Orthodoxy does not exclude kosher products

Many people wonder if Orthodox Christians can eat kosher food? If we turn to the canons of the Christian religion, there are no food prohibitions in Orthodoxy. Restrictions are set for special periods of humility and spiritual renewal. Christmas, Great, Petrov, Assumption fasts, as well as all Wednesdays and Fridays - the time of complete abstinence from meat and dairy products. So, nothing forbids an Orthodox tourist to try kosher products in Israel.

We've all heard the word "kosher" at some point. It means "suitable or suitable". Often used in relation to food by believing Jews. Stores with the same name are required to have a certificate from the rabbi. It guarantees the sale of exclusively kosher products. There is a special set of rules that determines what a Jew can eat and what not. It's called kashrut. These rules are very difficult for an ordinary person to understand, but for Judaism this is the norm. For example, you can not eat dairy with meat at the same time or pork meat. We will not go deep into the essence of the rules, we will only say that the modern concept of "kosher" is not at all what we described above. Now its meaning has acquired a new connotation: "normal, suitable."

Nutrition

Kosher food is now becoming more and more popular. This desire is not at all connected with religion, but is a simple desire to improve the body, make it easier to work and free it from heavy food.

Kosher is a diet that includes environmentally friendly, healthy foods that are included and allowed by kashrut. They are marked with a special mark, which gives a guarantee of usefulness, environmental friendliness and the highest quality. Kosher food is much more expensive. What exactly it is - we will tell a little further.

Products

As for meat, it includes lamb, beef, goat, wild herbivores. Kosher animals are those with cloven hooves and the ability to chew. There are also a number of rules for slaughtering and processing meat.

With fish, everything is easier. If she has fins and scales, she can safely be classified as “kosher products”.

"What does it mean, every fish has scales," you will be surprised. We will explain. Scales are not present in all types of fish. For example, eel, catfish, sharks, sturgeons do not have it. Accordingly, black caviar is also not suitable for consumption, and kosher - this, as we already know, means "suitable." These are not seafood either - due to the lack of fins.

As for birds, the Torah does not say anything about them, only about predators and scavengers. They cannot be used. Cutting and slaughter here should also take place in a special way.

Insects and rodents are not allowed. Forbidden species also include the meat of hares, rabbits, amphibians and reptiles. Tora makes an exception for honey, although it is produced by insects.

Kosher food: what is it and how to cook it

The preparation of such food baffles many. For example, you can not cook meat and dairy products together, as well as eat. If you want to cook a bird in white sauce, it will be simply unforgivable. Deeply believing people prepare these products using different utensils. Some even use different stoves, but this is already the cost of beliefs. Dairy products can only be eaten or drunk six hours after meat products, and rightly so. Such a mixture is not very useful for the body. After cheese, it is also better to eat meat after six hours.

The use of milk for Jews is allowed only from kosher animals. According to the rules, the milking is overseen by a rabbi or his trusted one.

So, kosher. What does this mean for products? In relation to bread, this word means baking by the believers themselves. During the baking process, you need to tear off a piece and burn it. It's called halu. If bread is not baked at home, even there the ovens should only be turned on by the Jews and watched over by them.

With regards to eggs, they should not have spots, especially blood. In everyday life, we do not pay much attention to this, but for believers it is very important. Also, you can't cook them all together. Cooking in one dish is allowed only three, previously washed, pieces.

If you think that it is easier with plant foods, you are mistaken. Let's understand the concept of kosher products, what they are and how to use them. Since insects and various worms are forbidden to eat, Jews have to carefully examine and sift cereals, flour, legumes, herbs, fruits, vegetables, and berries. Of course, we also check food for the presence of the above, but we are not so scrupulous about this process.

Are Kosher Goods Good?

These products include wine and all drinks that contain grapes, as well as its derivatives. Such wines are much more expensive than even the highest quality, foreign ones. They are produced and manufactured exclusively by Jews. Grapes must be harvested at a certain time from those bushes that have reached the age of four.

Before each production, a ritual sacrifice is made and a prayer is read. At the wineries at this time, all other processes must be stopped. You have not yet understood the whole essence of the term "kosher products", what is it? Then we will go deeper and say that this is a constant sterilization of everything from equipment to communications. This is done not only to disinfect, but also to clean everything. Something like cleansing before the new.

