Only 3 Mentions in the Bible, but Such an Influence

The word kosher , meaning fit or proper, appears in the Bible only three times, and then not in connection with food.

But it has come to stand for a complex of Jewish law and tradition that governs the eating habits of as many as 50,000 Jews in Los Angeles and 1.5 million Jews in the United States.

According to the Encyclopedia Judaica, the rules allow for consumption of all fruits and vegetables. This is based on a verse in Genesis 1:29: “Behold, I have given you every herb yielding seed which is upon the face of the earth, and every tree.”

Then it gets complicated.

Although fruits and vegetables may be eaten with meat or milk, meat must not be mixed with milk or other dairy products. Only the meat of animals that chew their cud and have cloven hoofs may be eaten.

Acceptable birds are generally limited to pigeon, dove, chicken, quail, partridge, peacock, pheasant, house sparrow, and domestic goose and duck.

Fish with fins and scales are acceptable. Shark, catfish and eel are out, but swordfish and sturgeon are a matter of debate.

Insects are banned, but honey is OK.

No one but a specially trained shokhet can actually slaughter cattle and birds. The shokhet uses a knife to kill the animal, then checks to make sure the animal does not exhibit any of eight categories of defects that would otherwise have led to its death within one year.

The meat is hung up and salted to remove as much blood is possible.

Certain portions of clean animals are also forbidden.

Strictly observant Jews will wait up to six hours after a meat meal before they will eat dairy products. Kosher homes have separate sets of dishes and silverware for milk and meat foods.

The Bible implies that the dietary laws have to do with holiness, but it gives no real explanation of them.

Ancient sages and modern scholars have advanced various reasons for the laws. These include their moral effect and hygienic explanations.

“These ordinances seek to train us in the mastery of our appetites,” wrote Maimonides, a 12th-Century rabbi, physician and philosopher.

“They accustom us to restrain both the growth of desire and the disposition to consider the pleasure of eating as the end of man’s existence.”

At the same time, Maimonides argued that the forbidden foods are also unhealthy.