Q&A: Cooking by Gentiles
Cooking by Gentiles
Question
Hello Rabbi Abraham,
Only recently did I begin reading your articles. It seems to me that you are trying to address the burning issues of our time while remaining faithful to the boundaries of Jewish law. More power to you for having the courage to seek the truth.
Today I read an article on your site titled "Nullification and Change of Enactments in Our Time." I became interested in your article בעקבות a new "halakhic ruling" that was published about three months ago by the Conservative movement (attached). The article deals with the attitude toward the non-Jew in Judaism, and at the end of the comprehensive article they rule to abolish the prohibitions of cooking by gentiles and ordinary non-Jewish wine, on the grounds that the reason for the prohibition is "because of their daughters," and today that is no longer relevant. Refraining from eating food cooked by gentiles does not prevent intermarriage, and eating such food is not the cause of the phenomenon of intermarriage. (In your article you mentioned the approach of Tosafot to cooking by gentiles and ordinary non-Jewish wine.)
At the moment it does not seem that the prohibition of food cooked by gentiles is the next battleground for those seeking changes in Jewish law within the Orthodox world, but it is still worth asking. The halakhic decisors (including the Zomet Institute) keep moving forward and developing technology that makes it possible to observe the laws of cooking by gentiles (apps that allow a Jew to light the fire remotely, and the like), which has no connection at all to the reason for the law, but serves as proposed solutions for the dry letter of the law. Seemingly, according to your article, this could be interpreted as something of a farce: rabbis searching for solutions to a problem that does not exist, only because it is an enactment.
In light of your article and its conclusions, is the Conservative ruling a kind of "even when there is no religious court at all, a consensus can be created 'from below'" (a quote from the conclusion of your article)?
If you have time to think about it and answer me, please address the issue itself, and ignore the fact that they are Conservative, and also the fact that in their "ruling" they are not at all troubled by the need for another religious court or one greater in wisdom and number, but simply repeal an enactment with ease.
Thank you in advance,
Answer
Hello.
First, I have a standing rule that I never respond to the person making the claim, only to the claim itself. So it really does not matter to me whether the argument comes from Conservatives, Christians, or Orthodox Jews. There are foolish arguments from the latter and excellent ones from the former.
Second, you cannot ignore the question of the ability to repeal enactments, even when their rationale has lapsed. That is the focal point of the discussion. The principled dispute with Conservatism, in most cases, is not over whether the enactment is still relevant, but over whether we have the authority to repeal it. To be sure, there are quite a few people who are unwilling to recognize or admit this.
But even on the substance of the matter, I am not sure that the prohibition today fails to achieve its goals. In my estimation it does help prevent such relationships, even if only somewhat. That is certainly not clear-cut enough to repeal an enactment without authority, because as I wrote, when the situation is sharp and clear, there are quite a few precedents for repealing enactments even without a religious court greater in wisdom and number. I think I referred there to the last chapter of Neria Gutel's book, The Changing of Natures; see there.
Therefore the Zomet Institute's maneuvers, despite all the absurdity that I too feel in relation to them, are sometimes the necessary and only possible way out, because Jewish law has a formal dimension from which we cannot deviate. This is intended, among other things, precisely for situations in which we have become convinced that a change is appropriate but we have no authority to make it. And of course also for additional situations, when the prohibition is indeed still in force but there are circumstances in which it is appropriate to be lenient and circumvent it, such as hospitals and the like.
What I wrote was that in situations where change can be made and the rabbinic establishment does not make it, sometimes it is created from below, and that is a good thing, as with Torah study for women. This is a mechanism that sometimes, not always, involves the prohibition-breaking actions of the early pioneers who throw themselves on the barbed wire, and legitimacy arrives in stage two, once the lenient practice has already become widespread.
In the present case, it is hard for me to grant legitimacy to someone who would make the change from below, because it does not seem to me that the prohibition has plainly lost all its meaning. On the other hand, whoever finds a workaround for it, blessing be upon him. And when the matter harms another person, that is, the non-Jew, there is also room to be lenient, because harming a person is grounds for overriding a rabbinic prohibition, under the principle of human dignity. To be sure, some will tell you that this does not apply with respect to a non-Jew, but I do not belong with them. See my article here.
All the best,