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From: adam@npois.UUCP (Adam V. Reed)
Newsgroups: net.religion.jewish
Subject: Who is biblical? Who is observant?
Message-ID: <207@npois.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 24-Feb-85 04:39:31 EST
Article-I.D.: npois.207
Posted: Sun Feb 24 04:39:31 1985
Date-Received: Wed, 27-Feb-85 04:06:28 EST
Organization: ATTIS, Neptune, NJ
Lines: 36

Ari Gross has written that
>Orthodoxy, however, is the only true extension of
>biblical Judaism. Clearly, in the times of the Bible Jews ate only
>Kosher food (both in and out of the house). Is there any other sect
>of Judaism today whose adherents without exception abide by this
>very clear Biblical precept ? Or, perchance you believe that King
>David used to frequent McDonald's on the sly ?

You may be surprised to hear this from a Humanistic Jew, but I agree
that the observance of mitzvot goes to the heart of the question.
Our difference is in the interpretation of what a "very clear Biblical
precept" actually means. My view is that the mitzvot are defined by their
impact on human beings; while they are taught to us by means of concrete
examples, it is the human impact, and not the substance of the concrete
example, that defines their true observance.

As a Humanistic Jew, I view the mitzvot of Kashrut as teaching us to
refrain from contaminating our bodies with things harmful to our health.
In biblical times, this precept was taught through prohibition against
foods which either spoiled rapidly or carried parasites. Today, pork,
shellfish etc. are no longer tref in the original sense of being
dangerous to human health. On the other hand, some things not known at
the time of the writing down of the Torah, such as cigarettes, ARE tref
in this sense.

So to a Humanistic Jew, the question poses itself like this:
Is an Orthodox truly "shomer Kashrut" when he rejects perfectly healthy
foods but ingests truly tref substances such as tobacco smoke? Isn't a
Humanistic Jew, who eats things that are healthy today (regardless of
how tref they were ages ago) but scrupulously refrains from defiling his
body with things that are destroying human health now, closer in his
observance to the actual substance and meaning of Kashrut?

					Adam ben Tzvi Aharon
					(Adam V. Reed)
					npois!adam