Meir Soloveichik on the Meaning of Kashrut
The Tikvah Podcast
Tikvah
4.6 • 620 Ratings
🗓️ 4 September 2019
⏱️ 46 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
With the exception of shabbat, there is probably no practice that distinguishes pious Jews more than the observance of kashrut—the Jewish dietary laws. Whether at a business meeting or an everyday social gathering, Jews who keeps kosher have to set themselves apart from the crowd whenever food is involved. To keep kosher is to stand out.
And that is precisely the point.
In “Locusts, Giraffes, and the Meaning of Kashrut,” Rabbi Dr. Meir Soloveichik argues that the deepest purpose of kashrut lies in how it reinforces the distinct identity of the Jewish people and their status as a chosen nation. “By keeping kosher,” he writes, “Jews express the belief that they are chosen, separate from the nations until the end of time.”
In this podcast, Rabbi Soloveichik joins Tikvah’s Jonathan Silver to discuss his essay and his argument. They analyze the many diverse reasons that have been given for Jewish dietary laws, explore what those arguments get right and wrong, and explain how eating kosher locusts can help illuminate the true meaning of kashrut.
Musical selections in this podcast are drawn from the Quintet for Clarinet and Strings, op. 31a, composed by Paul Ben-Haim and performed by the ARC Ensemble, as well as the original Broadway cast recording of Fiddler on the Roof and "Above the Ocean" by Evan MacDonald.
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | If you were to sit down in front of a blank piece of paper, and write out, as the philosopher |
| 0:16.1 | William James once did, the varieties of religious experience. It would be natural to try and reason |
| 0:23.3 | about God or theology. You'd try to say something about God's revelation to humankind, |
| 0:30.7 | through stories or laws, or a prophetic calling, or the experience of a kind of inborn |
| 0:36.4 | enlightenment. |
| 0:38.3 | You'd have to think that the human condition would be an important factor in our religious |
| 0:42.3 | experience, our ability to think and feel, the capacities of human generosity and human avarice. |
| 0:50.3 | Taking a sweeping view of the building blocks of religious experience, |
| 0:55.1 | how far down your list do you think you'd have to get |
| 0:58.2 | to come around to thinking about food? |
| 1:02.4 | After all, what we eat is so basic and fundamental to who we are. |
| 1:06.9 | It's something that mankind shares with the animals. |
| 1:10.6 | In some religious conceptions, it is the most profane, |
| 1:13.6 | the least religious part of our transitory, |
| 1:16.6 | this worldly sojourn on earth. |
| 1:19.6 | Not so for the Jews. |
| 1:21.6 | For us, the experience of eating is mediated |
| 1:24.6 | through a complex system of law known as Kashrut, so that the food we |
| 1:29.5 | eat is kosher. Kashrut is the Jewish way of sanctifying food and making the act of nourishing |
| 1:36.4 | ourselves and our families an act of piety. Welcome to the Tikva podcast. I'm your host, Jonathan |
| 1:44.0 | Silver. This week we think about food |
| 1:46.5 | and the significance of Kashrut with Rabbi Mayer Silavachic. Our text is an essay that Rabbi |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Tikvah, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of Tikvah and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2025.