The History of the World

"Why would a perfect God create a world with so much evil in it?"

Rabbi Dude says:

A classic question, it is, and a very good question at that. But anyone who asks that question is missing an even greater point: why would a perfect God need to create a world at all?
God is the ultimate good. He is therefore the embodiment of the ultimate of everything that is good: the loving, caring, giving. Problem is this, though: when you’re the only existence, you can’t love anyone else, care for anyone else, give to anyone else; there’s no-one else to love, for whom to care, for whom to give!
So God created a world and beings in order to have someone else to whom to give. But just receiving without earning is pointless; therefore he created requirements to earn reward in order to make reward meaningful. He created initially one man and one woman and gave them a single commandment: don’t eat the fruit. You follow the instruction, you’ve earned the reward. You eat, you’ve failed the test and lost your chance at the reward. Hence the threat of death for failure.

Well, the man failed, but he was repentant, so God altered the punishment: the man would still die, but his death would be delayed a few hundred years and his life would be difficult. He was sent from his home in the garden of ‘éden and given a few new commandments. Man would have to lead a spiritual life, and, now that there were going to be other people in the world, Man would have to learn to get along peacefully with each other. Therefore, there were six commandments given:

• Do not worship idols
• Do not curse God
• Do not murder
• Do not steal
• Do not engage in any of six prohibited sexual relations: with one’s mother, with one’s father’s wife (even after divorce or death), with one’s maternal sister, with a married woman, with another man, or with an animal.
• Establish courts to enforce the other commandments and to keep the peace.

In the time of Enosh, the first man’s grandson, the human race made a terrible mistake: they decided that, since God had created the sun, moon, stars, et cetera, to serve him and to carry out his will, it was fitting to give them respect (just as one would show respect to the ministers of a king today). That, they thought, was what God wanted from them. However, that was not what God wanted, nobly-intentioned as it may have been. Furthermore, their miscalculation in the matter produced horrendous results: eventually Man forgot about God and thought their idols themselves were the powers. Once the prohibition on idolatry had ceased to be observed and God was no longer in their everyday lives, there was nothing to stop the violation of the other five, and the world became corrupt to no end. God decided, therefore, that there was no more purpose in keeping the world going, as there was no-one earning reward anymore. There was however, one man who still behaved himself properly: Noah.

Noah was a righteous man, perfect within his generation, and he walked in the ways of God. As such, God decided not to destroy the world outright, but instead to spare Noah and his family (who were also righteous like he) and start over from them. This he did, and he gave Noah one concession when he left his boat: he could now eat meat (until that point, the human race had been entirely vegetarian). This was a concession out of necessity driven by the fact that people had been worshiping animals and engaging in sexual intercourse with them, the rationale being that if you’re eating them you probably won’t be worshiping them or having sex with them. After all, you don’t eat your god, and you don’t sleep with your dinner.
However, as they say, with power comes responsibility. "I’m giving you the right to eat other animals, but don’t be cruel to them; at least have the decency to kill them first." There we have the seventh commandment:

• Do not eat flesh torn from a live animal.

These seven commandments are incumbent upon all Mankind.

But a few generations later the whole world had gone off track again. The (now) seven commandments had been thrown aside and God had been forgot once more. And once more there was one man named Avram (well, he wasn’t the only one this time) who recognised God as the creator and ruler of the world. This time, however, instead of destroying the world, God said to him, "OK, Avram, if you choose me, I choose you back. Now go out and tell the rest of the world about me." So Avram was chosen to be the PR agent, spreading the word around that there’s a God and teaching others to live according to his commandments.
In order to accomplish this, however, Avraham (as his name had been changed) was himself given a higher standard to which to live. Whereas the commandments we are given are for the purpose of reaching higher levels of spirituality and, consequently, of reward, the more commandments one is given, the greater one’s spirituality capacity. As such, Avraham’s higher calling was reflecting by the fact that he was given an additional commandment: circumcision. This commandment was not meant for the entire world, but only for Avraham and his descendants.
The son of Avraham, Yitzhak, continued in his father’s footsteps (sadly, his other son, Yishma’él, did not make the cut) and was given another commandment to build on his father’s increased sanctity. His son Ya’akov continued his work (again, the other brother–‘ésaw–did not make it) and was given yet another commandment. Ya’akov (also known as Yisraél) then took his family to Egypt, where his twelves sons developed into twelve branches of a very extended family. While there, the family of Léwi focused on keeping them in their ways of spirituality even through their enslavement by the Egyptains, and the nascent nation of Yisraél received even more commandments through their prophets. Eventually, the nation were taken out by God himself, in keeping with his promise to Avraham, and were given the remainder of their commandments, bringing the grand total to six hundred thirteen: two hundred forty-eight positive commandments ("do this"), and three hundred sixty-five negative commandments ("don’t do this").

