Кошерные продукты: Еврейские законы питания

Foods conforming to Jewish dietary law

Kosher foods are foods that conform to the Jewish dietary regulations of kashrut (dietary law). The laws of kashrut apply to food derived from living creatures and kosher foods are restricted to certain types of mammals, birds and fish meeting specific criteria; the flesh of any animals that do not meet these criteria is forbidden by the dietary laws. Furthermore, kosher mammals and birds must be slaughtered according to a process known as shechita and their blood may never be consumed and must be removed from the meat by a process of salting and soaking in water for the meat to be permissible for use. All plant based products, including fruits, vegetables, grains, herbs and spices, are intrinsically kosher, although certain produce grown in the Land of Israel is subjected to other requirements, such as tithing, before it may be consumed. Kosher food also distinguishes between meat and dairy products. Meat products are those that comprise or contain kosher meat, such as beef, lamb or venison, kosher poultry such as chicken, goose, duck or turkey, or derivatives of meat, such as animal gelatin; non animal products that are processed on equipment used for meat or meat derived products are also considered to belong to this category. Dairy products are those which contain milk or any derivatives such as butter or cheese; non dairy products that are processed on equipment used for milk or milk derived products are also considered as belonging to this category. Because of this categorization, meat and milk or their respective derivatives are not combined in kosher foods, and separate equipment for the storage and preparation of meat based and dairy based foods is used in order for food to be considered kosher. Another category of kosher food, called pareve contains neither meat, milk nor their derivatives; they include foods such as fish, eggs from permitted birds, produce, grains, fruit and other edible plants. They remain pareve if they are not mixed with or processed using equipment that is used for any meat or dairy products. Because of the complexities of modern food manufacturing, kashrut agencies supervise or inspect the production of kosher foods and provide a certification called a hechsher to verify for kosher food consumers that it has been produced in accordance with Jewish law. Jewish dietary law is primarily derived from Leviticus 11 and Deuteronomy 14:1 21. Foods that may be consumed according to Jewish religious law are termed kosher ('/k//oʊ//ʃ//ər/) in English, from the Ashkenazi pronunciation of the Hebrew term kashér (כָּשֵׁר), meaning "fit" (in this context, fit for consumption). Foods that are not in accordance with Jewish law are called treif (/t//r//eɪ//f/; , derived from ṭərēfā) meaning "torn."

In addition to meat, products of forbidden species and from unhealthy animals were banned by the Talmudic writers. This included eggs (including fish roe), as well as derived products such as jelly, but did not include materials merely "manufactured" or "gathered" by animals, such as honey (although, in the case of honey from animals other than bees, there was a difference of opinion among the ancient writers). According to the rabbinical writers, eggs from ritually pure animals would always be prolate ("pointy") at one end and oblate ("rounded") at the other, helping to reduce uncertainty about whether consumption was permitted or not.

The classic rabbinical writers imply that milk from an animal whose meat is kosher is also kosher. As animals are considered non kosher if they are discovered to have been diseased after being slaughtered, this could make their milk retroactively non kosher. However, by adhering to the principle that the majority case overrules the exception, Jewish tradition continues to regard such milk as kosher, since statistically it is true that most animals producing such milk are kosher; the same principle is not applied to the possibility of consuming meat from an animal that has not been checked for disease. Many leading rabbis, however, rule milk permissible, as do major kashrut authorities. However, authorities assert breast milk may be consumed directly from the breasts only by children younger than four (five if the child is ill), and children older than two were only permitted to continue to suckle if they had not stopped doing so for more than three consecutive days. (though many artisanal cheeses and cheeses made in Europe still use animal rennet). Because the rennet could be derived from animals, it could potentially be non kosher. Rennet made recombinantly, or from the stomachs of kosher animals, if they have been slaughtered according to the laws of kashrut, can be kosher. Cheese made from plant derived rennet can also be kosher. Many authorities require that the cheese making process follow certain stringencies to be kosher. According to the Shulchan Aruch, a rabbinic decree (called gevinat akum) prohibits all cheese made by non Jews without Jewish supervision, even if its ingredients are all kosher, because very frequently the rennet in cheese is not kosher. Rabbeinu Tam and some of the geonim suggested that this decree does not apply in a location where cheese is commonly made with only kosher ingredients, a position that was practiced in communities in Narbonne and Italy. Many contemporary Orthodox authorities do not follow this ruling, and hold that cheese requires formal kashrut certification to be kosher; some even argue this is necessary for cheese made with non animal rennet. However, some such as Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik ate generic cheeses without certification. Isaac Klein's tshuva authorized the use of cheese made from non kosher rennet, and this is widely practised by observant Conservative Jews and Conservative institutions.

