The Kids Are Seething

[peristaltor]

bill_sheehan got his godless preach on the other day and dropped knowledge about The Ten Commandments. It turns out there aren't ten, but about 24 listed do's and don'ts mentioned in Exodus, the book describing Moses and his solo ascent of the mount. It turns out that each Abrahamic religion picks from that legal menagerie those commandments they like best. Heck, not even the papists and those that later followed Martin Luther in protest can agree on which should be included in the Letterman-esque format.

I've known about this smattering of shattered tablet droppings for some time now, this inconsistency that brings a giggle when people thunder about keeping the ten of their Christian faith sacred. ("Why bother?" I think, "Moses himself smashed those. Why shouldn't we?") I've also known that many of the kosher acts that sets practicing Jews apart from others can be found in the ten not only adopted by their religious tradition, but also kept intact by Moses and later stored in the Ark of the Covenant. Monotheism itself is Number One (and Two, in case you goldsmiths with idol thoughts weren't listening); official feasting and use of only unleavened bread therein gets mention in Three, Six and Eight; and finally, the root of Jewish and Halal dietary laws governing the separation of milk and meat finds its origin in the final:

X. Thou shalt not seethe a kid in his mother's milk.

I haven't given much thought recently to any of the commandments. Let's remember, I'm not religiously inclined. A commenter on bill_sheehan's post, though, gave some background on the Tenth that put the prohibition in a completely new perspective, making me realize once again that the observant may have completely missed the point of the commandment. What if the Tenth has to do not with the stuff of Holsteins but with stuff like Palestine?

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Some background is in order. I did manage to study more than an average amount of religious tradition and teaching in my youth. Many apologists attempt to make sense of the Talmudic restrictions by offering real-world examples of situations where observing the restrictions can save a life, or at least prevent illness. Take the prohibition against eating shellfish from Leviticus 11:9: “These you may eat, of all that are in the waters. Everything in the waters that has fins and scales, whether in the seas or in the rivers, you may eat." Fins and scales yea; claws and shells nay. Given the speed at which shelled creatures smell once they leave the water, an apologist might note, is it any wonder a nomadic band of desert dwellers might turn their noses up at a plate of oysters caught only hours ago? Also, they may not have understood red tide, that algal outbreak that poisons the meat of filter feeders; but once the puking and dying begins, I'm sure someone will jump to the appropriate conclusion, that clams must be bad.

These same apologists point out the known harm caused by mixing milk products (like cheese) and meats, especially raw meat. Simple observation would be enough to note that certain foods do not react well together after they are eaten. These observations might well have become the basis for later formal prohibitions. Thus the separate cookware and plates in observant homes, one color for milk-bearing foods and another for those with even a little meat. And don't forget to wait the proscribed time before following one with the other!

This is all well and good, and even, to a certain extent, believable. It strikes me, though, as contrived. The apologists seem to be saying, "We know this is bad today, so it was probably thought of as bad in the old days." There's danger in this explanation. First, what if it's complete bullshit? What if someone passed on as the Word of God a typo that no one caught? It's happened. Or hey, what if God through his human stenographers really wanted people to hurt, and therefore gave them silly and dangerous advise? I can think of some common actions perpetrated by the faithful that fall into that category. Worse, many of the faithful can recite verbatum the verses that supposedly make the actions completely kosher in God's eyes.

Ah, but that's not the problem I have with Commandment Ten. It's worse, actually.

Back to that commenter, gwendally. He or she noted that in order to get milk from a goat, one must wait until she has given birth. Makes sense, that. Milk gathers in the udders to feed the kid. After the kid is around, though, one faces a dilemma; the milk can either make the dam's kid fat, or your damn kid fat, but not both. To keep the dam producing, goat tenders make tender goat meat out of the kids (mostly the males, since females become milk-making dams themselves if you keep them alive). To anyone who has long kept and gotten to know their herd, this must be either a tiresome chore or a necessary but emotionally painful task depending upon the empathy for the herd the tender feels. After all, as gwendally notes, "The mother goats mourn their dead kids."

And here's the kicker. Killing a young goat is one thing; soaking its lifeless corpse in a boiling cauldron* (that's what "seething" is, after all) of his own mother's milk is just adding insult to injury. Far from showing you have no feelings for a mother you just robbed of her kid, it shows you have actual contempt for her. Put into perspective, it is the act of someone who shares no empathy for his herd, with no compassion for beings under his control, who wants only to lord over the herd through fear and pain. It is the act of a psychopath.

In essence, someone who enslaves a defeated enemy, a rapist or bully who mocks victims afterward, anyone who smirks after martial victory, someone who seethes a kid in mommy's own milk . . . these people are all just evil dicks.

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Which brings us back to Palestine. I hope everyone has noticed that I am someone who avoids discussing the whole Israel-Palestine topic with a sickening vengeance simply because the topic makes me sick. Yes, people should be able to live peacefully. All people. I don't like the Israel situation, though, not because I am anti-Semitic (as many would loudly claim), but because am a proud American, proud not just of the mere idea of the United States but in the founding principles on which is is based.

Chief among those principles is the Separation Clause found in the First Amendment: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof." Listen not to the cries and blathering of other so-called Americans that claim no separation exists, and that all the founders intended this to be a Christian nation, for they are absolutely and completely wrong. I could go on a rant citing Jefferson's Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom, the document that inspired the clause, but I won't. It's not necessary.

