One of the things I’ve always found kind of endearing about Judaism is that its leaders seem to split their time between coming up with rules for stuff they aren’t allowed to do and coming up with creative loopholes so they can do them anyway.
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That one’s easy. Default to Jerusalem time and calendar.
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But that doesn’t take into account the entire body of halacha that rules out things that might lead to confusion and therefore are not allowed, like the no milk with chicken thing. And that’s also ignoring the entire set of practices that aren’t actually law but custom, like wearing yarmulkes. Good luck flouting them. People do what they do.
Old apocryphal story: the Reform Movement had it’s first big convention, and someone had the bright idea to serve shrimp to prove they were beyond the old superstitions. The people who walked out formed the Conservative Movement.
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You Lot
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As I said elsewhere, the arguments will continue for decades. Maybe generations.
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by the same logic eating a slab of cloned human meat is also kosher?
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Mmmmm, no, not so much.
Leviticus 11:10: And all that have not fins and scales in the seas, and in the rivers, of all that move in the waters, and of any living thing which is in the waters, they shall be an abomination unto you.
No point prohibiting not-actual-fish sea creatures unless you know that not-actual-fish exist. There are crabs and lobster and clams and oysters and shrimp in the Mediterranean. One of them is in the Zodiac, a constellation dating back to Babylonian astronomy perhaps as early as 1000BC, of which the authors of the Torah were well aware, since they were exiled in Persia. Yes, they knew what shellfish were.
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EXACTLY, lol…
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Pretty much like digging holes so they can be filled in. It creates work for those involved but really ought not to trouble the rest of us, except in this case it is a self-serving justification of their claim to be ‘leaders’ and control the sheep they herd.
Not so easy. They’ve been debating what to do in polar regions for centuries.
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I’m no Rabbi, I’m not even Jewish, but I might try to get away with a creative application of the observation that it is not in heaven.
Yes, please! I too look forward to vat-grown meat. I expect we’ll get very good control of the process and will be able to recreate AAA+ grade cuts easily and inexpensively.
Which reminds me of a video I hope to find. I was in France, between 2003 and 2005. Daft Punk’s “One More Time” was in heavy rotation. The video I’m looking for is animated, cartoonish but a little anime. The main scene I recall is a cow being fed at the head end, and the body was being sliced off as it grew. The back end wasn’t present.
Sounds awful, and in real life would be. But just oddly amusing in the cartoon form.
Obligatory:
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The halacha and responsa on human flesh is a little weird. Some say “You’re not supposed to eat non-kosher animals. Humans don’t chew cud and don’t have divided hooves, sheeple notwithstanding.” Others say “Humans are qualitatively spiritually different than animals. Besides, organ transplants and blood transfusions are acceptable [they even said this before either actually existed].” Others say you should eat kosher meat. By substituting human you are transgressing the positive commandment when you choose to eat meat which is bad. Still others say “It’s biblically forbidden” but don’t specify why.
But there is a consensus that
- Eating something taken from a live human or animal is forbidden by Noachide Law to all people
- Deriving benefit from a corpse is forbidden
- Killing someone and deriving benefit from it is forbidden
- Bodies are supposed to be treated with respect and buried
So you can’t kill someone and eat them. You can’t tear a piece off a live human and eat it. You can’t wait around for someone to die and have them as the centerpiece and main dish at the wake. So there isn’t any way to legally eat people except in a survival situation so long as you don’t murder them. Cultured tissue? Just like the cultured pork it will probably be a subject or argument for decades.
But there is a classic lesson in yeshiva where students are asked which would be halachically preferable to eat, a dead human or a pig? The students give the technically correct answer reasoning that
- The pig is explicitly forbidden
- You didn’t kill the person
- A human isn’t exactly an animal
- A bunch of other minutia
At this point the teacher says “Eat the damned pork chop. There’s a point where ‘technically correct’ becomes monstrous. Have a little bit of common sense.”
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St. Peter was an aporikos. Why should anyone listen to him?
They will probably end up doing what the Muslims have done - decide to go with Jerusalem time, with whatever they’re using for local time (say at McMurdo Base) or same time but at the latitude of Jerusalem.
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First off JTA is definitely showing some editorial color calling R’ Cherlow prominent. Also Tzohar’s certifications are far from mainstream.
That said, the issue of the kosher status of vat grown meat has been looked at for many years already. Its far from settled.
The halachic requirement is that a man must have a head covering when reciting a blessing or engaged in prayer. Since theres a blessing involved in so many things in daily life and an observant Jew prays 3x per day, its easier just to keep some kind of head covering on all the time.
The better example of “minhag (custom) has the force of law” in this season would be gebrochts. If you ever attend a Passover seder at Chabad you now what I mean.
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Also, in addition to this, people who abstain from certain kinds of meats, for whatever reason (religious, health, political, etc), I wonder if eating this vat grown pork will cause the same intestinal issues as when they accidentally encounter the real version?
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Likely as @Urbanacus pointed out earlier, people who are serious about it will avoid even the simulacrum for appearance sake, so as not to confuse others or not to be confused themselves.
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