And, in a very odd way, I’m flattered that you took time out from your post-wedding bliss to comment on my blog! Either that, or I’m worried you’ve gone completely bonkers!

Congrats to you and FrankJ!

As far as meat and dairy here is a quote from http://www.jewfaq.org:

“For example, there is some evidence that eating meat and dairy together interferes with digestion, and no modern food preparation technique reproduces the health benefit of the kosher law of eating them separately.”

Remember, this is not black and white. I am NOT saying Rabbis got together and said “we will make a fake book to rule the masses.” I am saying they incorporated rules into writings they held in very high regard to help their community. These rules of course also serve other non-health related purposes. They teach discipline and test faith and provide an every day reminder of the religion itself.

Most importantly give the ancients more credit. The Egyptians(and their slaves) built the pyrimids, the Babylonian’s did Calculus and the founders of judaism knew pork could kill you.

(This is, of course, putting aside your claim that the clergy generally do not believe in their religions. Is there any evidence you can cite to back this up?)

By delivering these messages in the name of the almighty the problems of society could be controlled. Luckily these writers were also historians and scientists of sorts and could infer trends such as; people seem to be getting sick when eating particular foods or improperly prepared foods. And so with G-d as their “Surgeon General” they issued warnings in the one place they knew everyone would read/hear and follow them.

“Speak unto the children of Israel, saying, These are the beasts which ye shall eat among all the beasts that are on the earth.”

It was smart and probably saved millions of lives and was largely what religion was for… to protect and control “the CHILDREN of Israel.”

The overall points I was trying to make are (1) that Christians generally assume that Jews observe the basic, well-known precepts of Judaism — and that while that ought to be a realistic assumption, it unfortunately isn’t. And (2), Christians are more likely to spot the inconsistencies in Jewish behavior than (at least non-observant) Jews are.

Two more cases in point: My college roommate, an American-raised Hindu, was traveling in India after visiting relatives, and he encountered some Israeli tourists. After much conversation, he asked what they were doing for kosher food in India. They were shocked at the question.

Second: A non-Jewish co-worker just yesterday told me about a Bar Mitzvah she once attended at which the food was quite obviously (even to a non-Jew) non-kosher. She saw the irony in this, though apparently the hosts didn’t, or they would have served kosher food.

In a certain sense, serving non-kosher food at a Bar or Bat Mitzvah is even worse than serving it at other times. Why? Normally, Jews who eat non-kosher food are probably doing so out of ignorance (either of what’s kosher or of how important keeping kosher is), or mere laziness, since it takes some effort to check your food. But everyone knows that a Bar or Bat Mitzvah is supposed to be a celebration of a child reaching the age of Jewish adulthood, at which he or she is personally responsible for observing the commandments — and to celebrate that by immediately and publicly violating those commandments is not just laziness or weakness, it’s hypocrisy — if not outright rebellion.

The fact that (religious) non-Jews are more likely to spot the contradiction than Jews are is one of the great Jewish tragedies of our times.

Which would also explain why he didn’t get the joke.