{"id":21969,"date":"2015-02-14T22:30:46","date_gmt":"2015-02-15T04:30:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/?p=21969"},"modified":"2015-02-14T22:30:46","modified_gmt":"2015-02-15T04:30:46","slug":"its-all-about-separation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/its-all-about-separation\/","title":{"rendered":"It’s all about separation"},"content":{"rendered":"

By TED ROBERTS, the SCRIBBLER ON THE ROOF<\/em><\/p>\n

\"Ted_Roberts\"

Man is man, woman is woman, Israelites must remain Israelites, surrounded by fences that keep out the pagan Canaanites and their competing gods. Separation is the golden rule. And out of this comes seemingly insignificant legislation like the ban on milk and meat, shirts of mixed textiles, plowing your field with two breeds. And interestingly enough, He strikes the same note in nature. Mixed species are as infertile as stone. And the Torah, to us, underlines His concept used to frame His Creation. Separation, distinction.<\/p>\n

For many years, scholars have examined the separation Halacha in the Chumash and replied with puzzled faces and a one-word comment: Why? Milk and meat rules, mingling of wool and linen in your shirt, plowing your field with an ox and a donkey. And then there\u2019s, you shall not sow your vineyards with different kids of seed. These are forbidden. Seemingly, they make no sense. Why the ban? Many scholars say it symbolized the wider ban imposed by the Creator on our isolation from the Canaanites in our new found land. The Book emphasizes this over and over. Don\u2019t join the Canaanite Club. Stay away from their food, their customs, their women.<\/p>\n

Well, there is the embarrassment of Judah, our namesake, marrying a Canaanite. Bet they didn\u2019t use a chupah<\/em>. But the field was limited and maybe she claimed to be a Benjamite and a local Hadassah member.<\/p>\n

And if your anticipated meal didn\u2019t chew cud and have split hooves (like separate hooves \u2013 get it? Always separation!) it is forbidden unto you. You can\u2019t even plant two species of plants in the same field.<\/p>\n

Where is the rationale for this divine legislation? One school of Rabbis says, \u201cSimple\u201d. Who needs logic? If HE, the Creator of all, says, \u201cDon\u2019t\u201d, that\u2019s enough. Another bunch of Jewish scholars looks for rationality and says it\u2019s analogous to the moral partition mandated between G-d\u2019s chosen people and the pagan societies of the Jebusites, Moabites, Philistines, and all those unenlightened heathens that inhabited the Land of Canaan. All those restrictions kept us apart \u2013 sometimes physically, sometimes culturally. It\u2019s clear that we shouldn\u2019t belong to the same club or drop over to Joe Philistine\u2019s house for a roast beef and cheese sandwich, especially if Joe wears a skirt and his wife wears pants. Again, a violation founded upon separation.<\/p>\n

The above makes good sense to this scribbler and to many rabbis. Commonsensically, we can understand these strictures if the goal is to dramatize separation.<\/p>\n

Israel must remain a nation apart. But their meaning becomes transcendental, even more meaningful when we reflect that in G-d\u2019s natural world the same logic applies. The hybrid is rarely fertile; mules born of a horse and donkey can\u2019t reproduce. And lions and tigers, if they can mate at all, produce a barren animal. The same is true in the plant kingdom.<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t wait for your hybrid watermelon seed to burst into green. May as well wait for apple seeds to yield magnolia blossoms. It seems as though G-d, himself, in His Creation, honors those 3000-year-old rules He levied upon our ancestors. G-d\u2019s will; paralleled in Torah and on earth.<\/p>\n

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