God’s Take on Kosher Food
Is kosher good? Is it Biblical? Is it ordained of God? We would like to view this matter not from an orthodox Jewish perspective (which makes nothing right or wrong), but from God’s and the Torah’s (Bible’s) perspective (which is the truth).
Once on a flight, I wasn’t impressed with the menu – when it comes to food quality, planes are flying hospitals. I normally eat organic, I don’t eat foods designated as “unclean” in the Bible, like pork and shellfish, and I know about the atrocious lack of decency in North American standards of conventional food production, preparation, and service. So I asked for a kosher dinner, hoping it might be the better of two evils.
Truly, there are aspects of kosher that ARE good. Take animal products – like the proper butchering of the animal to ensure hygiene and minimize stress, and the draining of the blood properly from the carcass, according to the counsel of God found in the Torah (Genesis 9:4). I appreciate that. After all, the Bible says that the life is in the blood, and when an animal is slain, we are to dispose of the blood and not consume it.
I will digress here for a moment: If the life is in the blood, as the Bible says it is (Leviticus 17:11), then by consuming that blood, do we not ingest the nature of that life? It is now evident to some that recipients of a heart transplant, for example, receive the information in that heart, to which only the donor was privy. (Read Transplanted Organs Impart Memories onto Recipients.) So why wouldn’t there be a transfer of information in the blood, in which God says is the life?
I had a younger brother who died of leukemia in 1977. In the process of treatment, David was given a blood transfusion. About that time, I saw a subtle change in him. It was still David – same voice, same personality (for the most part), same mannerisms, and same sense of humor – but there was something different. I couldn’t define it, and I wondered if it was not simply his dance with death and his suffering that affected him so; I really didn’t know, but I now suspect the blood transfusion had something to do with the subtle change (not that the other factors wouldn’t).
Are Jehovah’s Witnesses so wrong in refusing blood transfusions? I don’t blame them, and I firmly believe they should have the right to decide for themselves and for their families. Big Agnostic Brother, get lost; beat it.
So I appreciate that aspect of kosher. I also appreciate that orthodox Jews do not eat the Biblically-designated unclean meats. They will not eat pork or shellfish of any kind, and that is good, even verified by present day knowledgeable scientific nutritionists (read Christian Physical Diet).
Back to the plane fare: I looked the kosher food over – it was more meticulously sealed than the other meals, but there was no butter for the bun; instead, it contained a packet of margarine. For your information, margarine is an artificial food that is proven to be unhealthy in several ways, in direct contrast to the marketing propaganda of the industrial food system over the years. They have followed the dictum that if you tell a lie long enough, people will believe it.
More than a half century ago, they put the word out that butter was bad for one’s heart health (it was a lie), and the marketing push was on for the synthetic substitute, margarine. We have since been discovering the health-destroying nature of this diabolical substance, which the petrochemical/industrial/agricultural/food-processing powers have foisted on an unsuspecting public for purely monetary gain.
See these quotes from Fats that Heal, Fats that Kill by Udo Erasmus:
“A ‘nickel’ catalyst often used in hydrogenation, called ‘Raney’s Nickel’, is actually 50% nickel and 50% aluminum. Remnants of both metals remain in products containing hydrogenated or partially hydrogenated oils, and are eaten by people.
The presence of aluminum is particularly worrisome, because its presence in the human body is associated with Alzheimer’s disease (mental senility), and osteoporosis, and may even facilitate the development of cancer.”
“Partial hydrogenation produces margarines, shortenings, shortening oils, and partially hydrogenated vegetable oils. These products contain large quantities of trans-fatty acids and other altered fat substances, some of which are known to be detrimental to health because they interfere with normal biochemical processes. Other altered substances have not been adequately studied regarding their effects on health. Trans-fatty acids have now been shown to increase cholesterol, decrease beneficial high-density lipoprotein (HDL), interfere with our liver’s detoxification system, and interfere with EFA function.”
So margarine is kosher? Many years ago, I had the impression that kosher was nothing but good. After all, its production, preparation, and provision are presumably based on the Bible and supervised by rabbis, the spiritual leaders of religious Jewish people, right? Many people still have the impression that kosher is good, and many Jews and some Gentiles believe that all aspects of kosher eating are important, especially to God.
So tell me, my religious Jewish friends, is eating carcinogenic, nutritionless, artificial, altered food better than eating something that comes from the “land of milk and honey”? Is that what pleases God? Are you serious!?
And how about eating food the nearest way to how it was naturally created by the God of Israel, the One you presume to worship and seek to please? Why isn’t kosher about eating organic? Is it good to be consuming lethal, synthetic chemicals such as pesticides, herbicides, fungicides, synthetic fertilizers, genetically-modified organisms, carcinogenic food colors and flavorings, medications, antibiotics, growth hormones, and all such destructive pollutants?
