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From: trb@masscomp.UUCP (Andy Tannenbaum)
Newsgroups: net.misc
Subject: Re: kosher meats
Message-ID: <145@masscomp.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 5-Dec-83 15:39:24 EST
Article-I.D.: masscomp.145
Posted: Mon Dec  5 15:39:24 1983
Date-Received: Thu, 8-Dec-83 20:17:52 EST
References: <538@sbcs.UUCP>
Organization: MASSCOMP, Littleton, MA
Lines: 40


	From an article on the net recently:

		"For an animal to be Kosher (clean) it must chew its cud
		 and have divided hooves."

	I'm wondering why chewing cud and having divided hooves should be linked
	with the "cleanliness" of an animal.  Any ideas?

	Saumya Debray
	SUNY at Stony Brook
	{philabs, ogcvax}!sbcs!debray

Good question, with simple answer.  Kosher does not simply mean clean,
as in not dirty.  When you wash your clothes, they are not kosher.

In Judaism, there are many laws and restrictions which do not seem to
make sense.  The "kosher" laws fit this description.  The cleanliness
here is "ritual" cleanliness.  There are other examples of this in
Judaism.  When a Jew washes his hands before a meal and says a
blessing over the washing of hands, it's a ritual washing, not a
physical cleaning.  If your hands are physically soiled, first you wash
them with soap and water until they are clean.  Then, for the ritual
washing, you take a special hand-washing vessel (imagine a 24 ounce
measuring cup with two handles 90 degrees apart) and fill it with water
and pour the water three times over each hand, wetting up to the
wrist.  Then a prayer is said over the washing, and you cannot speak
until a prayer is made over the bread at the meal.

Again, this is a ritual washing.  I have heard that the Japanese take
ritual baths but they wash themselves off first.  As a matter of fact,
Jews have a very similar custom, the bath is called a mikvah.

Getting back to the kosher laws, there is much more than split hoof
and chews cud.  The animal must be unblemished, no broken bones, no
disease, properly slaughtered by a proper slaughterer, properly bled,
and there's lots of details that I don't know about.  When you say
that "kosher" is "clean," it's a generalization.

	Andy Tannenbaum   Masscomp Inc  Westford MA   (617) 692-6200 x274