Why don’t Jews eat pork?

[rosends]

Have you considered the case of Noah who lived quite some time before Moses wrote about him?

He was told to take two of the "unclean" animals but seven of the "clean" animals on board the ark. Since humans did not eat meat prior to the flood, the designation of clean and unclean must have pertained to sacrifice. Unclean animals could not be offered to God in sacrifice, hence the need for only two of them.
Having seven of the clean animals meant six for breeding and one to offer to God. Six for breeding would also add more quickly to their numbers as humans began to eat flesh and offer these animals in sacrifice.

I know pig meat was subject paracitic infection that could be passed on to humans, so this could have had something to do with avoiding it.

Trichinosis - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Just my 2 cents worth.

as a side note, the talmud uses the fact that Noah was told "clean" and "unclean" as a proof text that Noah learned the torah -- there is a long tradition in Jewish literature of showing that even before the text was given as a code of laws to a people, it was studied, so before it was scripture, it was "scripture." Of course, this all requires a certain faith in the divinity of the text. Just saying.

 

[Servant_of_the_One1]

Please don’t quote scripture. I can do that on my own. Is there something that predates Jewish dietary laws? I don’t have an answer. I can only guess.

Scripture forbids them to eat pork

 

[metis]

as a side note, the talmud uses the fact that Noah was told "clean" and "unclean" as a proof text that Noah learned the torah -- there is a long tradition in Jewish literature of showing that even before the text was given as a code of laws to a people, it was studied, so before it was scripture, it was "scripture." Of course, this all requires a certain faith in the divinity of the text. Just saying.

What's interesting, imo, is that in the highland areas that we occupied, there is an absence of pig bones but not of shellfish shells along the Jordan. Did we eat shellfish or just us the shells way back when? Again, I don't know.

 

[metis]

Scripture forbids them to eat pork

But it does not explicitly say why. Is it that we are to be a separate people, which is mentioned as a basis for the kosher Laws, but why pork and other "unclean" animals?

Like in the play "Fiddler On the Roof", in the song "Tradition", we often just don't know what the original basis was.

 

[Jayhawker Soule]

as a side note, the talmud uses the fact that Noah was told "clean" and "unclean" as a proof text that Noah learned the torah -- there is a long tradition in Jewish literature of showing that even before the text was given as a code of laws to a people, it was studied, ...

Meanwhile, Abraham rushes to prepare a tref meal for his guests. Oh what a tangled web we weave ...

 

[rosends]

Meanwhile, Abraham rushes to prepare a tref meal for his guests. Oh what a tangled web we weave ...

why treif? And even if you contend treif, various commentators explain that they knew but were not bound by the laws. The ones they observed they did voluntarily. In th3e case of Noah, there is no comment on what he ate, only that he would have been instructed about categories that should not have existed yet.

 

[Jayhawker Soule]

why treif? And even if you contend treif, various commentators explain that they knew but were not bound by the laws. The ones they observed they did voluntarily. In th3e case of Noah, there is no comment on what he ate, only that he would have been instructed about categories that should not have existed yet.

Of course.

 

[Levite]

Meanwhile, Abraham rushes to prepare a tref meal for his guests. Oh what a tangled web we weave ...

Oh, come now! Avraham came from Ur, which is Bavel. Obviously, Avraham followed minhag Bavel, and served his guests the fleischigs, waited six hours, and then gave them the milchigs.



Maybe while they waited, he took the opportunity to brush his streiml....

 

[A Vestigial Mote]

You probably don't want this... but here's a guess: it was written into their scripture because the meat of pigs tends to contain the most invasive parasites and infectious agents if not treated properly. And the further back you go into our history, the poorer peoples' methods of preservation and meat curing. Ultimately, people who ate pork were getting sick more frequently and easily, and somebody decided it was high time that "God" weighed in on the matter.

 

[metis]

You probably don't want this... but here's a guess: it was written into their scripture because the meat of pigs tends to contain the most invasive parasites and infectious agents if not treated properly. And the further back you go into our history, the poorer peoples' methods of preservation and meat curing. Ultimately, people who ate pork were getting sick more frequently and easily, and somebody decided it was high time that "God" weighed in on the matter.

But pigs are relatively clean when compared to many other animals. Sheep and goats will eat just about anything. Chickens are terribly dirty critters. Etc.

 

[A Vestigial Mote]

But pigs are relatively clean when compared to many other animals. Sheep and goats will eat just about anything. Chickens are terribly dirty critters. Etc.