Prohibitions

Under no circumstances should an outsider be allowed to see how wine is made. It is believed that this is a sacred ritual, during which outsiders are strictly forbidden to enter.

Working on the Sabbath is a terrible sin. All production stops for one day.

If the products are touched by someone who is not of Jewish blood, they will lose their kosher status and become unsuitable for cooking.

Kosher wines were pasteurized. All this is done to prevent the loss of "fitness". Therefore, such and any other wines should be uncorked and bottled only by Jews.

Of course, you need to understand that this is just a religious approach to the manufacture of products, and it has nothing to do with healthy eating. Today, winemakers more often avoid such rituals, as it takes a lot of time, and produce ordinary wine drinks.

Conclusion

Summarize. We have only touched on the main points in the article about kosher products. These traditions are significant only for believing Jews and do not apply to ordinary people. You should also not confuse ordinary ecological and healthy products with kosher ones.
Alcoholic grape drinks are widely used in other cultures, by different peoples. For example, Christians use it as communion wine, like the blood of the Lord.

But still, kosher products are many times healthier, tastier and cleaner than ordinary ones. All production is well controlled, and goods are produced according to all standards of the highest quality. You don’t even have to think about hygiene, as it is constantly checked, especially with regard to meat. All living creatures undergo total control and are constantly tested for diseases and so on. Even an injured animal cannot be eaten, let alone a sick one. When caring for and feeding do not use hormones or antibiotics.

The Village has been releasing bundles of feature articles for more than a month, in addition to regular columns and materials on hot topics. Week, week "", week and even "". In parallel with this, I want to introduce regular thematic weeks in the "" section. It so happened - and there is no special reason here, it just happened - that the first will be "Kosher Moscow". I'll start with a short column on why eating kosher foods or in kosher restaurants can be of interest to anyone, not just those who diet because of religious beliefs.

Kosher - a sign of food quality, but not a type of cuisine

It is important to understand that kosher food is not a type of national cuisine. Kosher food is any food prepared according to strict Jewish laws. So, dishes of Italian, Georgian, and Thai cuisine can be kosher. It’s just that they won’t contain pork, marine reptiles, certain types of fish, birds and even vegetables, they won’t contain animal meat and milk at the same time, the quality of all products will be certified by mashgiach, and many more small but important details.

This item does not answer the question of why eating kosher is cool, it is for general development. Therefore, right there, just in case, I will tell you that the word "mashgiah" comes from the Hebrew "ashgah" - "supervision, observation." Mashgiah monitors kosher in the restaurant kitchen: checks food and utensils, turns the stove on and off. He must be a Jew who has undergone special training. Every kosher restaurant must have a mashgiach, only he has the right to light a fire. There are not many Mashgiakhs in Moscow, and they often work in several places at once.

Kosher product is obviously better quality

Due to the fact that increased attention is paid to the manufacture of kosher products and the selection of raw materials for them, they are always of extra quality. There are no discounts for the human factor, inattention or speed of employees. The rules of kashrut are a tradition, something that makes up the system of survival. While most non-kosher producers today are chasing profits, turning a blind eye to quality, there simply cannot be any concessions. The rules do not change, do not adapt to the situation and do not bend to the requirements of the market and the economy.

Vegetables, according to the rules of kashrut, must be very carefully checked and washed thoroughly, as they may contain larvae and adult insects. Mashgiah checks each vegetable for mold, rot and insect larvae, and his tasks include sifting flour and sorting out grain. The laws of kashrut know no compromises, the slightest discrepancy - and the product is no longer considered kosher. When checking, 40 or even 100 percent of animals can get married. At the same time, rejected meat and animals can fully comply with GOST, TO and other generally accepted standards.

