Re: Reasons for Kashruth

"Eliyahu Rooff" <lrooff@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:1egXe.12063$Q71.6072@xxxxxxxxxxx
>
> <backon@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
> news:dgjvg0$lhd$1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>> In article <dMKdnTNMPtYX8rDeRVn-oQ@xxxxxxx>, "Dan Kimmel"
>> <daniel.kimmel@xxxxxxx> writes:
>>>
>>> <moshes@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
>>> news:2005Sep18.152843@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>>>> "Dan Kimmel" <daniel.kimmel@xxxxxxx> writes:
>>>> > <moshes@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
>>>> >> "Dan Kimmel" <daniel.kimmel@xxxxxxx> writes:
>>>> >>
>>>> >> snip
>>>> >>
>>>> >> > Where I think it goes too far -- or, at least, leaves logic
>>>> >> > behind -- is when the law forbids mixing *poultry* and dairy,
>>>> >> > though birds do not produce milk.
>>>> >>
>>>> >> I'm getting a bit despondent. I've explained this _several_ times.
>>>> >> The rabbis were well aware that chickens to not give milk. The
>>>> >> reason
>>>> >> for including fowl in the prohibition, was because the _preparation_
>>>> >> of fowl, slaughtering and salting matches the preparation of
>>>> >> mammals.
>>>> >
>>>> > And I understand the explanation. I just don't buy it.
>>>>
>>>> Because you _buy_ meat and chicken in carefully prepared palstic
>>>> wrapped packagaes. You don't bring your chicken to the local shochet
>>>> for slaughter. You don't salt your chickens to remove the blood.
>>>> There's an antiseptic quality to it so you can't see how people who
>>>> lived without refrigerators and who did all the meat processing at
>>>> home would automatically think of meat and fowl as the same thing.
>>>>
>>>> Use some imagination.
>>>
>>> I understand what you're saying. And if *you* would use some
>>> imagination
>>> you would see that this rabbinic prohibition is no longer necessary.
>>
>>
>> But even before my doctoral student Shmulik came out with his brilliant
>> findings on transcellular transport in intestinal pharmacokinetics, I
>> (the clinician who had done work in lipid research) had found an
>> interaction between stearic acid in beef and eicosapentaenoic acid in
>> fish that may cause lipid peroxidation [and found using the program on
>> //kiwi.uchicago]
>>
>>
>>
>> EATING MEAT WITH FISH: the danger of eating both together is mentioned
>> in the gemara in Pesachim 76b and in the TUR YD 116 and YD 116:2
>> with the danger in inducing TZARAAT (which some scholars have
>> linked with modern day psoriasis).
>>
>> Recent research has found that stearic acid found in beef may
>> actually lower LDL cholesterol (see: American Journal of Clinical
>> Nutrition 1994;60 (Suppl): 1044s ). On the other hand, fish contains
>> eicosapentaenoic acid which has been found (paradoxically) to INCREASE
>> lipid peroxidation (J Invest Dermatology 1994;103:151; Intl J Vitamin
>> Nutrition Res 1994;64: 144; Journal of Nutrition 1992;122:2190; Journal
>> of Lipid Research 1991; 32:79). In addition, there may be an interaction
>> in the liver (P450) between stearic acid and eicosapentaenoic acid.
>> There is extensive literature on fish oil induced diabetes.
>>
>> In psoriasis there's: increased lipogenesis, increased susceptibility
>> to diabetes, increased tendency to thrombosis, & elevated plasma lipid
>> levels.
>>
>> So please, let's not ridicule what Chazal wrote about eating fish with
>> meat !
>>
>> P.S. We all *know* that the medical remedies in the Gemara are NOT to
>> be used as they are *primitive* :-) I suggest one reads the January 21st
>> 1995
>> issue of NEW SCIENTIST (36-40) "Eating away at disease ?" (for treating
>> autoimmune disease) and then read the gemara at the end of Gittin. You'll
>> plotz.
>>
>> It's the same feeling I got when in 1986 I accidentally stumbled across
>> the
>> medical journal MEDICAL LEAVES from the early 1940's with a review
>> article
>> quoting extensive prior research (J Biological Chemistry etc.) showing in
>> separate articles the deleterious effect of DAM NIDA, shaatnez, basar
>> v'chalav,
>> non-shechted meat on a certain biological assay. The most interesting
>> thing
>> was the 60:1 ratio (yup, batel b'shishim) when the effect was no longer
>> noticeable.
>>
> I've asked several times without an answer, so I'll try one more time...
> When did observance of mitzvot, particularly those dealing with kashrut,
> become health issues or something that we justify on a basis of their
> effect on health? Using that as an argument has the effect of weakening
> the reasoning used to support observance of mitzvot with no possible
> health connection, including other aspects of kashrut. For example, what's
> the health connection in not slicing cheese with a knife because it was
> used to cut meatloaf last week?
>
> For that matter, if we need a rational basis for observing mitzvot, why do
> I need to worry about linen thread in my wool suits? And what possible
> logical reason can we find for the law of the red heifer?
>
> It's all good and well to demonstrate that you (or your computer) are an
> endless storehouse of arcane and obscure medical knowledge, but how does
> this apply to the reasons for Jews, and not gentiles, to observe mitzvot?
> If it has to do with health, why shouldn't we be teaching everyone -- not
> just our fellow Jews -- to follow halachah?
>
> Eliyahu
>


Eliahu, from what I have learned over the years, health is indeed NOT a
reason for kashrut. I doubt that the rabbis knew much about lipids or
transcellular transport in intestinal pharmacokinetics. But while the O
will tell you that health is not a reason for kashrut., they also like to
"prove" how good kashrut is due to modern research, and how unhealthy pork
is, and how cotton and wool cause some obscure condition which modern
medicine -- except for O researchers - never heard of. Otherwise the
clothing industry would make a lot of money by trying to sell you two suits
instead of one: one wool, the other linen.

Like you, I await the answer...

Jay


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