Those animals may be cleaner with their outside behavior, but I always remember hearing that there is a higher probability of contracting a parasitic worm from undercooked pork, and that their feces can be a nest of many other bacterial and parasitic nasties. I'll need to read up on it to be sure - but I always remember hearing about pigs/pork as being the meat to most watch out for - making sure it isn't ever undercooked.

 

[Levite]

This is the trichinosis hypothesis. A while back, there were some articles written by archaeologists and historians noting that the Ancient Near East did not appear to have been inundated with constant plagues of trichinosis, and yet many of those cultures ate pork. Ritual practices we don't necessarily understand today are not necessarily explicable as primitive attempts at sanitation or health improvement. They might be actual ritual practices.

 

[roger1440]

This is the trichinosis hypothesis. A while back, there were some articles written by archaeologists and historians noting that the Ancient Near East did not appear to have been inundated with constant plagues of trichinosis, and yet many of those cultures ate pork. Ritual practices we don't necessarily understand today are not necessarily explicable as primitive attempts at sanitation or health improvement. They might be actual ritual practices.

You seem to be suggesting pork was chosen randomly. The “trichinosis hypothesis” seems more plausible. Though I have to admit I don’t have the slightest clue when it comes to catfish or shrimp. While I’m on the topic what type of wine is best served with crickets. white or red?

 

[Levite]

You seem to be suggesting pork was chosen randomly. The “trichinosis hypothesis” seems more plausible. Though I have to admit I don’t have the slightest clue when it comes to catfish or shrimp. While I’m on the topic what type of wine is best served with crickets. white or red?

I am not necessarily suggesting that pork was chosen randomly. Let's not forget, it's not just pork and shellfish. There's a very long list of prohibited creatures in the Torah, with very specific rules for what constitutes permissibility in an animal. Many if not most of the prohibited creatures pose no obvious health hazards, and were commonly consumed in that part of the world.

Just because the answer is not primitive food hygiene at work doesn't mean that the selection was random. It just means that we don't know what the common criteria for proscription was, aside from the lack of physical characteristics demanded by the Torah in land animals and fish (fowl have no explicitly set requirements of physical characteristics). There may have been mythological or theological/spiritual reasons, reasons of cultural differentiation and distinction, or other motivations we can't guess.

To me, making it into primitive food hygiene just seems...reductionist.

Oh, and since crickets are usually deep fried, probably one would drink beer and not wine with them....

 

[rosends]

You seem to be suggesting pork was chosen randomly. The “trichinosis hypothesis” seems more plausible. Though I have to admit I don’t have the slightest clue when it comes to catfish or shrimp. While I’m on the topic what type of wine is best served with crickets. white or red?

match the wine to the sauce.

 

[metis]

Oh, and since crickets are usually deep fried, probably one would drink beer and not wine with them....

I agree with you on most things you post, but you are seriously wrong here. A good kosher Bordeaux is the best with crickets and everything else. I can tell that you're simply not a connoisseur of fine wine, only a sewer of wine.

 

[metis]

match the wine to the sauce.

Let me suggest that a good bearnaise sauce, matched with a fine Bordeaux, is what heaven is, and this comes right from the secret writings of the RAMBAM, btw.

 

[Jayhawker Soule]

Just because the answer is not primitive food hygiene at work doesn't mean that the selection was random. It just means that we don't know what the common criteria for proscription was, aside from the lack of physical characteristics demanded by the Torah in land animals and fish (fowl have no explicitly set requirements of physical characteristics).

Nor, for that matter, is there reason to presume that the prohibition against port stems from some common criteria. Again:

Religious restrictions on the consumption of pork are a tradition in the Ancient Near East. Swine were prohibited in ancient Syria and Phoenicia, and the pig and its flesh represented a taboo observed, Strabo noted, at Comana in Pontus A lost poem of Hermesianax, reported centuries later by the traveller Pausanias, reported an etiological myth of Attis destroyed by a supernatural boar to account for the fact that "in consequence of these events the Galatians who inhabitPessinous do not touch pork". It is speculated that chickens supplanted pigs as a more portable and efficient source of protein leading to the religious restrictions. - ibid

It may be simply a case of religious etiology for something that, in fact, transcended the religion.

 

[Tumah]

Meanwhile, Abraham rushes to prepare a tref meal for his guests. Oh what a tangled web we weave ...

Angels aren't allowed to eat treif???

 

[Akivah]

^^^ Yes, this.

The OP doesn't actually mean "Why don't Jews eat pork." Because the answer is in Torah: that's part of the mitzvah of kashrut. I don't know any Jews who shun eating pork for any other reason.

Much of my extended family doesn't keep kosher, but pig still isn't served. I asked around and the chief answer I got is that they never learned how to cook it.