[568] in Vegetarian_Support_Group
Why gelatin, of meat origin, may be 'kosher'('permissible' to Jews)
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Leonard D Katz)
Tue May 16 12:00:24 1995
To: vsg@MIT.EDU
Date: Tue, 16 May 1995 11:57:18 EDT
From: Leonard D Katz <lkatz@MIT.EDU>
Judaism is not an historically vegetarian religion; like Islam, it
imposes dietary restrictions for other reasons, which leads to
prohibition of eating meat of certain origins and in certain
circumstances. Like our ordinary ways of classifying food (meat vs.
non-meat), the rules and classications worked out by Jewish and
Muslim scholars don't coincide with what's derived from dead animals
and what isn't.
'Kosher and parve' means 'permissible (to Jews) and neither meat nor dairy'.
(It doesn't mean vegan -- it could include unfertilized eggs.) While some very
strict Orthodox Jews who wish to go beyond the letter of the law or to take
no chances do not use food including gelatin when they should not eat meat,
many religious authorities permit this -- not because of any recent pressure
from the food industry, as a previous posting suggested, but because of
a millenia-old tradition of interpretation, according to which any food
loses its identity when it goes through a stage in which it is inedible, as
it is supposed gelatin does. Even a rabbi who is personally will not eat
gelatin and even one who does not eat meat must interpret the religious law
permissively, if that's correct, rather than falsifying the interpretation
of what's supposed to be revealed religious law.
Compare the Catholic position that the communion wafer is literally flesh,
with the substance of flesh, but not its 'accidental' properties. This
shouldn't worry any Catholic moral vegetarians. This classication, like
the Jewish, serve other purposes, irrelevant to vegetarian concerns, but
which should not, just for that reason, be subjected to scorn.
Leonard
