parashat r-e Contingent Impurity
The Torah portion read in synagogues around the world this week is called parashat r-e. parshat r-e runs from Deuteronomy 11:26 to Deuteronomy 16:17. In Deuteronomy 14 parashat r-e reiterates the list of kosher animals found in Leviticus 11. One of the similarities between Jews and Seventh-day Adventists is that we both have dietary restrictions based on Torah. So we both have a stake in this week’s parasha.
While both Jews and Seventh-day Adventists have dietary restrictions, they function quite differently. For Seventh-day Adventists our dietary restrictions are a matter of health. The Creator proscribes the optimal human diet, because he knows what’s good for us. Seventh-day Adventists frequently refer to the Torah’s dietary instructions as God’s health laws.
For Jews, the dietary instructions are mitzvot, that is, actions which express Israel’s unique relationship to the God who commands them. Whether or not what God commands is advantageous is irrelevant. Obedience is sometimes inconvenient and may require us to forfeit legitimate interests. Jewish teachers have frequently imagined the dietary instructions are not necessarily the healthy choice. For Jews the dietary instructions are a matter of accepting Israel’s uniqueness.
To employ the technical terminology, for Jews the distinction between pure and impure food is divinely imputed. Certain species of birds defile a Jewish soul and cut a Jewish soul off from Israel, because God says so.
For Seventh-day Adventists, the dietary instructions are ontological. For Seventh-day Adventists, the dietary instructions are part and parcel of the created order. For Seventh-day Adventists certain species of birds are inherently unfit for human consumption, even if God had decided not to warn us about them. It follows from the Seventh-day Adventist approach that the dietary instructions ought to be universally valid, because human beings all share the same biology.
Because Seventh-day Adventists view the dietary instructions the way we do, certain evidence in parashat r-e doesn’t register with us. Deuteronomy 14:21
“You shall not eat any carcass. Give it to the resident alien within you gates that he may eat it, or sell it to a foreigner. For you are a holy people belonging to HaShem your God.”
If the dietary instructions were ontological as Seventh-day Adventists teach, why would God instruct that harmful items should be given his other children? Does God care so little about his other children that he provides them bad things to eat? If the dietary instructions were a matter of health, why would Gentile health be any less precious in his sight than Jewish health?
Another piece of evidence that the dietary instructions aren’t ontological is the preamble to the list of forbidden meats in Deuteronomy 14:2.
“For you are a holy people belonging to HaShem your God. You HaShem has chosen to be a people of private possession to himself, from all the peoples who are upon the face of the earth. You shall not eat any objectionable thing.”
parashat r-e explicitly spells out that all peoples on the face of the earth belong to God. But God doesn’t provide them dietary instructions. Israel alone receives the dietary instructions because God has singled Israel out for special treatment. The dietary instructions are a matter of special treatment. Should other peoples on the face of the earth find out about the dietary instructions, implementing them might possibly make them healthy, but it wouldn’t make them holy. Holiness is not an automatic consequence built into the system. Only God’s personal declaration can bring holiness. Holiness is divinely imputed.
Because Seventh-day Adventists view the dietary instructions the way we do, we’ve overlooked the dynamic behind the food controversies in the Final Portion of Scripture.
How to understand Peter’s vision of the sheet of forbidden meat? Our Evangelical friends have taken it to mean that God is no longer interested in Israel’s priestly service for the world and that he’s abolished Israel’s distinctive identity. God’s purpose for everybody is supposedly now the same. Seventh-day Adventists have generally concurred, with the proviso that God desires everybody to be healthy.
I'd beg to differ. Peter’s vision of the sheet is God’s way of saying that non-Jews are not second class human beings, even though they aren’t subject to contingent impurity. Ontologically, no human beings are impure. One particular family of human beings is subject to contingent impurity. This contingent impurity is imposed and removed by God himself.
“Again a second time, a voice came forth to him, ‘What God has purified you are not to consider defiled.’” [Acts 10:15] “God has shown me not to say any human being is defiled or impure.” [Acts 10:28]
The controversy could only have come about within the early Jesus-confessing community because all parties agreed non-Jews aren’t subject to contingent impurity. What do we mean by contingent impurity? According to the Torah, certain situations put Jews in a state of impurity. After a mother in ancient Israel gave birth, or discovered she’d inadvertently touched the carcass of certain animals, or recovered from the skin affliction termed tzaraat, or a man came home from holy war or had a wet dream, he or she had to follow certain procedures in order to reenter the worshiping community. Nobody in the 1st century imagined non-Jews were subject to any of these contingencies.