Here is another aspect that makes me shake my head with wonder at the incredible ludicrousness of some of the kosher law: Jews do not mix meat with dairy products. Wait till you learn their basis for such tradition in the Holy Torah! Here it is, every bit of it, as repeated verbatim in three places:
“The first of the firstfruits of your land you shall bring into the house of the LORD your God. You shall not boil a kid in its mother’s milk” (Exodus 23:19 MKJV).
“The first of the firstfruits of your land you shall bring to the house of the LORD your God. You shall not boil a kid in its mother’s milk” (Exodus 34:26 MKJV).
“You shall not eat anything that dies of itself. You shall give it to the stranger that is in your gates, so that he may eat it. Or you may sell it to a stranger. For you are a holy people to the LORD your God. You shall not boil a kid in its mother’s milk” (Deuteronomy 14:21 MKJV).
That’s it – the entire foundation! So what have the Jews done with that injunction? Not only will Jews not boil a kid in its mother’s milk, they will not eat meat pizzas with cheese topping, or use butter or drink milk with their meal if it contains meat.
Even chicken is forbidden, the arguments being that the Scriptural direction speaks of meat categorically and that people may confuse chicken with other meats. Never mind the fact that you can’t milk a chicken! God says not to add to His Word, but what we have here is all addition, going from the presumptuous to the downright silly, if not insane.
The orthodox Jews will even go so far as to maintain two separate sets of dishes and utensils, even two separate kitchens, lest they should offend on that one verse of boiling a kid in its mother’s milk!
So you can think to please God by eating chemicalized, altered, poisoned food, but you won’t touch meat and milk because of a Scripture that doesn’t even apply?! Talk about anal-retentive! Talk about getting bogged down! Talk about self-righteousness! Talk about a power grab and ostentatious display of piety on the part of religious, Pharisaical leaders!
What did Jesus say of this kind of religious conduct (not that orthodox Jews would care – after all, they murdered Him for exposing their hypocrisy and error)?:
Mark 7:1-16 MKJV
(1) And the Pharisees and some of the scribes came together to Him, having come from Jerusalem.
(2) And when they saw some of His disciples eating loaves with unclean hands, that is with unwashed hands, they found fault.
(3) For the Pharisees and all the Jews do not eat unless they immerse their hands with the fist, holding the tradition of the elders.
(4) And coming from the market, they do not eat without immersing, and there are many other things which they have received to hold, the dippings of cups and pots, and of copper vessels, and of tables.
(5) Then the Pharisees and scribes asked Him, Why do your disciples not walk according to the tradition of the elders, but eat loaves with unwashed hands?
(6) But He answered and said to them, Well has Isaiah prophesied of you hypocrites, as it is written, "This people honors Me with their lips, but their heart is far from Me.
(7) However, they worship Me in vain, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men."
(8) For laying aside the commandment of God, you hold the tradition of men, the dippings of pots and cups. And many other such things you do.
(9) And He said to them, Do you do well to set aside the commandment of God, so that you may keep your own tradition?
(10) For Moses said, "Honor your father and your mother." And, "Whoever curses father or mother, let him die the death."
(11) But you say, If a man shall say to his father or mother, Corban! (that is, A gift to God, whatever you may profit by me)
(12) and you no longer allow him to do anything toward his father or mother,
(13) making the Word of God of no effect through your tradition which you have delivered. And you do many such things.
(14) And calling near all the crowd, He said to them, Listen to Me, every one of you, and understand.
(15) There is nothing from outside a man which entering into him can defile him. But the things which come out of him, those are the ones that defile the man.
(16) If anyone has ears to hear, let him hear.
Matthew 23:1-13 MKJV
(1) Then Jesus spoke to the crowd and to His disciples,
(2) saying, The scribes and the Pharisees sit in Moses’ seat.
(3) Therefore whatever they tell you to observe, observe and do. But do not do according to their works; for they say, and do not do.
(4) For they bind heavy and hard-to-carry burdens and lay them on men’s shoulders. But they will not move them with one of their fingers.
(5) But they do all their works in order to be seen of men. They make their phylacteries broad and enlarge the borders of their garments.
(6) And they love the first couch at feasts, and the chief seats in the synagogues,
(7) and greetings in the market-places, and to be called, Rabbi! Rabbi! by men.
(8) But you must not be called Rabbi, for One is your teacher, Christ, and you are all brothers.
(9) And call no one your father on the earth, for One is your Father in Heaven.
(10) Nor be called teachers, for One is your Teacher, even Christ.
(11) But he who is greatest among you shall be your servant.
(12) And whoever shall exalt himself shall be abased, and he who shall humble himself shall be exalted.
(13) But woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you shut up the Kingdom of Heaven against men. For you neither go in, nor do you allow those entering to go in.
