1. The killing of animals and the consuming of their flesh must not
tend to create savage and cruel habits. It is therefore forbidden—
(a.) To cut off a piece of flesh from a living animal for our food
(אבר מן החי “a limb of a living animal”).
(b.) To kill the parent with its young on the same day (Lev. xxii. 28;
comp. Deut. xxii. 6).
(c.) To give unnecessary pain to the animal in killing it. The various
regulations for the lawful killing of animals, שחיטה, handed down by
Tradition as Mosaic, הלכה למשה מסיני, are not only in harmony with
this principle, but seem in many instances to have been dictated by it.
(d.) To eat the blood of beasts and birds (Lev. xvii. 12, 14). The
blood contained in the meat is removed as far as possible by having the
meat soaked in water for half-an-hour, and then kept covered with salt
for an hour, the salt being again removed by rinsing. This process is
called kasher; that is, preparing the meat so as to make it kasher
(כשר “fit for food”).
2. The flesh of beasts and birds that have died from any other cause
than having been killed in the manner prescribed is forbidden. The
flesh of animals that have been killed in the prescribed manner, but
are found to have been affected with some dangerous disease, is also
forbidden as t’refah (טרפה). [172]
3. With regard to the distinction between animals allowed for food and
those forbidden, all animals are divided into בהמה and חיה “cattle
and beast,” וף “bird,” דג “fish,” and שרץ “creeping thing.”
(a.) With regard to cattle and beasts, the rule is given, “Whosoever
parteth the hoof and is cloven-footed and cheweth the cud, that you may
eat” (Lev. xi. 3).—The clean cattle (בהמה טהורה) and the clean beasts
(חיה טהורה) are enumerated in Deut. xiv. 4 and 5 respectively.
(b.) A number of birds are enumerated (Lev. xi. 13–19) as forbidden,
but no general characteristics of the clean or the unclean birds are
given; and as we are uncertain as to the exact meaning of the names of
many of the birds, we only use for food such birds as are traditionally
known as “clean birds.”
(c.) Fish that have scales and fins are permitted; others—e.g., the
eel—are “unclean” (ibid. xi. 9–12).
(d.) “All winged animals that creep (שרץ העוף), going upon all four,
shall be an abomination unto you. Yet these may ye eat of, every flying
creeping thing that goeth upon all four, which have legs above their
feet, to leap withal upon the earth; even these of them ye may eat; the
arbeh with its kind, and the soleam with its kind, the chargol with its
kind, and the chagabh with its kind” (ibid. 20–22). These are certain
kinds of locusts that satisfy the above condition. (Comp. Maimonides,
Mishneh-torah, Hilchoth maachaloth asuroth i. 21–23.)
(e.) “And every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth shall be an
abomination; it shall not be eaten” (Lev. xi. 41). In this prohibition
are included all kinds of worms such as are found in fruit, and mites,
snails, oysters, lobsters, crabs, &c.
4. The milk of “unclean” cattle or beasts (e.g., asses’ milk), the eggs
of “unclean” birds, and the roe of “unclean” fish (e.g., caviare
prepared of the roe of the sturgeon) are likewise forbidden.
5. “Ye shall eat no manner of fat, of ox, or of sheep, or of goat”
(Lev. vii. 23). From the context we learn that only those portions of
the fat of cattle are forbidden which in the case of sacrifices were
burnt upon the altar as an offering made by fire unto the Lord, viz.,
“the fat that covereth the inwards, and all the fat that is upon the
inwards, and the fat that is upon the kidneys which is by the flanks”
(ibid. iii. 3, 4). The forbidden fat is known by the name חלב,
chelebh, whilst the fat permitted as food is called שומן, shuman.
6. “Therefore the children of Israel do not eat of the sinew which
shrank, which is upon the hollow of the thigh, unto this day: because
he touched the hollow of Jacob’s thigh in the sinew that shrank” (Gen.
xxxii. 33). This law is designed to remind us of the wrestling of Jacob
with the man who attacked him, which struggle forms a type of Israel’s
fight against the evil threatening him from within and from without,
and teaches us the lesson that, despite temporary troubles and
struggles, Israel will ultimately be victorious. The hind-quarters of
cattle are not eaten unless the forbidden fat and “the sinew that
shrank” (גיד הנשה) have first been removed from them.
7. “Thou shalt not seethe the kid in its mother’s milk” (Exod. xxiii.
19). Tradition explains this law as forbidding all mixture of meat and
milk (בשר בחלב). In its literal sense the verse in which this law is
mentioned seems to point to the duty of self-restraint, as if to tell
us that we should not greedily devour the first ripe fruit, or the
young immediately after their birth.
The significance of the law may be learnt from the fact that it is
mentioned three times in the Pentateuch. Hence the strictness with
which this commandment is observed in Jewish homes. In a Jewish
household, established in accordance with Jewish law and tradition,
there are two separate sets of utensils, the one to be used for the
preparation of meat-diet, the other for the preparation of milk and
butter diet.
The flesh of fish is not considered as meat in this respect, nor are
fish subject to the laws of shechitah.