Sheminí 5777 - English

By Rabbi Dario Feiguin

B´nei Israel Congregation, Costa Rica

Parashat Shemini: Kosher y Eco-Kosher

This week we read in the Torah about the Biblical principles in the dietary Jewish laws that the rabbis in the Talmud later turned into Halacha: the laws of Kashrut. 

The word Kosher means “suitable”. It can be suitable or not, not only that which we put into our mouths, but what comes out of it as well. Our attitudes in life, our positions, our indifference or apathy, our interpersonal relationships, can be kosher or not. 

As to the Kashrut on food, we basically know that:

1) There are permitted animals and forbidden ones (split hoof and ruminants).

2) The permitted animals must be slaughtered in a particular way and with special care regarding the animal’s suffering (Shechitah).

3) We eat only fish with scales and fins.

4) We do not mix Basar (meat) with Chalav (milk). We allow some time between different times of food.

5) Anything that does not contain meat or milk is Parve (neutral).

Is this enough today to make our consumer choices conscious, spiritual and Kosher? I think not. I believe there are at least two categories that must be considered before consuming any product:

Organic and sustainable

Today, we should wonder about animals’ suffering, even when they are slaughtered by a Shochet in a Kosher way. Chicken trapped in atrocious cages, with their beaks cut off, their metabolism altered through the indiscriminate use of artificial light, full of antibiotics and hormones, are they kosher enough for us? And the eggs from those chickens? I think not. 

It is not kosher to treat animals in this way, animals who live short and miserable lives, nor is it kosher to put all that junk in our bodies, for eventually it will make us sick. 

Salmon and other fish raised in overpopulated pools that stress them, also fed with scary raw materials and injected with dyes to achieve the color they would have reached naturally had they eaten in the open sea, are they kosher? I think not. 

Do we remember the taste of tomato grown without pesticides? Or do we prefer to trick ourselves by consuming painted and waxed apples, believing that since they look pretty they must also be good for our nutrition and health? 

Today, Kosher must include also the organic and sustainable. 

Fairtrade

The other element that I think should also be analyzed before certifying a product as Kosher, is social justice.

Is the product we consume dignifying or degrading our human condition? 

The chocolate we eat, does it come from child slavery in the cacao industry in Africa? And if so, do I still find it kosher?

The rice I eat, does it come from a peasant’s slave labor, working from sun to sun in exchange for miserable pay? And if I know it is so, do I just don’t care?

Today, Kosher must also mean fair. 

What I would like us to reflect upon, on this Shabbat Shemini, is the sensitivity and the deeper feeling that led our rabbis and teachers to develop the laws of Kashrut. We must refocus not only in the cold formalities of the law, but also in the Ruach (spirit) of those fabulous ancestral laws. 

Shabbat Shalom!

Rabbi Darío Feiguin

B´nei Israel, Costa Rica.