Now let’s consider the father of the Jews, Abraham. God came visiting him one day, while on His way to investigate evil reports He had received of Sodom and Gomorrah. So what did Abraham do?:
Genesis 18:1-8 MKJV
(1) And the LORD appeared to him in the plains of Mamre, and he sat at the tent door in the heat of the day.
(2) And he lifted up his eyes and looked, and lo, three men stood by him. And when he saw them, he ran to meet them from the tent door, and bowed toward the ground.
(3) And he said, My Lord, if now I have found favor in Your sight, do not pass away, I pray, from Your servant.
(4) Let a little water, I pray, be brought, and wash Your feet, and rest under the tree.
(5) And I will bring a bite of bread, and will comfort your hearts. After that You shall pass on. For this is why You have come to Your servant. And they said, Do so, as you have said.
(6) And Abraham hastened into the tent to Sarah, and said, Make ready quickly three measures of fine meal; knead it, and make cakes.
(7) And Abraham ran out to the herd and brought a calf, tender and good. And he gave it to a young man. And he hurried to dress it.
(8) And he took butter and milk, and the calf which he had dressed, and set it before them. And he stood by them under the tree, and they ate.
What? The Lord and His companions weren’t offended? They didn’t gag? They didn’t report Abraham and Sarah to the authorities? They didn’t insist on soymilk? God didn’t send Abraham packing to Sodom to fry for his offensive behavior? God and His angels actually ate what Abraham’s religious children today consider to be non-kosher?
You bet they ate it. Now it would be argued that Abraham was before Moses’ day when the Law was given. True! But where in Moses’ Law (God’s Law, as given to Israel by Moses) does it say, “Thou shalt not eat meat and cheese pizzas or butter in a chicken sandwich”?
Yes, it says not to eat a BLT (having pork bacon in it), or deep-fried shrimp, mussels, clams, scallops, eel, lobster, octopus, rat, mouse, skunk, hawk, owl, or crow (milk or no milk), but where, oh where, does the Law forbid coffee with cream, while having a corned beef sandwich? Is that boiling a young goat in its own mother’s milk? Somehow, I don’t think so.
Notice it doesn’t even forbid boiling a kid in the milk of a goat that is not its mother. Isn’t there another message in that command other than the incredible one orthodox Jews have assumed and so imaginatively expanded upon? I’m sure there is, though I don’t know what. I don’t believe we should take that law only literally. I do know the meaning is not a matter of keeping meat and dairy separate, which meaning has been carried to the extreme that Jews keep separate kitchens, tables, sets of dishes, and cutlery.
Get wisdom, Jewry; stop thinking only of yourselves and worshipping laws and foolish traditions instead of your Maker. You embarrass and slander Him with your notions, acting contrary to His ways and His Law. After all, His will for you is to first love Him, and then love your neighbor as yourself.
Do the reasonable and necessary things. Stop morally and financially supporting the polluters of the earth and destroyers of mankind. As good stewards of God’s creation, insist on organic as one of many conscientious measures you can adopt to glorify Him. Butter is better than poison for you and your neighbor, much better. Your God, Whose blessing you seek, certainly thinks so, and He will reward you for it.
He said He would give you a land flowing with milk and honey, but you have chosen one of synthetic vegetable oil and genetically-modified corn syrup. How greatly you have robbed yourselves!
By far the most important matter of all, which causes all other issues to fade into total insignificance, is that you need to come to realize that in your history, you despised Moses, the Torah, and God’s Law. You embraced gods other than your own one true God and turned to robbery and violence. You then rejected the prophets your God sent to warn of your sins and the consequences because you would not listen. Finally, your Messiah, Yeshua HaMashiach, came and you killed Him. As a result, you lost everything but your miserable existence.
As if that were not enough, you blamed everyone and everything for your woes but yourselves, where the blame squarely belongs. And you continue in your darkness and foolishness with a bunch of stupid religious observances like your kosher laws.
Yes, kill your Messiah and don’t butter your bread when you eat chicken. Oh, listen to the rabbis whom you deem to guide you ever so wisely. They tell you to eat margarine but deny any culpability for slaying your Messiah. And then you wonder why all your woes come on you! Little do you know that your God has permitted Islam and anti-Semitism to continue and prevail as a source of great, life-threatening, destructive vexation because you resist Him.
Read and believe your prophets and damn your Talmud. The prophets had it right. Moses and the prophets of Israel and Judah thousands of years ago foretold of your evil days and the cause for them, and now we tell you the solution. Read The Key for Israel and the Jew.
Have the days of the vengeance of your God, Yeshua HaMashiach, been fulfilled against you? We hope and believe so. This is why The Key is now revealed, that you may believe, be delivered, and come to a peaceful reign with Him throughout all the earth.
Victor Hafichuk