Jewlicious

I’ve read the bible

19 years ago
28 Comments
by grandmuffti
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I’ve read dylan
I’m reading people now
Because it is much more chilling

So Muffti has a puzzle he’s been mulling.

Say that you knew for a fact that if you didn’t keep kosher for one day, then Muffti and two other jewish atheists would for the rest of their lives. You also knew that if you did keep kosher during that day, Muffti and two other atheist jews would never keep kosher at all. The puzzle is wether or not you ought to keep that deal.

The reason Muffti asks is because he is curious about the notion that gets floated here once in a while regarding all of Israel being responsible for one another. Muffti’s case is one where the dependancies are clear: your keeping kosher entails Muffti and co. not every day in which you didn’t keep kosher, you would cause 3 more jews to see the value of kashrut and start keeping kosher. Muffti is willing to go 2 for 1 with you guys: every meal one of you who keeps kosher eats bacon, he’ll refrain for 2 meals. Any takers?

Any opinions? Muffti doesn’t know the halacha on this kind of thing at all and would be curious to know.

(incidentally, this trick is useful to use on self righteous vegetarians. Next time one of them is going off about how they don’t eat meat coz it is cruel, tell them that if they eat a steak, three of you will eat vegetarian that meal. The overall gain in utility is thus 3:1 for the veggie eating a juicy steak. See if they’ll do it and when they don’t point out how unethical they are being…)

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28 Comments

  • Kay… I appretiate that you corrected yourself, but to root out a dangerous line of thinking… It is not preferrable to pass the buck when dealing with someones life. (With the exception of passing the buck to an expert.) IT IS VERY DANGEROUS to think otherwise. Torah giants like R’ Moshe and R’ Salivatchik (however that’s spelled) all tried to make that abundently clear, and would criticize those who would try to be overly careful with shabbos observance at the expense of the sick or another about to die. Life is not something that is played with litely in Judaism. There are only 3 times where saving life does not trump standered halacha. (Idolitry, Murder, and Adultry, all of which severly damper relationship, but that’s a whole other Shiur) Shabbos is not one of those 3.
    Shabbos is something wonderful, amaizing, and vital to the survival of the Jewish people. But we have to keep things in focus and remember our priorities. We have to remember the point is not the rules, they are just the tools and path to the point.

  • Purim Hero is wrong, Semantically speaking. The only positive commandments for Shabbos are shamor and zachor which basically translates to not doing malacha, making kiddush and eat three meals. Saving a life does not fall under that. In fact, if there’s a way to get a guy to save the person’s life on Shabbos, that’s preferrable to you doing it yourself.

  • Just to be semanticly correct… One doesn’t violate shabbat to save a life… Not saving the life would be the violation of shabbat. Presented with that circumstance, the proper halachic way to keep shabbat and not violate it is to save the life. We have to remember, that it’s not about the rules as they stand individually on their own, but about the complete picture. There are many cases where the standerd rules of shabbat and kashrut are not followed, saving a life is only one of them. In the temple times, in order to proclaim the new month, the witnesses of the new moon were allowed to do many things in order to get to and testify before the court in Jerusalem. They weren’t in violation of shabbat. The rules were proscibed differently in their specific circumstance.

    In the theoretical case presented above, there are no paramiters for the modification of the rules of Kashrut. You would in fact be in violation. That is why you can’t do it.

    There are never times when one is allowed to break the rules, but there are many times when due to specific circumstances the rules change. It’s not a violation, it’s the system operating as it was ment to, recognizing the values of human existence, and of human nature. The halacha isn’t there to damper our lives, or trap us in cages, it’s there to enhance us.

  • Taltman: “For example, you are permitted to violate Shabbat if you need to prevent someone from murdering another”

    No, it’s more like you’re allowed to violate Shabbos in order to save someone’s life, not in order to stop someone from murdering someone else. That may be splitting hairs, but hey, that’s what Gemara is all about.

    Grandmuffti: “Muffti isn’t sure how to be more specific on degrees of halakha: how do you tell? And can numbers of people be traded off for degrees of halakcha?”

