Dear Friends,
In central Pennsylvania, in a quaint rural setting in a charming little town – where I have neither visited nor eaten – is an infamous restaurant with the daring name, “The Road Kill Café.”
The Café is known for the names of its fascinating menu items, including the “Bye, Bye Bambi Burger,” and “The Chicken that Didn’t Cross the Road” sandwich. It is stuff of legend, and I truly doubt that the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania health department would sanction the Cafe offering menu items prepared from side-of-the-road foraging. And, it is not a place where one who keeps even a modicum of Jewish dietary law could ever eat.
Why?
In short, our portion this week from Leviticus, charges, “fat from animals that died were torn by beasts may be put to any use, but you must not eat it.” (Lev. 7:24)
Most of us are at least rudimentarily familiar with the basics of the laws of Kashrut. Basically, one is forbidden from consuming meat and milk together, eating the flesh of an animal which does not chew its cud or lacks true split hooves, nor consuming shellfish, fish lacking scales and gills, or certain species of birds.
Our Torah portion, however, is addressing a unique issue, namely: what of permitted animals which suffer some natural death at the hands of a wild beast or some other accident? Perhaps a shepherd’s goat was attacked by a wolf which devoured some of the animal but left the remainder by the flock. May we consume its flesh?
Torah forbids eating the meat of that animal, though other animal parts may be applied to another use. Afterall, each animal is of some significant value to the farmer or shepherd.
But, in that Jewish law in later, post-biblical texts, prescribed laws of slaughtering so that the permitted animals were dispatched in accordance with the prescripts of the law, any animal which was killed otherwise – by a wolf or by a pick-up truck – was disallowed from being eaten.
The reasons? Some say health, and this would certainly hold true for roadkill. Others posit that the proscription reflects ensuring a humane death for animals whose lives are taken so that humans might eat. And, others, perhaps more cynical but with a measure of possibility, see a protection of the jobs and role of the schochet and the supervising mashgi’ach – the ritual slaughterer and the supervising rabbi, whose livelihoods were dependent on a narrow channel of kosher meat production.
In any event, I find the Road Kill Café a fascinating and curious establishment. I love their humor and their candor. And they allow us the opportunity to reflect on a certain fine point of Jewish law!
Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi Douglas Kohn
In central Pennsylvania, in a quaint rural setting in a charming little town – where I have neither visited nor eaten – is an infamous restaurant with the daring name, “The Road Kill Café.”
The Café is known for the names of its fascinating menu items, including the “Bye, Bye Bambi Burger,” and “The Chicken that Didn’t Cross the Road” sandwich. It is stuff of legend, and I truly doubt that the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania health department would sanction the Cafe offering menu items prepared from side-of-the-road foraging. And, it is not a place where one who keeps even a modicum of Jewish dietary law could ever eat.
Why?
In short, our portion this week from Leviticus, charges, “fat from animals that died were torn by beasts may be put to any use, but you must not eat it.” (Lev. 7:24)
Most of us are at least rudimentarily familiar with the basics of the laws of Kashrut. Basically, one is forbidden from consuming meat and milk together, eating the flesh of an animal which does not chew its cud or lacks true split hooves, nor consuming shellfish, fish lacking scales and gills, or certain species of birds.
Our Torah portion, however, is addressing a unique issue, namely: what of permitted animals which suffer some natural death at the hands of a wild beast or some other accident? Perhaps a shepherd’s goat was attacked by a wolf which devoured some of the animal but left the remainder by the flock. May we consume its flesh?
Torah forbids eating the meat of that animal, though other animal parts may be applied to another use. Afterall, each animal is of some significant value to the farmer or shepherd.
But, in that Jewish law in later, post-biblical texts, prescribed laws of slaughtering so that the permitted animals were dispatched in accordance with the prescripts of the law, any animal which was killed otherwise – by a wolf or by a pick-up truck – was disallowed from being eaten.
The reasons? Some say health, and this would certainly hold true for roadkill. Others posit that the proscription reflects ensuring a humane death for animals whose lives are taken so that humans might eat. And, others, perhaps more cynical but with a measure of possibility, see a protection of the jobs and role of the schochet and the supervising mashgi’ach – the ritual slaughterer and the supervising rabbi, whose livelihoods were dependent on a narrow channel of kosher meat production.
In any event, I find the Road Kill Café a fascinating and curious establishment. I love their humor and their candor. And they allow us the opportunity to reflect on a certain fine point of Jewish law!
Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi Douglas Kohn