It is important to talk about slaughter separately. If there is no doubt that this meat is of high quality, then the opinion “the kosher method of slaughtering animals is more humane than the industrial one” raises big questions all over the world. Kosher slaughter is performed by the smooth movement of a very sharp knife, cutting at the same time most of the trachea and most of the esophagus. The fact is that a qualified carver can do it very quickly and in such a way that the animal does not have time to react and feel pain. But, firstly, not everyone has the same qualifications, and secondly, sometimes the process fails. The animal moves its head at the wrong time, the carver drops the knife - anything, then it is not possible to kill with one movement, and the animal has to be slaughtered longer and more painfully. Such an animal goes into marriage and, as a rule, is rented to a non-kosher store. Moreover, according to kashrut, it is forbidden to stun an animal. This is where animal rights activists come into play. The modern non-kosher technology of stunning with an air gun in an industrial environment is, without a doubt, more humane in the eyes of the townsfolk and official bodies. As a result, some countries now ban kosher slaughter, and halal, by the way, too. Animal rights, they say, are more important than religion. But this is a question of ethics, not a question of meat quality.

Kosher meals are prepared for their own. That is, they do not regret anything

Jews produce kosher food in Moscow. That is, for themselves. Think for a moment about how strong the Jewish community is in Moscow, New York or Paris - no matter where. Kosher food and products are always well prepared.

A case in point in Moscow is the choice of challah. Challah is a rich festive Jewish bread, similar to a brioche, most often braided with a scythe. Challah is tasty not only for Jews, it was not for nothing that this bread was extremely popular in the USSR, there was a separate GOST for it, margarine was used in the recipe. More often, however, at that time he was bashfully called "braid". So, as a big fan of challah, I always buy it when I see it in a store or a bakery. And there is no tastier kosher that Pinhas produces, sold in small quantities on Fridays and Saturdays in a kosher supermarket, in the city. Only here one hundred percent do not spare products and follow all the technology. The bread is soft, fluffy and very rich. Just the other day, I sent challah from "Daily Bread" (I was assured in the bakery that it was the freshest), and before that - from "Bulka" to the trash can. They say there is hope for a grocery store in GUM, I will go there one of these days and write a full review by Friday.

Convenient for people with lactose intolerance

In the menu of restaurants, next to the names of dishes, their detailed composition is never painted, the waiters also do not always know it. The clarification process takes time, which sometimes simply may not be there, and an error at any stage is even more expensive. Meat kosher restaurant in this sense is a paradise for a person with lactose intolerance. In the same kitchen, according to the laws of kashrut, it is impossible to cook from milk and from meat. Therefore, kosher restaurants are strictly divided into dairy and meat restaurants. So in meat, you can be one hundred percent sure: there will be nothing dairy in any dish.

Convenient for those who eat halal

Kashrut is often compared to halal (rules in Islam). Muslims, like Jews, do not eat pork and use similar rules for slaughtering livestock. Everything kosher is halal, but not vice versa.

Synagogues are cheaper

Running a secular kosher restaurant is very expensive. Not without reason, having opened several years ago almost simultaneously, kosher Noodles and Ginz's Zucker closed quickly. But restaurants at synagogues most often have subsidies, because they are for their own. This allows the cost to be reduced. And the portion sizes in cafes at synagogues and Jewish centers are comparable only to Chinese and Korean restaurants. So the benefit is clear.

Can you eat on the plane

Who hasn't ordered kosher food on an airplane at least once in their life? Especially if we are talking about Russian airlines, where the usual menu is not an object of desire, perhaps for anyone.

If you ordered a kosher meal when you bought your ticket, you are guaranteed to get food at least a little more interesting than the famous "chicken-o-fish": hummus, fruit jelly, "grandma-like" vegetable stew and rich mini-challah. Another important point is that flight attendants always bring special lunch boxes with kosher food earlier than other passengers.

Photos: Elena Tsibizova

The reason for writing this article was the surprise caused by the warning announcement posted on the doors of one of the capital's Orthodox churches. On a standard sheet of A-4 format, the clergy of the temple severely threatened with excommunication from the Church all those who would buy and eat kosher foods:

“Dear brothers and sisters! Products with the kosher mark have appeared in our stores, and we know that kosher products are products consecrated by rabbis with the blood of sacrificial animals…”. This was followed by references to the rules of the holy fathers “On eating food sacrificed to idols”, according to which those who have tasted such food are excommunicated from the Church for a period of 4 to 6 years.