The eggs of kosher birds are kosher. Eggs are considered pareve despite being an animal product.

One of the few dietary laws appearing in Exodus prohibits eating the meat from animals that have been "torn by beasts"; a related law appears in Deuteronomy, prohibiting the consumption of anything that has died from natural causes. While this law was primarily intended for the priests, it applied to all Israelites (but not "strangers"). Traditional Jewish thought has expressed the view that all meat must come from animals that have been slaughtered according to Jewish law. These guidelines require the animal be killed by a single cut across the throat to a precise depth, severing both carotid arteries, both jugular veins, both vagus nerves, the trachea and the esophagus, no higher than the epiglottis and no lower than where cilia begin inside the trachea, causing the animal to bleed to death. Some believe that this ensures the animal dies instantly without unnecessary suffering, but many animal rights activists view the process as cruel, claiming that the animal may not lose consciousness immediately, and activists have called for it to be banned. Animal science researcher Temple Grandin has stated that kosher slaughter, no matter how well performed, does not result in an instantaneous loss of consciousness, whereas stunning properly with a captive bolt is instantaneous. She gives various times for loss of consciousness via kosher ritual slaughter, ranging from 15 to 90 seconds depending on measurement type and individual kosher slaughterhouse. To avoid tearing, and to ensure the cut is thorough, such slaughter is usually performed by a trained individual, with a large, razor sharp knife, which is checked before each slaughter to ensure that it has no irregularities (such as nicks and dents); if irregularities are discovered, or the cut is too shallow, the meat is deemed non kosher. Rabbis usually require the slaughterer, known within Judaism as a shochet, to also be a pious Jew of good character and an observer of the Shabbat. In smaller communities, the shochet was often the town rabbi, or a rabbi from a local synagogue, but large slaughterhouses usually employ a full time shochet if they intend to sell kosher meat. The Talmud, and later Jewish authorities, also prohibit the consumption of meat from animals who were slaughtered despite being in the process of dying from disease. This is an extension of the rules banning the meat from animals torn by beasts, and animals that die from natural causes. To comply with this Talmudic injunction against eating diseased animals, Orthodox Jews usually require that the corpses of freshly slaughtered animals be thoroughly inspected. There are 70 different traditional checks for irregularities and growths; for example, there are checks to ensure that the lungs have absolutely no scars, which might have been caused by an inflammation. If these checks are passed, the meat is then termed glatt (גלאַט), the Yiddish word meaning 'smooth'. An unusual situation is created when a live fetus is removed from a kosher slaughtered animal. The fetus is called a Ben pekuah and takes the status of the mother, so that if the mother was kosher, the fetus is kosher even if there were problems with the slaughter. Compromises in contenence with animal cruelty laws that prohibit such practices involve stunning the animal to lessen the suffering that occurs while the animal bleeds to death. However, the use of electric shocks to daze the animal is often not accepted by some markets as producing meat that is kosher.

The gift of the foreleg, cheeks and maw of a kosher slaughtered animal to a kohen is a positive commandment in the Hebrew Bible. Some rabbinic opinions maintain that consumption of the animal is forbidden before these gifts are given, though the accepted halacha is to permit this. Furthermore, the actual foreleg, cheeks and maw of all kosher slaughtered beef are forbidden to a non kohen unless the kohen permits.