The bone of contention in the Book of Acts was, “How should commandment-keeping Jews interact with non-Jews?” In the vision of the sheet God gives Peter the authoritative answer: Non-Jews are like live animals: for observant Jews they don’t present any challenges. Only Jews and carcasses of certain types of birds, fish, and animals have impurity problems. Israel’s unique obedience is no barrier to fellowship. Torah-observant Jews can hug and kiss non-Jews, eat out of their cookware, wrap up in their blankets, and sit down on their furniture. No embarrassing questions are necessary. Purity considerations only come into play between Jews. Jews like Peter need to welcome non-Jews into God’s family because Jesus has brought them in.
When you realize Israel’s dietary instructions are divinely imputed, you can understand Acts 15 as well as Acts 10. As perceptively pointed out by Michael Wyschogrod, an Orthodox Jewish scholar, however acrimonious, all parties in Acts 15 were agreed that Jews ought to keep Israel’s purity laws, otherwise there’d be little to debate. It would be utter nonsense to contend Torah practice is for non-Jews, but isn’t for Jews! If Israel’s purity laws aren’t incumbent on Jesus-confessing Jews, there'd be nothing to argue about in Acts 15. There was a real issue however, because Jewish obedience was real.
Notice how James the brother of Jesus handles it.
“Therefore my decision is to not encumber those among the Gentiles who are turning to God. Rather, we should write them to avoid the pollution of idols and immorality, from strangled meat and from blood” [Acts 15:19-20].
Because the apostolic decision says nothing about Jews, Christian readers not at home in the world in which the apostles operated assume they must have quietly laid the Torah aside. The contrary is true: the reason the Apostolic Writings nowhere spell out in so many words that God expects Jews to act like Jews is that everyone at that time believed this was so. The issue under contention in Acts 15 wasn’t Jewish obedience. The issue was how Jews should welcome people who aren’t subject to contingent impurity. The apostolic decree is about facilitating fellowship.
If however, as Seventh-day Adventists usually claim, the dietary instructions are ontological, if the dietary instructions are biologically built-in to the natural order of creation, then the party of the Pharisees in verse 5 were the ones with the right solution to Gentile integration: “It is necessary to command them to keep Moshe’s Torah.” Non-Jews should not be denied the benefits of complying with the Manufacturer’s specifications. If the dietary instructions are ontological, then the Holy Spirit [Acts 15:28] came up with the wrong recommendation.
Recognizing that impurity in the Torah is divinely imputed also enables us to understand Jesus’ teaching. In Mark 7 Jesus is challenged on a point of contingent impurity. Reading Mark 7:1-4.
“The Pharisees and certain of the scribes coming from Jerusalem gathered to him. When they saw certain of his disciples, that they ate bread with defiled hands, that is, without ablution (For the Pharisees and all the Judeans do not eat unless they perform ablution of hands to the fist, maintaining the tradition of the elders. And when they come from market they don’t eat unless they immerse. And there are many things which they have received and maintain: immersion of cups, pitchers, copper vessels, and couches.) the Pharisees and scribes questioned him, ‘Why do your disciples not walk according to the tradition of the elders, but eat bread with defiled hands?’”
By the way, נטילת ידיים ritual ablution of hands was an innovation of the Pharisees themselves. In the written Torah only priests serving in the temple are subject to ritual ablution. It’s a form of contingent impurity which ordinary Jews would never encounter. As part of their own partisan agenda, the early Pharisees sought to transfer the sanctity of the temple to the Jewish kitchen. The Pharisees wanted every meal at home to be holy like the offerings eaten in the temple precincts.
In Luke the Pharisees frequently invite Jesus home to eat, which implies they recognize him as an observant Jew. The Pharisees wouldn’t have eaten with Jesus if they’d suspected he was in a state of impurity. The difference here in Mark 7 may be that the Pharisees who came down from Jerusalem were more stringent than Pharisees from Galilee. Or it may be that Jesus was personally observant, but he didn’t require the same level of observance from his disciples. Or it may be that Luke and Mark regard Jesus' observance differently. Be that as it may, Jesus comes to the defense of his disciples. Continuing with verse 6.