Probably, the first feeling that arises in the layman after reading this appeal is confusion and even fear. A more knowledgeable person has indignation and indignation: again, through deceit, one might say “sneakily,” they want to separate us, Orthodox, through desecration from the use of “kosher products” from Christ! And indeed, if everything written in the leaflet were true, the instinctive anger of an Orthodox person would be justified. But the trouble is that everything connected with heterodoxy, and even more so with Judaism, is little known to most of our population. And if there is any basic knowledge, then they often do not correspond to reality due to the doubtfulness of the sources from which they were obtained (V. V. Rozanov, L. I. Tikhomirov, V. I. Dal, etc.), conflicting with many of the actual provisions of Judaism.

To comment on the surprise that accompanied the author of this article when reading the above announcement, you need to enlist the patience and attention of our kind reader, because. to reveal the topic raised, some immersion in the history of the Jewish people and its tradition is necessary.

Rabbinical Institute. Can rabbis perform priesthood?

Let's start with the rabbis. First of all, it must be emphasized that the rabbi in the Jewish tradition is not a priest in our Christian understanding, who is authorized to perform sacred duties, i.e. perform the Sacraments. Rabbi is a title given to a Jew upon receiving a higher Jewish religious education. It gives the right to lead a congregation or community, teach in a yeshiva (a religious educational institution for young men), and be a member of a religious court.

In the time of Christ the Savior, the rabbi was an interpreter of the Holy Scriptures, a religious teacher, and almost always he earned his living by some other job.

The formation of the institution of rabbis took place in the Middle Ages and was associated with the decline of the Babylonian gaonate and the exilarchate, the central institutions of the Jewish diaspora that appointed rabbis to local communities. From the end of the 10th century, the communities became more independent and chose their own spiritual leader. A scholar, a highly moral authoritative person, possessing the wisdom of a judge, the ability to manage public affairs and the spiritual life of the community, could become a rabbi.

We emphasize that the duties of the rabbis did not include the functions of a clergyman, he was not supposed to lead a synagogue service, bless the members of the congregation, etc. It was only later that rabbis began to perform marriages and divorces, and only because these ceremonies required a thorough knowledge of religious law and adherence to judicial procedure.

The Jerusalem Temple (10th century BC - 70 AD) is the only place of sacrifice for the Old Testament Church.

As for sacrificial animals, the blood of which is allegedly sprinkled on kosher products, here one can see a distortion of reality and elementary ignorance in relation to such an “exact subject” (a term proposed by the church historian V.V. Bolotov) as history.

The 70th year after the Nativity of Christ entered the history of the Holy Land not only as the year of the suppression by the Romans of the four-year Jewish uprising (the year of the complete pacification of Judea is the 73rd), but also as the year of the destruction of Jerusalem and its main shrine - the Jerusalem Temple. The suppression of the uprising was entrusted by Emperor Vespasian to his son Titus. The seriousness of the war between Rome and Judea is evidenced by the fact that Vespasian left Titus three legions (1 legion numbered 6,000 soldiers), to which Titus himself added three more from Syria and Egypt, and also called in troops from kingdoms subordinate to Rome, in particular from Emesa . The total number of soldiers was approaching 40,000.

In February 70, the army of Titus laid siege to Jerusalem. The siege lasted almost half a year and on August 28, before the last assault on the city, Titus, according to the Jewish historian Josephus Flavius, gave the order not to destroy the Jerusalem Temple, since in the future it would "serve as an adornment of the Empire." But war is war: the desperation and fury with which the Jews fought violated all the strategic plans of the Romans and the situation got out of control ... The temple died.

It must be said that for the Jews, the Jerusalem Temple was not just a religious building - it was the only place where the Creator Himself was constantly present. In addition to the Jerusalem Temple, almost every settlement in the Holy Land had synagogues (places for the study and interpretation of Scripture), but they could not replace the Temple and Temple worship, which is inextricably linked with sacrifices.

Every Jew on various occasions in life (harvesting, the birth of children, the death of loved ones, etc.) had to come to the Temple and make a sacrifice. But the 1970s changed a lot. Along with the destruction of the Temple, the entire system of sacrifices, which spanned more than one century, was also destroyed. And the very institution of priests (kohanim), who performed the ritual, lost its meaning without the Temple.