One of the main biblical food laws forbids consuming blood on account of "the life [being] in the blood". This ban and reason are listed in the Noahide Laws and twice in Book of Leviticus as well as in Deuteronomy. Classical rabbis argued that only if it is impossible to remove every drop of blood, the prohibition against consuming blood was impractical, and there should be rare exceptions. They claimed that consuming the blood that remained on the inside of meat (as opposed to the blood on the surface of it, dripping from it, or housed within the veins) should be permitted and that the blood of fish and locusts could also be consumed. To comply with this prohibition, a number of preparation techniques became practiced within traditional Judaism. The main technique, known as meliḥah, involves the meat being soaked in water for about half an hour, which opens pores. After this, the meat is placed on a slanted board or in a wicker basket, and is thickly covered with salt on each side, then left for between 20 minutes and one hour. Since the Talmud views all non Jews as potential idolaters, and viewed intermarriage with apprehension, it included within this prohibition any food that has been cooked or prepared completely by non Jews. (Bread sold by a non Jewish baker was not included in the prohibition. Consequently, Orthodox Jews generally rule that wine, certain cooked foods, and sometimes dairy products, should be prepared only by Jews. The prohibition against drinking non Jewish wine, traditionally called yayin nesekh (literally meaning "wine for offering [to a deity]"), is not absolute. Cooked wine (Hebrew: יין מבושל, yayin mevushal), meaning wine that has been heated, is regarded as drinkable on the basis that heated wine was not historically used as a religious libation; thus kosher wine will often be prepared by Jews and then pasteurised, after which it can be handled by a non Jew. Some Jews refer to these prohibited foods as akum, an acronym of Ovde Kokhavim U Mazzaloth (עובדי כוכבים ומזלות), meaning "worshippers of stars and planets (or Zodiac)". Akum is thus a reference to activities that these Jews view as idolatry, and in many significant works of post classical Jewish literature, such as the Shulchan Aruch, it has been applied to Christians in particular. However, among the classical rabbis, there were a number who refused to treat Christians as idolaters, and consequently regarded food that had been manufactured by them as being kosher. Conservative Judaism is more lenient; in the 1960s, Rabbi Silverman issued a responsum, officially approved by the Committee on Jewish Law and Standards, in which he argued that wine manufactured by an automated process was not "manufactured by gentiles", and therefore would be kosher. A later responsum of Conservative Judaism was issued by Rabbi Dorff, who argued, based on precedents in 15th to 19th century responsa, that many foods, such as wheat and oil products, which had once been forbidden when produced by non Jews, were eventually declared kosher. On this basis he concluded wine and grape products produced by non Jews would be permissible.

Three times the Torah specifically forbids "seething" a young goat "in its mother's milk". The Talmud interprets this as a general prohibition against cooking meat and dairy products together, and against eating or deriving any benefit from such a mixture. To help prevent accidental violation of these rules, the modern standard Orthodox practice is to classify food into either being fleishig (meat), milchig (dairy), or neither; this third category is more usually referred to as pareve (also spelled parve and parev) meaning "neutral". As the biblical prohibition uses the word gedi ("kid") and not the phrase gedi izim ("goat kid") used elsewhere in the Torah, the rabbis concluded that the flesh of all domestic mammals (behemoth) is included in the prohibition. Flesh of fish and bugs is not included, and therefore is considered pareve. By rabbinic decree, the flesh of birds and wild mammals (chayot), such as deer, is considered as "meat", rather than pareve. By rabbinic law and custom, not only are meat and milk not cooked together, but they are not eaten even separately within a single meal.

The laws of kashrut can be broken for pikuach nefesh (preservation of human life). For example, a patient is allowed to eat non kosher food if it is essential for recovery, or where the person would otherwise starve.

The Talmud adds to the biblical regulations a prohibition against consuming poisoned animals. Similarly, Yoreh De'ah prohibits the drinking of water, if the water had been left uncovered overnight in an area where there might be snakes, on the basis that a snake might have left its venom in the water.

The Talmud and Yoreh De'ah suggest that eating meat and fish together may cause tzaraath. Strictly Orthodox Jews thus avoid combining the two, while Conservative Jews may or may not.