adam@npois.UUCP (Adam V. Reed) (03/15/85)
Eliyahu Teitz asks: >How does a humanist keep shaatnez ( the prohibition of wearing >wool and linen together, or of grafting trees, or crossbreeding >vegetation or animals ) ? Among the Goyim of the ancient world, it was a common practice to breed for entertainment hybrid animals that looked like a sordid collection of ill-fitting parts; to graft heavily-bearing branches to trees that would be broken or stunted by the weight of the resulting fruit; or to to blend wool into cheaper cloth to make it look like wool. Shatnetz reflects the Jewish realization that every man-made thing, such as piece of clothing or a domestic plant or animal, is the embodiment of a human idea, and that the lack of material integrity in any man-made thing is evidence of a lack of intellectual integrity in the mind that created it. Shatnetz is important in all man-made things, and not just in those, like plants and animals and cloth, which existed in ancient times. A short list of contemporary things that lack integrity might include a car with a solid steel roof covered in vinyl to make it look like a convertible; a print mounted on textured plastic to make it look like an oil painting; or a house, newly built out of modern materials, designed to look as though it had been built in the eighteenth century. I don't think anyone who makes such shlock, or uses it except in case of dire necessity, is really leading a Jewish life, no matter how "observant" he or she might otherwise be. Adam
meth@csd2.UUCP (Asher Meth) (03/19/85)
Adam Reed has responded to Eliyahu Teitz's question on the Humanistic
explanation of the mitzvah of Sha-atnez.
I think that his response was inadequate.
I would like to ask Adam for a further explanation on this and on other Chukim.
Sha-atnez - Why is it defined to be the mixture of WOOL and LINEN ?
What is special about these two materials, such that they are kosher when
they are separate, they are kosher when they are mixed with OTHER materials,
and are 'treif' when mixed with each other ???
Why is there no other prohibition on mixing of materials in garments ??
Why is the prohibition limited to WEARING the garment of such a mixture and
deriving pleasure (hana-ah) from this wearing ?? Why am i permitted to OWN
a garment of Sha-atnez and, say, hang it on the wall (as a Persian rug) ?
What about 'basar-bechalav' - mixing of meat and milk ?
What is your explanation for that one ? Again, in the light of the above
mentioned characteristics of wool and linen - separately they are OK, together
they are 'treif' - what CAN you say ??
Please recall my original response to your original posting concerning
Humanisism - what about your SOUL and how it (and the cosmos) are affected by
your every action ?
(This, by the way, is an explanation brought down by the
commentaries on the definition of 'chok' - the Torah classified certain laws as
'chok', which we generally define as "we do not understand the reason for them,
and accept these laws - in toto - as decrees from heaven". For instance, the
RAMBAN and the CHINUCH (and Rabbi S. R. HIRSCH, if I'm not mistaken) explain
that the prohibition of Sha-atnez and other such illegal mixings - 'kilayim' -
is due to the metaphysical changes that are wreaked (as in to wreak havoc) upon
the cosmos and upon the natural order that HaShem set in the universe.)
What is wrong with cross-breeding animals (another 'chok') ? Or fruit trees, or
vegetables ? Sometimes, such cross-breedings and grafts have produced very fine
specimens that are useful (animals), tasty (fruits & vegetables), and that have
the good qualities of the two parent breeds and eliminate some of the 'bad'
(what we THINK are bad) qualities ?
Examples of cross-breeds : beefalo (eats all kinds of junk, including cement -
dry, has less fat and carbohydrates, i think), tangelo (peels like a
tangerine).
Back to Humanism and my original questions to Adam Reed (did you ever answer
any of them ??) - Do you not believe in the concept of a SOUL ? and an
AFTER-LIFE ? and a CREATOR ? and the ideas and ideals HE had in mind for
mankind ? according to HIS interpretation ?? (This is for J. Abeles, too.
I will try to deal with your question of 'who has the corect interpretation'
in another posting.) How do you 'jive' all these ideas with your definition of
Judaism ??
asher meth