“He said to them, ‘Well does Isaiah prophesy concerning you hypocrites when he writes, "This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me. In vain they worship me, teaching human enactments as torah." Setting aside the commandment of God you maintain the tradition of men.’ He further said to them, ‘You neatly reject the commandment of God in order to maintain your tradition. For Moshe says, "Honor your father and your mother" and "whoever speaks to the injury of father or mother shall surely be put to death." But you guys say, "If a man says to father or mother whatever you’d be entitled from me is korban," that is, endowment, then you no longer permit him to do anything for father or mother. Your tradition which you’ve traditioned makes the word of God to no effect. And you do many such things.’”
Again, there’s an apparent difference between Mark’s and Luke’s approach. Wherever Luke mentions Jewish tradition it is uniformly positive. In Acts 6:14 one of the charges against Stephen is that he purportedly said Jesus of Natzaret would change the customs which Moshe traditioned to us. But Luke presents this as a false accusation. In Acts 21:21 James the brother of Jesus helps the Apostle Shaul dispel a rumor that he’d supposedly taught Jews in the diaspora to forsake Moshe and not to walk in the customs. Again, Luke presents this as a false accusation. In Acts 28:17 where the Apostle Shaul meets with leaders of the Jewish community in Rome, he complains that although he is a prisoner, he’s done nothing against the Jewish people or the customs of the fathers. Luke is always affirmative about Jewish custom and Jewish tradition.
Jesus is not dismissive of Jewish tradition. In Mark 7 tradition has simply gone amuck. People are abusing tradition in order to circumvent the Torah. Jesus does what any good rabbi would do in the situation; he argues that this particular tradition isn’t worthy of the Torah. The Talmud is full of rabbis doing that very thing. Not every deed done by every Jew is a precedent that deserves repeating; some Jewish customs deserve to be discontinued.
Jesus provides an additional argument in defense of his disciples’ behavior. He contrasts defilement which is only a temporary inconvenience with defilement that does serious damage. Continuing from verse 14.
“When he had called all the crowd he again said to them, ‘Listen everybody and understand. Nothing external to a person which goes through him is what can defile him. Rather, things which go out of a person are what defile him.’ When they came indoors from the crowd his disciples asked him about the riddle. He said, ‘So you too are without understanding? Don’t you perceive that everything external which goes through a person cannot defile him, for it doesn’t enter his heart, but into the intestines, and into the toilet where it goes out — purifying all food?’ He said, ‘That which comes out of a person, this is what defiles a person. For from within, out of the heart of people come evil thoughts: adulteries, fornications, murders, thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deception, lewdness, the evil eye, blasphemy, pride, and lack of sense. All these evils come from within and defile a person.”
Jesus’ argument might seem to be off-topic. The Pharisees and scribes from Jerusalem have raised the issue of ritual ablution of hands. Jesus seemingly switches the subject from contingent impurity to the dietary laws.
For Seventh-day Adventists and others who believe the dietary laws are ontological, Mark 7:19 is a problem text. They ask, “If God never designed a substance to be ingested by humans, how would passing through the gastrointestinal tract possibly turn it into food? A termite might derive nourishment from cellulose; humans can’t. Does the fact it eventually will end up in the toilet somehow make road-kill edible?” Within the Seventh-day Adventist frame of reference, Jesus’ argument doesn’t make any sense.
If we recognize however, that food impurity is divinely imputed exactly like bodily impurity, then Jesus’ argument hasn’t wondered off topic after all. The Pharisees have brought up one example of contingent purity, and Jesus answers with another example. His point is that contingent impurity is temporary. According to the Torah, impurity from marital relations lasts until sundown of your next bath [Leviticus 15:18]. Impurity from touching the carcass of any animal lasts until sundown [Leviticus 11:25, 27, 31, 39]. Impurity after recovery from tzaraat lasts seven days [Leviticus 14:9]. Impurity after childbirth lasts thirty days if she had a boy, sixty days if she had a girl [Leviticus 12:3-5]. Jesus argues that should his disciples have become impure by eating without ablution of hands, by the time dinner works its way down and out, their impurity will be over. But there’s no such convenient toilet for disposing of the consequences of evil thoughts!
Grammatically, the phrase “purifying all food” is problematic. It doesn’t agree with any possible antecedent in the near context. Many translations have understood it as a separate sentence with Jesus as the implied subject. They translate: “He declared all food clean” or some such. But if this linguistic analysis is correct, the verb isn’t conjugated in the expected tense. There are problems all ‘round construing the phrase.
