It should come as no
surprise to my readers that I have never eaten chazor (pig). It is not just
that I happen to have never tried pork. A major aspect of my identity as a Jew is my
active refusal to eat pork. Since I lack positive cultural associations for pig
and it is symbolic of so much of the "other" for me, you might even
say that I am mildly "chazerphopic." Obviously, most of the world
does not share my chazerphobia. In fact, there are many
"chazerphiles," people for whom the active eating of pork is a critical
part of their identity in much the same way that a critical part of my identity
is not eating pork. Think of all those Americans for whom the holidays would be incomplete without their Christmas ham. Presumably, there are even ideological
chazerphiles who consciously eat pork as a means of rejecting the God of the
Hebrew Bible. Such people may view chazerphobes like myself as a threat to the
building of a godless society and resent the idea that I "force" my
chazerphobic lifestyle upon my children, depriving them not only of the
delicious taste of pork but also of the freedom to not worry about whether some
"old man in the sky" cares about what they eat.
As a classical liberal,
I acknowledge that both chazerphobes like myself and the chazerphiles who make up
the majority of society have rights. I cannot use direct physical force to stop
anyone, Jewish or otherwise, from enjoying pork to their heart's content. As a practical matter, I believe
that the State of Israel should eliminate all restrictions on the selling and
consumption of pigs. At the same time, we should be able to agree that I have
the right to keep a kosher home free of pigs. Things get a little more
complicated as we deal with cases in the middle and reasonable people of goodwill are going to disagree over where precisely to draw the lines between
protecting the rights of chazerphiles and chazerphobes. Among other things, this
will depend upon whether we assume that pork eating is simply something that
some people like to do or whether some people might actually be "chazerexuals"
and eating pork is inherent to their very being? If the latter, then my
chazerphobia might be deemed an act of hate against these chazerexuals that threatens their
very lives. My chazerphobia should be given only the barest tolerance as
some moral failing that I can indulge in the privacy of my home. I should
have the decency to be embarrassed by my intolerant mindset and should make no
attempt to expose my children or anyone else's to such a backward
belief.
I am raising my two boys
in a non-pig-consuming home. When they become adults and move out of my house,
they are free to make their own choices, including becoming hardcore
chazerphiles. What if they come out of the closet to me as chazerexuals and
demand that I respect them for who they are by taking them to McDonald's, even going so far as to threaten to
harm themselves, God forbid, if I fail to comply? If we do not believe that chazerexuals
actually exist (as opposed to people who simply really like eating pork), then I
can dismiss them as being insane and I am under no obligation to indulge the
delusions of crazy people. I am not endangering their physical health by not
enabling their pork consumption. If, God forbid, they end up harming themselves then it would not be my fault. It is the fault of the mental illness and of any teachers
or social media influencers who gave them the idea that they might be
chazerexuals with the right to expect that other people will adapt themselves
to suit their choice of identity.
For the past year, I
have been teaching in the Los Angeles school system. Do I have the right to
tell Jewish students that it is a sin to eat pork? Do I have the right to wear a
yarmulka, which might make a Jewish student feel guilty and inhibit their pork consumption? Be careful or I might ask whether a chazerphile teacher has the right to read students books
that portray pork eating in a positive light or actively help Jewish students
get over their inhibitions about eating pork?
What if my school wishes
to hold a chazer-pride month with a wide variety of activities designed to
teach people that it is ok to eat whatever kind of ethically slaughtered meat they like. In truth, I would really wish to cooperate. My chazerphobia is really
quite mild. It is not as if I have any truly intellectual objections to eating pig. As
a Maimonidean, if I were to create my own religion, I would include some taboos on meat but the meat I
would ban would simply be one that the ethnic group I was trying to teach about God
was already inclined not to eat. As such, I would have no problem declaring pigs to be
"kosher" and banning some other animal.
I am inclined to believe that all people would do well to follow the ways of their ancestors. As such, it makes sense that non-Jewish Mexicans should maintain their ancestral customs and stick pork into everything. I would wish to support them in this endeavor.
As part of the school community, I would
want to take part in chazer-pride in any way I could. I would be willing to
wear a shirt with the chazor-pride logo and march with the other teachers in
the chazor-pride parade. It even seems reasonable, assuming my rabbi would permit it, to make a contest that if my students read
x number of pages I would agree to personally roast a pig on a spit with
an apple in its mouth.
For me to cooperate with
chazerphiles like this, though, I have to honestly believe that they support my chazerphobia and are not
conspiring to undermine the keeping of kosher. In this, it is important to keep
in mind the halakhic concept of "shas ha-shmad." One is allowed to
violate most commandments if someone threatens to kill you but in a time where
there is an organized plan to destroy Judaism, you need to be willing to die
even over petty things like shoelaces. For example, normally you are allowed to
eat pork to save your life. That being said, during the Antiochian persecutions of the second-century b.c.e.,
the Seleucid authorities tried to get as many Jews as they could to eat pork as
part of their plan to destroy Judaism. Pork-eating Jews were being proclaimed as having rejected the God of Israel. The casual Jew on the street, upon seeing pious Jews agreeing to eat pork, would conclude that it was ok to simply throw away all of Judaism. As such, it became necessary for there to be truly committed Jews willing to pay the ultimate price to demonstrate that they still followed the God of Israel. If there were some Jews willing to die for kosher then the majority of Jews might still be willing to try to keep kosher even if it was just in their homes.
If the chazerphiles in
charge of my school made no attempt to pressure me in participating in chazer-pride
and made it clear that I would face no consequences for openly opposing
chazer-pride, I would
be inclined to be as cooperative as my rabbinic authorities would allow me.
What if the school would declare that chazerexuals existed and needed to be
supported to the extent that anyone who refused to celebrate chazer-pride by not putting on the chazer-pride logo was guilty of hating chazerexuals? What
if I suspected that the chazerphile administrators, in their desire to build a
"community for all" and not offer a home to "hatred" of any
sort, would retaliate if I refused to wear the chazer-pride logo? If the
chazer-pride logo is something so important as to threaten my job over, it must
be because the chazerphiles actually have an ideological agenda such as a wish to undermine the keeping of kosher.
If observant Jews like me can be bullied into wearing the chazer-pride logo then the less religious will come to the conclusion that it is ok to eat the
chazer-pride roasted pig on a spit.
Under such
circumstances, I would feel compelled to actively oppose chazer-pride even if
it cost me my job. I may not believe that chazerexuals really exist, but those
who claim to be deserve empathy even though they should not be encouraged in their
delusions. I love and respect chazorphiles and do not wish to stop them from enjoying pork. That being said, I am a Jew and, as
a Jew, I am proudly chazerphobic. I oppose Jews eating pork for no rational
reason at all. I simply believe that Jews eating pork would not be consistent with the
will of the creator and prime mover of the universe.