but they're not needed anymore. In other words, if you come to a person who is keeping kosher and you will tell them laws of kosher are nonsense, nobody ever thought that they make sense. It's just a bunch of garbage. Well, the person will get insulted and won't even listen to you because you are attacking his stance. But what if you'll come to him and you'll say, you know what? Laws of kosher were needed once and that's why they were needed once, but today they're not needed, and then they explain why they're not needed today. That's a much more palatable than that's much less confrontational, a much easier to accept way of marginalizing something.
[00:03:45] So this is why when the secular Jewish world wanted to make a claim against keeping kosher, they came and they said, you know what? I'll give you a rational reason why laws of kosher were needed once they came up with these health benefit ideas, which obviously, as we see from the entirety of laws of kosher don't make any sense. Because as we said, people say, well, shellfish and pork are not healthy because they go bad fast, because they could be dangerous for people. Well, giraffe's meat goes bad faster than pork's meat. And giraffe is kosher and horse's meat is not kosher, yet it preserves as well as cow's meat. God is a nice guy and God loves us.
[00:04:33] So that's why I'm assuming that whatever God would tell us to eat would also be healthy. Why? Just because I think God is looking out for me. That's it. But I don't think that kosher is based on health benefits from it. And I don't think that hygiene and stuff like that are the reasons for kosher for one simple reason, because God did not tell me that. Actually, God told me the opposite. There are laws in the Torah that are based on the mitzvah of preserving your health. And the Torah specifically says that there are things you should and should not do because there's a mitzvah to guard your health and there are laws in the code of Jewish law that we are supposed to follow for that reason.
[00:05:17] If laws of kosher would be a part of it, then God would tell me that. Instead, God specifically tells me that the reason for all of these kosher laws is purely spiritual. God tells me that this is the diet for your soul, not for your body.
