EAT OYSTERS

EAT OYSTERS
Rabbi David L Kline

    A happy web click first introduced me to the ecological power of oysters. I’ve been a vegetarian for 40 years but what I eat comes at a cost to the environment in terms of contamination, water consumption, and carbon footprint. Vegans are better for the planet than carnivores but all of us eaters participate to one degree or another in fouling our nest. And here now is the munificent oyster that requires nothing but a fixed spot in the ocean, lives by sustaining its environment, and offers a superfood delicacy. Except that Jewish diet excludes sea food lacking fins and scales.
    Kashrut, “fitness” is the Jewish dietary discipline based largely on Leviticus 11. Categories are  pure or impure, permitted or forbidden for consumption. The passage mentions nothing of health or morality. Pure and impure imply spirituality, not hygiene. The argument for the lists comes in verse 44: “For I am the Lord your God and you shall sanctify yourselves and be holy (k’doshim) for I am holy (kadosh). You shall not taint your souls with any of the swarming things that creep on earth.” For those of us who keep kosher, that suffices. Jewish style mindful eating relates us to our people, history, culture, and to God.
    Torah, the intellectual content of Judaism, appears in the Bible spoken by inspired teachers–prophets–who presented it as the will of God. “[O]pen our eyes,” goes the prayer book of my growing up, “that we may see and welcome all truth, whether shining through the annals of ancient revelations or reaching us through the seers of our own time.” Surely, in this post flat-earth age, our seers are scientists revealing to us the way the world operates. Biblical prophets warned that injustice brings national destruction. Scientists tell us that we consumers are despoiling our planet. We now see oysters with fresh insight.
    Talmudic rabbis (5th century CE), introduced a morality argument to kashrut: they described a method for meat eaters to minimize pain in animal slaughter. Tzaar Ba’aley Chayim, the prohibition of needless suffering for animals, is a basic value. Tikun Olam/repairing the world is another powerful idiom and a serious guide to behavior. Originally it addressed spiritual effects on the world, restoring the bright intent of creation.  Today repair takes on new meaning: ecology. Oyster farmers lower into the water a tray of seedlings and harvest them three years later.  As they grow, like wild edibles, each one cleanses and purifies hundreds of cubic meters of seawater of its contaminants.  Eating oysters and thereby enabling their cultivation–who could ask for a clearer act of repairing the world? (For confirmation, check out the millions of web pages.)
    I hereby offer “eat oysters” as a positive commandment, a mitsvah, a good deed. Leviticus lists dietary no’s. Oysters are to be a YES!
    Fifty years or so ago, at a rabbinic conference (CCAR), a few colleagues and I were in a restaurant enjoying shrimp (I didn’t keep kosher) when Dr. Jacob Petuchowski, beloved HUC professor passed by with his familiar raised eyebrow. But then he turned and asked us if we knew the b’rachah (blessing) for such a dish. We were stunned but he grinned and said: Borei miney sh’ratsim (Creator of varieties of sh’ratsim (swarming things)). As usual, Jake’s jokes were teaching moments. Not only should we  remember where food comes from, but, when it comes to oysters, these creatures don’t swarm or creep at all. They are as close to plants as the Designer could make them. For conscientious consumers, eating oysters is a positive mitsvah for us and our world.

14 אדר תש״ץ  March 10, 2020