    The degree is never. Never means not for every single person in the whole wide world. Though as Taltman hinted at, one can violate Shabbos to save a life, and to a certain degree even for a sick person. But in order to get someone to do the right thing? Never.

  • “He only prohibits for you the eating of animals that die
    of themselves (without human interference), blood, the
    meat of pigs, and animals dedicated to other than GOD. If
    one is forced (to eat these), without being malicious or
    deliberate, he incurs no sin. GOD is Forgiver, Most
    Merciful.” [2:173]

    GOD definitely guides Jews and Muslims well, because pork is *extremely* bad for human beings to ingest. pigs are disgusting for ingestion, terribly unclean. however, domestic pigs can be nice (see: Babe & Babe: Pig in the City)

  • the Quran only forbids mankind from eating 1) blood 2) animals who died on their own (i.e. not killed) 3) pork 4) idolatrous sacrifices (i.e. food slaughtered at a pagan altar)

    it’s a way better deal.

  • Wow, Purim Hero. Excellent post!

    Muffti, thanks for an interesting thread. 🙂

  • I dunno muffti, this is just too great a stretch for me. I mean only a huge loser would be inspired to keep kosher because someone who actually cared about it wasn’t…The kind of consequence that I was imagining (and which doesn’t exist)would be something like if eating non-kosher food killed people (rampant salmonella?)…then yeah, 2 people keeping kosher instead of 1 would mean less death. Maybe a good thing…But in real life, while the abundance and accessibility of treif can make you fat it probably won’t kill you, so I say let them eat bacon! hahahahahahaaaaaa….ooooh boy.

  • You know… along time ago there was this guy who was trying to get the pagans out there to stop worshiping idols and become Jewish. Sounds noble so far… He would go to the different groups of people and tell them all about his wonderful religion, but the people would respond saying that giving up certain things like Shellfish, and Pig, were too difficult. He in turn changed the rules to allow for people to eat those foods, because after all it’s more important for people to believe in G-d then follow the rules right? See the thing is… At the end of the day it was no longer Judaism, he’d started Christianity. Go Paul, Go… save those souls! Or maybe, by routing out practice you loose something great, and on the other hand, maybe by removing the underlying belief and doing all the actions like a robot you become perfect… Or maybe… Get this… Judaism is about being whole and complete. That it is a system that falls apart when you chop it up into pieces. The whole really is greater then the sum of its parts.

    It is not the job of the observant to trade quit pro quo with the non-observant. Practise only has meaning in the greater context, and belief only has meaning within the rhelm of practise. The effect of keeping kosher isn’t physical, it’s not about health, or cruelty to animals. The comparison to vegitarians is a farce. The model doesn’t work. You don’t accomplish or prove anything by getting someone to eat non-kosher. We both know that the tradeoff won’t be 1 to 1 or let along 2-1 or 3-1. If you don’t see the beauty in Judaism before, my opting to bend my beliefs and practice will only confirm your disbelief. The only way to make a difference is to stand strong in my beliefs, to open my arms to you, loving unconditionally, and hoping that my sincarity will be inspiring and at least cause others to question.

  • JM, I’ve not taken a day off since before the chagim. Nonetheless, I’m back to posting, like EVERYWHERE.

    Muffti, my understanding isn’t that “kol yisrael” is a injunction to religious and halakhic outreach, but a more compassionate, human form of outreach. So I would say that kashrut isn’t the best example.

    People make their own choices in life. If I define myself as kosher, and that’s part of my identity, I wouldn’t eat treyf just because someone else promised that if I did, they wouldn’t. If by being around someone like me, someone else decided that kosherish might be worth a try, then that’s great and they should feel comfortable asking whatever questions they want. But kol yisrael arevim, for me, is more an injunction to care about people in physical or emotional crisis, than it is about ensuring that more Jews become halakhically observant.

  • Tiff: thanks for the compliments (Muffti thinks). We could just build some immediate consequences in to the example. Say that everytime you didn’t keep kosher, people would be so inspired by your ‘sacrifice’ (in scare quotes since bacon is delicious!) that they were inspired to keep kosher for the rest of their lives. Does that countas an immeadiate consequence or did you have something else in mind?