To this day, there are no priests in Judaism, just as there are no blood sacrifices - there is no one to bring them, and nowhere to bring them (since the 7th century, the third most important shrine of the Islamic world, the Mosque of the Rock or the Mosque of Omar, has been located on the site of the Jerusalem Temple). Nevertheless, Jewish communities still treat with reverence the bearers of priestly surnames as representatives of the spiritual aristocracy. As a rule, most Jews with the surnames Kogan, Rappoport, Katz are descendants of ancient priests and therefore cannot remarry or marry (marry) widows.

Attitude towards blood in the Jewish tradition

A few words about the attitude of the Jews to blood. In Jewish tradition, blood is the material shell of the soul of an animal. Blood carries "nefesh" - vital energy, "animal soul", which contains all the substances necessary for the functioning of the body, and delivers them to all organs of the body. It fills and permeates the entire organism, which is built from its elements and depends on its composition. And while the animal is alive, "nefesh" - vital energy - is in its blood, and vice versa - the animal's blood is in its soul. In other words, it is not the soul of the animal that is dissolved in its blood, but vice versa - the blood is, as it were, “absorbed” by the soul.

This is what explains in the Jewish tradition the prohibition on eating any food containing the blood of an animal. So, if a religious Jew decides to cook scrambled eggs and, when breaking a hen's egg, finds blood among the white and yolk, he must immediately throw away this egg and replace it with another. What is there to say about those ridiculous conjectures that provoked mass pogroms at the beginning of the 20th century in Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Moldova, etc., according to which the Jews allegedly added the blood of Christian babies to their Easter matzah?!

The year 1913 was marked by a very noisy trial that took place in Kyiv. It entered the history of Russian jurisprudence as the "Beilis Case". 39-year-old Mendel Beilis was accused of the ritual murder of 13-year-old Andrei Yushchinsky, and Catholic priest Justin Pranaitis acted as an expert on the accusing party. The absurdity and falsification of this case was revealed by our Orthodox priest Alexander Glagolev, professor of the Department of Hebrew language and Biblical archeology of the Kyiv Theological Academy. Father Alexander, an excellent connoisseur of the Holy Scriptures and Old Testament legislation, proved to the jury that it was impossible for Jews to perform ritual sacrifices after the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple, and also about the inadmissibility of using blood not only for food, but for any other purposes in general.

So, the assertion of the above announcement that the rabbis consecrate kosher food with the blood of sacrificial animals is complete ignorance and absurdity!!!

What is "kosher food"?

Indeed, a large number of products from countries with which Ukraine maintains trade relations have appeared in our stores. Among these countries is the Middle Eastern state of Israel, whose products are so widely represented in our stores today. This includes baby food, citrus fruits, juices, herbs and much more. As a rule, the products of Israeli manufacturers are marked with a kosher sign. Although not only the Israeli manufacturer puts the kosher mark on their products, many Western European manufacturers also declare on their packaging that their products do not violate the rules of kosher. Moreover, today many Ukrainian manufacturers, along with the quality mark of their products, also place the kosher logo.

What is kosher food? How do we feel about her? Are kosher foods sacrificial to idols? Here are a number of questions that concern many Orthodox. Let's try to answer them.

Etymologically, the word "kasher" is not related to food, in Hebrew it literally translates as "suitable." This term can be used in relation to the correct behavior of a person: "This is a kosher person" and used when talking about something positive: "This is a kosher book", etc.

Currently, the word "kasher" or "kosher" (originally the variant with the vowel "o" appeared in English due to the peculiarity of the pronunciation of Ashkenazi Jews, and then migrated to Russian) is more often used in relation to food. The only criterion for food suitability is not hygiene considerations, but how the Holy Scripture (Pentateuch of Moses) relates to this food. That is, the usual meaning of the word "kasher" is "food allowed for eating."

The laws of kashrut state that Jews are forbidden to eat anything, and even permitted food must be cooked properly.

For example, the only animals allowed by Scripture are artiodactyls, ruminants. The most common of them are cow and sheep, but even they can only be slaughtered by a specialist - a shochet (carver).

According to the laws of kashrut, the meat of animals killed during hunting is prohibited. The ban on hunting (which in Jewish tradition is several thousand years old) has led to the fact that even among non-religious Jews today there are few hunters.

