19. FOOD AND HEALTH LAWS. Food Laws.— The food laws of the Jewish people form a very complex system, with numerous and diversified enactments. These re fer to the determination of the species of animals, birds, fish and insects that may be eaten; the method of slaughter; the inspection of the animal for disease and lesion; the pro hibition of the blood, fat and certain parts of the animal; the treatment of meat prior to cooking; the prohibition of certain food mix tures; certain vegetable food laws, such as the prohibition of leaven during Passover, first fruit crops— Orlah, and the new corn — Hadash; and various anti-heathen food laws, affecting the use of wine, etc. It is certainly very suggestive of the importance of food legislation that the first direct command of God to Adam should be a food law (Gen. ii, 17), and that the punishment for its trangression should be the advent of death. The exposition of the dietary laws has given rise to a vast literature to which every century and almost every school of thought has made its contribu tion, but the general result is chaos. This is due mainly to three causes: (1) The essentially monistic nature of the Jewish thought has been quite overlooked. Conceptions that appear al most antithetic for the modern mind were ap prehended as an undifferentiated whole by the ancient Hebrew. His language had no word that would be equivalent to the physical and thb psychical, the legal and the ethical, the spiritual and the vital, were all uni fied manifestations of the Theocratic Will. So that when the Bible declares with • all emphasis that the end of the law is "life)—"that ye shall live by them'—"your life and the prolongation of your days,' it is just as uncritical to exclude physical life from this end as it would be to exclude from it the life of the spirit and the life everlasting. (2) The second cause of the overwhelming confusion prevalent In this litera ture is the unscientific exaltation of every ob served effect of the laws into a motive for their promulgation and observance . (3) The avowedly different character of many of these laws in origin and purpose has been largely disregarded. The exposition of the dietary system would have been much simplified and in numerable controversies avoided if it had been clearly understood that the statement of effects does not involve their predication as motives; that motives apparently diverse could yet re main unified and undifferentiated for the Jewish mind, and that there is no one explanation that will cover all the laws: 1. Clean and Unclean Species.—Among the quadrupeds only the ruminants that are pro vided with fully cloven hoofs are declared to be fit for food; and of these only the !tine, sheep and goats are fit for sacrifice (Lev. xi, Dent. xiv). The rabbis refer to another distinguish ing mark possessed by all clean animals, namely, the absence of incisors from the upper jaw (Talmud Bab., Hullin 59A). Among the fish,
only those that have fins and scales are clean; thus all the silurida, eels and shell-fish are pro hibited. As all that have scales have also fins, the presence of scales is the decisive mark (Talmud Bah, Niddah 51A). No marks are given in the Bible to determine the clean fowl, but a long list. is recorded of species that are unclean. These are birds of prey, scavenger birds and marsh fowl. The bat is also included in the list. All the species not named are declared fit for food. The rabbis have formulated certain marks distinguishing the clean fowl — but finally only those birds that are traditionally known to be clean are permitted to be used for food (Talmud Bab., Hullin 63B). All insects are declared unclean, with exception of four species of locusts. All creeping things are unclean (Shulhan Aruch, Yore Deah aj> 79-85).
The earliest explanation of this distinction between clean and unclean is afforded in the allegorical interpretations of the Apocrypha (IV Maccab. 5, Letter of Aristeas, etc.), the works of Philo and the Fathers of the Church (Augustine, Irennus,Cyril, Tertullian, Novatian "On the Jewish Meats)). The unclean animals are all regarded as typifying vices,— the hare libidinousness, the swine impurity, the fox craft, etc. The cloven hoof, the first sign of purity, typifies the distinction between good and evil; the chewing of the cud symbolizes the constant repetition of the law. This method of inter pretation, while certainly leading to curious results, has some justification in the Bible pres entation of the Serpent as the agent of tempta tion (Gen. iii, 1) and also in the figures em ployed by Ezekiel (chap. xxiii, 20). Another explanation bases itself upon the natural and instinctive antipathy and loathing that destruc tive and death-dealing animals arouse. It is only natural that beasts of prey, serpentine and snake-like fish, slimy crustaceans, birds of prey, marsh fowl and scavenger birds, insects feed ing on corruption and ordure, should be held unclean and polluting by a people striving to keep itself pure and holy (Lev. xi, 43). The consequences of this striving after holiness affect the whole of Jewish thought and life, and are of primal importance for the comprehension of the dietary system (Schechter, Jewish Quart. Rev. Vol. X, Art. That death dealing creatures were regarded as abhorrent and imperfect is proved definitely by the prophecy of Isaiah, who sees as one of the conditions of the Messianic period "that the wolf shall dwell with the lamb—and the lion shall eat straw like the ox— they shall not hurt or destroy in all my holy mountains," etc.