    As for Jewish Mother, sorry for the tin ear. But if Muffti can’t contribute the occasional tin ear question, what does he have to contribute to this blog besides calls for boobies and snarky comments?!?

  • There is something cruel about this. It amounts to hostage-taking; a wedding on the beach would probably be a lot more fun.

    ‘the modern jewish girl’s guide to guilt’ (ruth andrew ellenson) is an intersting book.

    SEE what happens when Esther takes the day off???

  • Mostly it involves helping those in need, in dire need. That’s how it goes nowadays by Ashkenazim. Unless you are in dire need, they’ll let you rot for the most part. THat’s more important than eating kosher or not, what the hell difference does that make? If you can afford it, and you are located in a place w/ no kosher places, you take a taxi to the nearest place and you take a taxi back no problem.

    If you can’t pay that type of money, u can forgo lunch, or eat junk food, or have a sandwich that is cold. Or if you are feeling uninvolved, have some thing hot. It’s between you and your adherence to the laws of Kashrut. It had not one connection to someone else.

  • OLP! I can always count on you for the oldies…Wouldn’t trade my kashruth for the atheists’. What’s the point? Not keeping kosher doesn’t have any immediate consequences. Unless you count hurting the collective jewish soul. And in that case, shouldn’t the observance of a jew that believes in god, and is keeping kosher for that reason, outweigh the meaningless atheist observance? Belief, reason, meaning…I just don’t like where this is going…
    Well anyways, the veg dillema is more interesting since there are real consequences to eating meat (to the vegetarian at least…)and it’d be funny to watch the vegetarian squirm, even if it was me.

  • Dear GM: People don’t want quarter-inch drill bits, they want quarter-inch holes. The drill bit is just the thing that gets you what you really want, the hole. It has no value in itself. It is only valuable on the way to something else.

    Halachic procedure has as its goal getting closer to G-d. It is the hand-shake He has offered.

    You are just focussing on the procedure, not its goal.

    This is an interesting question even though it has a lamentable tin ear. But it needs a trained rabbinic response. So ask a genuine rabbi and let us know what he says.

    You are not talking about compassion. You are talking about a somewhat cynical-sounding transaction. Let’s say someone took you up on this, and ate bacon so you would eat kosher. What would that do for you? What would that do for them? Why bother?

  • Esther, you’re probably right; but when Muffti asks why jews care so much about non-practicing jews, he’s always answered that ‘kol israel…’ Why aren’t they taking it too literally, or, what interpretation makes what they are saying true without licensing the questions that Muffti is asking?

  • Thanks Kay and Taltman. The Muffti ‘philosophical’ conundrum was more of a theological question. Muffti isn’t sure how to be more specific on degrees of halakha: how do you tell? And can numbers of people be traded off for degrees of halakcha? (i.e. can something with the 2nd highest degree of halakcha be violated if 10,000 people agree to abide by something of 3rd lowest degree of halakcha?)

  • Y’know, yesterday, I had real smart stuff to say. Today? Not so much. I’ll try to regenerate some brain cells and come back later, but I make no promises.

    All I can say right now is that I think you’re taking “kol yisrael areyvim zeh lazeh” a little too literally. Which I know is your deliberate point.

  • Kay wrote: the halacha is very clear: a person does not violate halacha in order to prevent someone else from doing so. Period.

    I’m afraid that the halakha isn’t so simple. For example, you are permitted to violate Shabbat if you need to prevent someone from murdering another.

    The answer to Muffti’s question is a matter of degree. Just like in the American legal system, Jewish law has a hierarchy of statutes of varying degrees of importance.

    There have been many times that I’ve been flexible with halakha for the sake of helping others enjoy doing something Jewish. If I can help others in cerebrating Shabbat, especially for the first time, then I won’t be picky on halakha.

    So, Muffti, if that answer isn’t satisfying, I ask you to be more specific on what degree of halakha.