We are finally after Pesach, and the taste of matzah is only a dim memory, but I can’t help myself and I want to share one more Pesach-related halachic issue that caught my attention this year. I’ll share it with you so that you can be ready for next year. It comes from a kashrut manual of Chabad, written by an Israeli rabbi.
Question: How can I clean my braces and make them kosher for Pesach?
Answer: Before Pesach, one should clean their mouth well with a toothbrush to remove all crumbs. Then, if possible, pour boiling water from a kettle over the braces, and if this is not possible, at least hot water from a cup. If they cannot be koshered, one should try to remove them while eating on Pesach, or simply avoid eating hot food for a week. At the very least, one should not eat hot chametz food for 24 hours preceding the festival. [Pansim 5777, Issue 13, p.6. See similar responsum on fillings in English here.]
Where can I begin in explaining my discomfort with this response? Not because it’s ridiculous. Every morning I strap boxes of leather on my head and arms, I tie parchment with hidden words on my doors, and sometimes I walk around the synagogue with a collection of leaves and branches and shake them around. Not even because it’s dangerous. I say every day in the Shema that I would give up my life for God. If God really wanted me to pour boiling water on my teeth I would probably do it. But it’s exactly that: I don’t believe that the rabbi here is conveying any sort of divine desire at all.
This is a complicated statement to make, and once we start on this path there might be no way back — who is truly capable of saying confidently what God does or doesn’t want of us? Even inasmuch as the Torah is an expression of divine will, we know that most of the Judaism that we experience today is not explicitly in the Torah itself, but a process of developing interpretation. Part of Judaism’s understanding of human nature is the need to ‘build fences around the Torah’ [Avot 1:1], so adding extra restrictions and requirements around the bare demands of the Torah is part of the system. At what point does one have a right to say that this fence is one too many, while still respecting the other fences? Why do I think pouring boiling water on my teeth is crazy, but waiting between meat and milk is normal?
Part of the answer is sociological: one person’s normal is the other’s fanaticism. Another is how intrinsically a ruling is rooted in or detached from the rest of the halachic system: has refraining from hot food ever been part of the Pesach experience? Do we have any primary sources that talk about the kashrut of teeth, or that could imagine such a way of celebrating freedom? Again, applying old halachot to new situations is a good thing, we believe God’s voice is revealed in these developments, and there are multiple legitimate ways to express this voice. But I’m still searching to name what it is that makes some developments seem more legitimate than others. Rav Yosef Dov Soloveitchik distinguishes between change, shinui, which is forbidden; and innovation, chiddush, which is praised. Chiddush is revealing something for the first time that was in the sacred traditions all along, shinui is changing or adding to the traditions. Rav Soloveitchik, in early 20th-century America, was probably speaking against the Reform movement. But the same accusations of inauthentic shinui can be levelled against those who add more fences than necessary.
Our parasha this week speaks in very explicit terms regarding the prohibition of consuming blood.
וְאִ֨ישׁ אִ֜ישׁ מִבְּנֵ֣י יִשְׂרָאֵ֗ל וּמִן־הַגֵּר֙ הַגָּ֣ר בְּתוֹכָ֔ם אֲשֶׁ֨ר יָצ֜וּד צֵ֥יד חַיָּ֛ה אוֹ־ע֖וֹף אֲשֶׁ֣ר יֵאָכֵ֑ל וְשָׁפַךְ֙ אֶת־דָּמ֔וֹ וְכִסָּ֖הוּ בֶּעָפָֽר ׃ כִּֽי־נֶ֣פֶשׁ כׇּל־בָּשָׂ֗ר דָּמ֣וֹ בְנַפְשׁוֹ֮ הוּא֒ וָֽאֹמַר֙ לִבְנֵ֣י יִשְׂרָאֵ֔ל דַּ֥ם כׇּל־בָּשָׂ֖ר לֹ֣א תֹאכֵ֑לוּ כִּ֣י נֶ֤פֶשׁ כׇּל־בָּשָׂר֙ דָּמ֣וֹ הִ֔וא כׇּל־אֹכְלָ֖יו יִכָּרֵֽת ׃
Therefore I say to the Israelite people: No person among you shall partake of blood, nor shall the stranger who resides among you partake of blood… For the life of all flesh—its blood is its life. Therefore I say to the Israelite people: You shall not partake of the blood of any flesh, for the life of all flesh is its blood. Anyone who partakes of it shall be cut off. (Leviticus 17:12-14)
This prohibition of consuming blood, which runs so deep in the Jewish psyche, has many safeguards, many fences placed around it. For example, the rabbis included blood found in eggs that might be the beginning of the formation of an embryo of a chick. An egg with a blood spot in the yolk is thus discarded, and if it’s found in the white of the egg, even though it’s not the sign of a fertilised egg, the bloodspot is removed before the egg is used. All of this doesn’t apply today, when industrial egg production separates completely between male and female chickens, and there is no chance that an egg can be fertilised. Any red spots we find in the eggs from the supermarket today are caused by other factors which technically don’t render them forbidden according to the strict halacha. Nonetheless, the practice is to treat them like farm-eggs, to check where possible and remove the bloodspot from the white or throw away the egg if the spot is on the yolk. As such, it’s a fence around a fence around a fence, and that’s fine. I like checking the eggs I use, the slower pace and closer interaction with my food fits in with the entire system of kashrut and blessings that is part of my Jewish consciousness of the world. But when I see kashrut authorities in France telling people to prefer battery eggs to free-range because there’s less chance of finding a blood-spot, it drives me crazy. It’s one fence too many, and comes at the expense of a real law from the Torah, the prohibition of causing suffering to animals.
There’s a subtle balance between caring about the words of the Torah in order to have a meaningful and complete immersion in religious commitment, and drowning in secondary and meaningless additions that are a distraction from the essential. Again, I want to avoid the trap of saying that anyone who is stricter than me is an extremist and that anyone more lenient is lazy. Everyone can say that about anyone else. I want to find the guiding principle to be able to judge all religious practice, including mine and that of our community. I suspect that the key is in a verse towards the end of this week’s parasha.
וּשְׁמַרְתֶּ֤ם אֶת־חֻקֹּתַי֙ וְאֶת־מִשְׁפָּטַ֔י אֲשֶׁ֨ר יַעֲשֶׂ֥ה אֹתָ֛ם הָאָדָ֖ם וָחַ֣י בָּהֶ֑ם אֲנִ֖י יְ—הֹוָֽה ׃
You shall guard My laws and My rules, by the pursuit of which humans shall live: I am GOD. (Leviticus 18:5)
The first words here, u’shemartem, ‘you shall guard’, are understood to encourage the rabbinic fences we mentioned earlier. But the end of the verse gives us the spirit with which to make such decisions: vachay bahem, live through them. The mitzvot should be there for us to live life more fully, not less. Not just bare life, biological life, but a deep rich human life. Rabbi Nachman of Breslov would interpret this word as the initials of ולא חומרות יתרות, ‘no needless stringencies’ - more important than fences around the Torah is to feel alive through the Torah. Life itself is the guiding principle. I wish you all a Shabbat of life - lechayim! Shabbat shalom!
Really enjoyed this!