Living Leviticus: My Plan

So here's my plan for our month:

1. Dietary. Separate between clean and unclean animals -- no pork, shellfish, ospreys (that last one probably won't be so tough). No boiling a kid in the milk of its mother, although I don't interpret that to require hours of separation between any dairy and any meat. Also, the prohibition on blood seems to be a very big deal, aside from the distinctions between clean and unclean animals. I'll salt any meat before cooking it to draw the blood out. If I were buying kosher certified meats the salting would already have been done, but I'm not so that's another step for me.

Also, I see the agricultural laws generally as about respecting Creation and therefore the Creator. In my mind, factory farming does not mesh with respecting Creation. So no more supermarket meat counter products for me. Only eat meats from animals that were humanely and naturally raised (e.g. cows are made to eat grass, not corn). Kristi and I will be heading over to Lionette's Market in South End to see what we find there. (We can video the experience if you want to see the excitement of grocery shopping.) I expect this will mean I'm eating a lot less meat. The nutritionists tell me that's probably all to the good.

A kosher certification guarantees how the animal was slaughtered but says nothing about how it was treated prior to slaughter. So although I was originally planning to buy kosher meats, instead I'll buy what meat I end up consuming from these tree-hugger sources and salt it myself.

2. Sabbath. I turn into a pumpkin at sundown on Saturday and re-emerge with sundown on Sunday. This time is for rest and restoring the soul, which includes but is not necessarily limited to worship and prayer. Tossing around a Frisbee can be tremendously soul-restoring as well (well, maybe not in Boston in January but you get the idea). I won't get as extreme about this as some. For instance, I just cannot wrap my mind around thinking of tying shoelaces as work. Shoelaces are acceptable. And I'll probably use the Crock Pot a lot for Sunday meals, so I can have it all ready ahead of time. But if everything is chopped and ready to go on Saturday and sitting in the crock in the refrigerator, I will have no qualms whatsoever about plugging the Crock Pot in on Sunday and pressing the "on" button.

By the way, let me strongly recommend the Sabbath essay in "Mudhouse Sabbath" to everyone. (The whole book is good but the Sabbath one is the best.) 3. Particular attention to honesty and integrity. Nothing new here, just more attention to what I should be doing anyway.

4. Keep reading, over and over again. Back in my college days, one of my philosophy professors talked about how the Greeks approached Homer. It's OK to question, it's OK to challenge -- and then you go back and read The Iliad again. In our day, when we poke a hole in a book or an author we then put it on the shelf and don't worry about it anymore. It has been disposed of. The Greeks didn't do that with Homer. They kept a dialogue going. They challenged, they questioned, they poked holes -- and then they sat down and read again.

This is how I try to approach Scripture. A lot of people won't question or challenge the Bible. They may question their own understanding, but if the Bible certainly seems to be clear, that ends the conversation. I can't do that. Maybe I should, maybe I will someday, but at least right now I just can't. But I can keep coming back. I can have an attitude that I have more to learn here. I can wrestle with G-d -- and then come back and read again.