EXOD892 Kashrut: To Separate Ourselves from Our Pagan Neighbors. Much attention--both positive and negative--has focused on how kashrut still has the potential to separate Jews from their non-Jewish neighbors, even though classical paganism is passe. Some view the issues that arise as fertile ground for exploring the tension between assimilation and segregation, for asserting our particular identity within a universalistic ethic. Others, Jewish and non-Jewish, have been quite critical of the potentially isolating effects of the practice for a Jew in modern life. Most liberal Jews who keep kosher make some accommodation to minimize this effect, at least eating off anyone's dishes. In a society that has been sensitized to the growing number of vegetarians and others with their own dietary restrictions, this is generally sufficient to bridge the gap. The tradition supports an alternative focus, however: to separate ourselves from paganism, rather than from the pagans themselves. Boiling a kid in its mother's milk, for instance, was thought to be a pagan rite. In refusing to do it, the Israelites could reject idolatry by the very way they cooked their food. Maimonides surmises as much in his Guide of the Perplexed [3:48]: Perhaps such food was eaten at one of the ceremonies of their cult or at one of their festivals. The confirmation of this may, in my opinion, be found in the fact that the prohibition against eating meat [boiled] in milk, when it is mentioned for the first two times [Exodus 23:19, 34:26], occurs near the commandment concerning pilgrimage.... It is as if it said: When you go on pilgrimage and enter the house of the Lord your God, do not cook there in the way they used to do. Idolatry today is frequently associated with the materialism that pervades every aspect of our society; in this incarnation, it is a worship of money. There are no magical fertility rites, but this contemporary paganism still makes of ultimate importance that which we create and acquire. It enshrines profit above people; it bows to corporate pressures and stock markets instead of to God. And just as in ancient times, it touches the very food we eat. There are countless examples. Florida farm workers are paid 1.2 cents per pound for picking tomatoes. To earn $25 a day, one worker must pick two thousand pounds of tomatoes! Some growers have been cited for slave conditions: armed guards forced laborers to work ten to twelve hours per day, six days a week. Chocolate, coffee, and other foods are similarly “tainted” by horrendous labor practices pursued in the name of the almighty dollar. [Internet sites such as CorpWatch.org offer up-to-date information on these issues.] Genetically modified crops can be seen as technologically advanced versions of the same temptations. They are more resistant to pests or drought, increasing productivity and profit. Agricultural companies will tout the potential to help subsistence farmers, but these altered foods have also been linked to severe allergic reactions, increased soil erosion, and breeding of resistant pests. Dumping of the products in some markets has led to the invasion of species and a weakening of biodiversity. Several corporations are pursuing “terminator” technology--sterile seeds that would guarantee annual seed purchases, ruining small farmers that cannot afford them, and generally devastating the food production chain. [CorpWatch.org, agresearch.cri.nz, mercola.com]. A Reform kashrut should resist these forms of paganism as well. Torah speaks repeatedly of the significance that God created for living organisms with the seed of creation inside them. In addition, many of these modifications violate even a liberal interpretation of restrictions against kilayim, mixing seeds (Leviticus 19:19). While these concerns are not classical elements of kashrut, the biblical instructions at their core link them to Jewish dietary laws. Reform Jews will rightly insist on continuing to eat with their neighbors, even their pagan ones. Here they can separate themselves from the idolatrous practices that pervade the food industry. (By Rachel S. Mikva, “Adventures in Eating: An Emerging Model for Kashrut”)