In a nutshell, our nation founded itself under the glory of the Enlightenment, a time where scientific discovery was codified as a process that brought true progress to the people of the world. This progress prompted our founders to contemplate not just shedding legal shackles tying them to their founding crown, but to any crown at all. Make no mistake, this was a truly unprecedented concept. More untried but just as radical was the concept that their new state rulers did not need any recognition of divine choosing. No holder of holy office need daub oil on the brow of George Washington, for he was chosen by his citizens and his citizens alone as ruler, not with the traditional absolute power and for a short time instead of a lifetime. Indeed, when the other George, this one the Third of England, heard of Washington's intended retirement after just two terms, he said, "If he does that, he will be the greatest man in the world."

There it is. Our nation is secular, of this world and not the supposed next. It respects religious belief and tradition, but does not take a position on which tradition is better than any other. This is The Law.

And so, when another nation founds itself on a religious tradition, it goes against everything our nation stood to establish as prudent. Israel, a Jewish nation, is one example.

Jimmy Carter wrote a book, much of it indicting the behavior of the Israeli government's treatment of the Palestinians. I must concur. Much of what I have seen in stories concerning the occupation smacks of deliberate smack-down acts ranging from simple domination to complete extermination. Yes, there are those in Israel who would reconcile with their Arab neighbors. No, they don't get heard enough. Instead, we are subject to a barrage of horrifying images and stories no explanatory excuse of "Terrorists!" can adequately defend. Ah, but enough of my impressions. If you want a really good kid seething moment, see Jonathan Demme's movie about President Carter's book tour, Man From Plains. The movie shows the pressure exerted on Carter by those who will not allow even the mention of sin on Israel's part, all while it shows example after example of sin.

One guy really, er, got my goat. Carter was soon to arrive at a press event or something or another. A group of pro-Palestinian supporters was faced off against some pro-Israeli voices outside the venue. One of those voices in the latter camp really summed things up. He said, essentially and tauntingly, "Israel is our home. What have you got? Nothing!" He kept saying it, again and again.

Yes, technically it is true. Since 1948, the Palestinians are only in Israel at the wont and whim of the Israeli government (with help from United Nations' watch dogging). Once Britain ceded the country to become the new Jewish state, those non-Jews living there found themselves in a very awkward position, which has since become ever more awkward.

Does that mean, though, that taunting is called for? Should these people be regarded as non-people, kept behind concrete chicanes, their basic freedoms subject to whims supposedly dictated by military necessity? This treatment might very well be necessary; but to gloat about it?

That strikes me as kid seething.

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Just this morning I heard Malcome Gladwell define "success" in warfare. (Sorry for the simple link; embed at TED is buggy today.) If you kill your enemies in greater numbers and with greater accuracy, will that mollify** them? Nope. It turns out the greater the killing, the greater the number of pissed off survivors angry enough to avenge the killing.

And maybe that's the real message, the true wisdom of the Tenth Commandment: to realize that acts of violence will beget more acts of violence; that while violence is sometimes necessary, it is counter-productive to revel in those acts, since it will create a vicious circle of ever escalating reprisal.

Maybe the Tenth has therefore nothing what-so-fucking-ever to do with the chewing of cheeseburgers or chicken cream sauce. Maybe, just maybe, that interpretation is just a literary cop-out concocted by a bunch of religious cocks (and let's face it, ladies, Talmudic scholars are mostly swinging a single package and sacked pair) that cared less for what G-d may have intended than for what G-d actually said. After all, one can argue about intentions until the goats come home, but words are words.

In fact, did you see what I did in that last paragraph? To Jewish mystics, words have far more power than most realize. The Wife™ recalled a lesson from her days in shule. She was taught by a proper Jewish instructor that words have a power that must be respected. This is what gives the Torah its power. If, for example, she were to accidentally type the word "god" — perhaps dropping an "o" in good or forgetting to cover her ass with the dash as I did above — according to Jewish tradition she is creating some kind of invocation that must be treated ritually. She was told to remove it reverentially from the typewriter and (do something to/with it), lest her sloppy typing wreak havoc on the known world or herself. That's why one can (supposedly) bring a golem to life simply by writing a sacred word on a human-shaped pile of mud, and destroy it just as easily after it's done your bidding by erasing a single letter.

I believe this mystical literalism has created a blindness to metaphor, a complete inability to see the utter irony in an ultra-conservative mob kicking a sandwich vendor senseless when he stocks turkey-and-cheese sandwiches in his kiosk. If I'm right, it doesn't bode well for those of the kickers who giggle and gloat later at the "justice" they mete. They might just get the Tenth read to them with an explanation of why things are uncomfortably warm in their afterlives.***

*A bit off-topic, it could be even worse when one considers what a cauldron would be to a nomadic herder. Far from the crockery or iron pots we now consider, "cauldrons" were originally formed hides of soaked leather can be used as cooking vessels. If one sufficiently wets the hide it doesn't burn, even while supporting dinner over an open fire. Thus the poor kid can be seethed in his mothers milk in an ancestor's skin. I just found that interesting.

**Remember that while today "mollify" means "to appease anger or anxiety," the literal meaning "to make soft" comes from the same root shared by those soft but treyf un-eatables, molluscs. It's all appearing neatly tied together, isn't it?

***Not that I personally believe it warm afterlives (or any at all), but hey. Poetic justice, no?