The intrinsic difference between the laws of Yisraél and those of the other nations is the level of dedication to spirituality. For a goy, the seven commandments entail a roughly "don’t destroy the world" sort of approach to Life. For a Jew, the commandments form an all-encompassing lifestyle, as there is not a single aspect of Life not governed by Jewish law.
For a goy, God is meant to be brought into one’s life. For a Jew, God is one’s life.
The place of the nation of Yisraél (or the "Jewish People," as we’re usually called today) is to use our higher dedication to God’s mission to teach and to encourage others to live their lives properly.

Reform

"It’s a modern age. We just cannot continue to live according to the antiquated laws of the Tora. It’s time to leave the old way and to take a step forward into the Present."

Rabbi Dude says:

Why? For years the Tora was fine; why change it now? Before the Reform movement was founded in the early 1800's, there was simply no such thing as a Jew who was not observant. It was a given: Jews kept the Tora. Jews did not eat food that was not kashér. Jews did not work on Shabat. Jews prayed thrice daily. Jews did not marry goyim and kept to the restrictions regarding marital relations. Jews observed the Jewish holidays and did not observe the Christian or Muslim holidays. Sure, there was the odd one out--the one who went astray--but, as a whole, the nation of Yisraél were resolute in our observance of the Tora and its commandments.
So what changed? Why is it that until the 1800's no-one saw a need to drop the Tora’s "antiquated laws" but now you do? How is anything different today than it was yesterday? What happened that made the Tora acceptable for thousands of years but unacceptable now? Why was it that keeping the Tora was fine through the forty years in the desert, through the Kena’anite skirmishes, through the Assyrian wars, through the Babylonian expulsion, through the Persian exile, through the Greek occupation, through the Roman subjugation, through the Crusades, through the spread of Islam, through the forced dialogues, through the Spanish Inquisition, through the pogroms and the blood libels, but now it’s "the old way"? Why is today the dividing line between the old time and the new? What changed?

Nothing changed. If the Tora lasted three thousand years, then it’s just as good today, too. If it’s not working today, then it wasn’t so great for those three thousand years, either. But no-one complained or found fault with the Tora then. Three thousand years and no one complains: that seems to me to be proof positive that the Tora is good enough for us. If, over all those years, no-one thought it unacceptable, but you do now, then the fault isn’t with the Tora.

It’s with you.

Giraffe Steak

"Why don't we eat giraffe?"

Rabbi Dude says:

If you’ve lived even a semi-Jewish life for more than a year or so, you’re bound to have heard of the reason: "because we’re not sure where to slaughter it." After all, the giraffe has such a long neck that, even though it is technically kashér (being a ruminant with split hooves), it’s impossible practically to eat it.

Nonsense.

Anatomy is anatomy, and all vertebrate animals have the same basic anatomical structure. It only stands to reason, therefore, that if you can find a point on one animal's body, you should be able to find the corresponding point on any other animal's body.
But that's only assuming we're looking for a single point. In fact, the appropriate place to slaughter animals is not one particular point, but anywhere within a defined range of the trachea and esophagus. As such, it turns out that the giraffe is actually the easiest animal to slaughter: the range is about two centimetres long on a pigeon and about fifteen on a cow, but it's around two metres on a giraffe.

So why don't we eat giraffe? Above all else, because it's illegal. The giraffe is a protected species through most of its range.
Even in those areas where the giraffe is not protected by law, the price would be outrageous. You'd have to go to Africa, find one, capture it in a way it wouldn't become a teréfa (if it weren't already), restrain it (and they are very wild animals), get its neck to a suitable position for slaughtering (or yourself to the neck), drain the blood, cover the blood (and that's a lot of blood), butcher it, soak and salt the meat, and ship it back home. If the authorities in your home country would even allow you to bring it in at all, the import duties would be stupendous. And then you'd still have to find people willing to buy it. By the time you're done with it all you'd be paying $1000. per kilogram for giraffe steak. Is it worth it?
Add to this the fact that people just think it's weird. Forgetting about kashrut issues for a moment: if I invited you to my house and set out a plate of cricket cookies (yes, I've seen a recipe), would you eat them? How about honey-covered ants (a delicacy to some native Africans) or monkey brains (a delicacy in some parts of Asia)? And, of course, let's not forget the good old wichetty grub....

So why does everyone seem to think that the reason we don't eat giraffe is because of the presumed impossibility of locating the appropriate place for slaughter? Well--truth be told--I have no idea where the rumour started, but the fact is that not too many people know anything about the laws of animal slaughter anymore, so most people have no trouble believing it. Again, they can't be blamed for their ignorance as to the laws; it's a topic that's just not commonly taught anymore. That's unfortunate, but it's not catastrophic. What is deplorable, however, is the fact that people would believe such an explanation, as that shows a willingness to believe anything anyone says without questioning, and even in the face of basic logic. That is nothing short of shameful.