Torah Readings
Leviticus 11:1-20 - The dietary laws
or
Leviticus 11:1-32
Haftarah Reading
Daniel 1:1-21 - Daniel abstains from forbidden foods
or
Isaiah 34:1-35:2 - Animals represent desolation, but redemption will come
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We hope you, your families and your communities had a happy and meaningful Pesach. Our Pesach celebrations are over, our series of special Shabbatot are complete - so it is back to our regular cycle of readings this week with Sh'mini. Fortunately, this reading is about a topic which Jews love to talk about - food.
This is the portion containing some of the most famous elements of Jewish law - the criteria to determine which animals are kosher and which are not. Of land animals, they must have cleft hooves and must chew the cud.
Traditionally, the Torah is considered to be fairly sparing with its words, leading to commentators saying any repetition must have deep meaning. In this passage there is some unusually redundant explanation. Having just explained that, to be Kosher, an animal must both have cleft hooves and chew the cud, the Torah goes on to clarify that a series of animals with only one of these two signs are indeed not Kosher.
Three animals, including camels, are not kosher because they chew the cud, but lack cleft hooves. One animal - the pig - has the reverse, with cleft hooves but not chewing the cud (having the outward sign of Kashrut, but not the inward sign, is interestingly commonly cited as why pigs are considered the classical non-Kosher animal). But anyone who read the initial law properly would already have been able to work these cases out - why do we need these clarifications?
When it comes to food, we can sometimes let our animal instincts take over. Esav did just this - his hunger taking over to the point that he sold his birthright. Eating with purpose shows a higher level of intention and control, but it is easy to be tempted away from these good intentions. Torah recognises this, knowing we may be swayed by something delicious, and makes explicit that we can't find these loopholes for ourselves. Today, Kashrut can mean many things to us - ethical eating being particularly popular. Torah is encouraging us to stick to our values and avoid the temptation to seek out loopholes.
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On Wednesday evening/Thursday is Yom HaShoah - the memorial day for the Holocaust instituted in Israel and observed widely by Jewish communities around the world. Interestingly, the day's full title is that it is a remembrance for both the Holocaust and the Jewish resistance to the Holocaust as well. The choice of date, being linked to the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, adds to this second, less noticed, name of the day. The choice of date was actually highly contentious, and it is worth reading about the history of this choice. There are a number of commemoration events taking place - Reform Judaism is hosting one with a focus on the experience of Reform Jews, whilst a number of communities are also inviting the wider community to attend their own events which will be available on the RJ Communities TV page.
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Many of our communities are sharing their events and inviting you to join. Have a look at the listings on RJ Communities TV to see which events might appeal to you.
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Our books for Sh'mini also relate to the laws of Kashrut for our younger community members. "Someone for Mr Sussman" is our first recommendation, whilst "Baxter: The Pig who wanted to be Kosher" - a tale of one pig who clearly doesn't understand the implications of their wish - is our second for this week.
Please contact Sara at PJ Library (skibel@pjlibrary.org.uk) if you would like to borrow a copy of one of these books for this weekend.
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We are offering safeguarding training sessions both for trustees and for designated safeguarding leads in June. Click here to find out more and to register.
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In amongst the excitement of Pesach, you may have missed the latest goings-on in Israel following their most recent election - their 4th in two years. BICOM has a summary of the results this time, with there once again being no clear path to a government. In amongst the wrangling, one big positive news story was Rabbi Gilad Kariv becoming a member of the Knesset - the first Reform Rabbi to ever sit in Israel's parliament. We in the UK stood with Rabbi Kariv when he faced unacceptable attacks from representatives of some of Israel's Ultra-Orthodox parties ahead of the election. Incumbent PM Netanyahu, whose trial for corruption began on Monday, has been given the first shot to form a government and has 28 days to do so.
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