The sole recourse for those utterly convinced that the dietary instructions are ontological is to regard the remark in Mark 7:19b as intrusive. Mark or his editor thoroughly misunderstood Jesus’ line of argumentation from contingent impurity and inserted a remark which actually contradicts his point. If the dietary instructions are ontological we should take this misleading remark out of the Bible and non-Jews should be observing the Torah’s dietary instructions along with Israel. This puts Seventh-day Adventists on the side of biblical criticism. Talk about the odd couple!
What’s the essence of Jesus’ defense? The Pharisees from Judea were criticizing Jesus’ disciples and other Galilean Jews. They were using Israel’s uniqueness as a weapon against others. They were abusing Israel’s uniqueness. These Pharisees were twisting the Torah for their own advantage against the interests of Israel as a whole.
Jesus’ halakha goes straight to God’s gracious intention in giving his Torah. Tradition of the elders isn’t supposed to subvert a son’s duty to support his father and mother in their old age. The evil that comes pouring out of a person’s heart is much more damaging than any external stuff he or she might touch before eating. Serious defilement is the way we hurt others. The Pharisees should be more concerned with their defilement of the world than with the world's defilement of them. The heart requires more guarding than the hands.
If what I’ve presented is correct, that the dietary instructions in parashat r-e are divinely imputed, where does that leave Seventh-day Adventist teaching on health?
Former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill once quipped, “The Yanks and the Brits are two peoples divided by a common language.” I could paraphrase that by saying Seventh-day Adventists and Jews are two peoples divided by a common Torah. Seventh-day Adventists love the Torah just as much as Jews do, but the Torah we love is the Torah interpreted our way, the Torah within our tradition, the Torah in our language. We love Torah to the extent we control it.
We Seventh-day Adventists have a great thing in our health message, and I’d be the last to demean it. Our health message has a sound theological basis. As a prophetic people called by God we certainly have the authority to govern ourselves, make our own lifestyle rules, and enforce measures which promote health. I’m not so sure though we have carte blanche to enlist the Torah’s dietary instructions in our very worthy cause. I see two dangers.
One danger is that by pegging the dietary instructions to the natural order of creation, we inadvertently subject God’s Torah to scientific understanding. This, unfortunately, is what happened in Reform Judaism. Reform Jews were once happy to observe the dietary instructions, because they were supposed to be good for you. Then scientific understanding changed and said if you cooked it right, pork was good for you. Reform Jews discarded the dietary instructions. If the dietary instructions are regarded as ontological, the temptation is to yank them out of God’s hands. Most of us, after all, think our current science better understands the created order than the science of Bible times.
The other danger of pegging the dietary instructions to the natural order of creation is that it undermines Israel’s unique holiness. If the dietary instructions are God’s way to be healthy, and our desire to be healthy is strong enough to follow instructions, Israel is just another health club. If we do Israel’s stuff, why can’t we all be Israel? If the dietary instructions are regarded as ontological, Israel’s distinctive identity disappears. I think Seventh-day Adventists have already fallen prey to this trap.
We’d be on safer ground if we decided to follow the Torah’s dietary instruction in remembrance of Jesus’ servanthood, something along the line of footwashing. Although ancient Middle Eastern footwashing has no social function in contemporary culture, Seventh-day Adventists observe it anyway as a mitzva allowing us to share a major event in God’s life. The dietary instructions could be considered like footwashing. Anything that brings us closer to the concrete reality of the Jewish Jesus is a good idea.
Another sound possibility would be for Seventh-day Adventists to follow the dietary instructions in solidarity with our Jewish brothers and sisters, something along the line of the apostolic decree in Acts 15. Should we decide to do so, we would need to be clear that our practice is voluntary; we’re not claiming that the dietary instructions are incumbent on non-Jews; we’re merely facilitating Jewish obedience. Even if a particular commandment doesn’t apply to you personally, it’s always a good idea to help others obey. Seventh-day Adventists who have no children of school age contribute tuition to help parents fulfill their obligation to provide their offspring a Christian education. In practical economic terms, consumer demand by non-Jews would help keep kosher products on the market for those who actually need them.
If Seventh-day Adventists are to be the catalyst for the endtime commandment-keeping remnant of Israel and the church, we must make some sort of accommodation for Jewish obedience. Unless we wish to take only disobedient Jews into our fellowship, we must allow Jews to keep Israel’s unique mitzvot. Part of our mission at Beth Shalom Seventh-day Adventist Congregation here in Thousand Oaks is to create a constituency for Jewish obedience within the Seventh-day Adventist Church.