As mentioned above, in the corpus of books of the Holy Scriptures of the Old Testament there are many places forbidding the consumption of animal blood (;). Therefore, during slaughter, according to the rules of kashrut, the blood descends and is covered with earth, and the meat is salted and soaked until all the blood is removed.

Among fish, only breeds with fins and scales (;) are considered kosher. It's not motivated by anything.

All shellfish are banned, including today's popular shrimp and rock lobsters.

Among birds, only chickens, turkeys, ducks, geese and some others are allowed.

As a general rule, all permitted animals are herbivores. Birds that eat other birds are prohibited along with all predatory animals.

Since we do not have the goal of describing the severity of the food prescriptions in the Jewish tradition, we will limit ourselves to the above.

From the foregoing, we can conclude that whenever you pick up a package marked with a mashgiach (an expert who guarantees the compliance of the product with the rules of kashrut), you should know that this particular product is fully consistent with the prescriptions of the Bible about food. And no mystical actions were carried out on the product!

If it is a bunch of greens in a package (onion, basil, parsley, etc.), then the mashgiah checked this green for the presence of insects - they are not there.

If this is a package of flour, it means that the flour was sifted under the supervision of the mashgiakh through a sieve, where there should be at least 70 holes per 1 cm2 (the expert must check the number of holes with the tip of a needle), in order to avoid bugs and other insects in food, because eating insects forbidden by the bible!

If the kosher label is on a dairy product, it means that the product has not come into contact with animal fats and is prepared in sterile containers.

The kosher mark is a statement and guarantee that the product is prepared and packaged in a sterile environment and in accordance with the ancient rules of the Bible about "clean" food.

How should a Christian view kosher foods?

Whenever another group of our Orthodox pilgrims goes to the Holy Land to worship the places connected with the earthly life of our Savior, few of the pilgrims think about what they are treated and fed during the pilgrimage. A meal in a monastery or an ordinary breakfast in a hotel, kosher foods are everywhere in Israel. Yes, there are simply no other products in Israeli stores, and if there are, they are sold in non-kosher stores that are not so easy to find. And the Orthodox living in the Holy Land do not even pay attention to whether this or that product is kosher or not, primarily because this sign is addressed to those who observe kashrut. And for people who are not religious Jews, this is only a guarantee that the product is prepared in an atmosphere of a high degree of sterility.

We, Orthodox Christians of the 21st century, should more often turn to the experience of the early Christian communities (and their way of life, especially in the Middle East and Asia Minor, was very closely intertwined with their pagan and Jewish neighbors), for whom the words of the Savior: “Not what is included in mouth, defiles a person, but what comes out of the mouth ”() were the main criterion for maintaining holiness and inner purity.

And alertness and suspicion of food was observed two millennia ago. It was this that prompted the holy apostle Paul to turn his word of edification and consolation to the inhabitants of ancient Corinth, the economic metropolis of the ancient world, famous for its shops, markets and bazaars: “Eat everything that is sold at the auction, without any research, for peace of mind” (). We must hear these words of pastoral care in our troubled age.

In conclusion, it should be noted that kosher foods are not idolatrous. I would like to refer the thinking and reading faithful children of our Church to Protodeacon Andrey Kuraev, Professor of the MDA, “Why are the Orthodox like this?” (M. 2008), in this work there is a wonderful article “Do “planted” sewage harm a Christian?”, where the author makes a detailed and reasoned analysis of the correspondence of food to the name idolater, and the attitude of a Christian towards it according to the teachings of the Apostle Paul and the patristic heritage.

“Food does not bring us closer to God: for if we eat, we gain nothing; if we don’t eat, we don’t lose anything ”() - this exhortation of the Apostle Paul is not always understood by our Orthodox contemporaries. And as a result, all sorts of rumors and religious prejudices appear, which prevent us from really living according to the Gospel and patristic teachings.

God grant that nothing in life could obscure Golgotha, the Savior's Death on the Cross and His Glorious Resurrection - this is what we must strive for in the first place. And the words of the apostle “For the pure, everything is pure” () should help us to around us, thanks to our spiritual and moral purity, in time to detect and expose the real forgery that can really damage our Christian conscience.

Archpriest Oleg Sknar, Candidate of Theology, "Orthodoxy in Ukraine"