Bubba Gump
Whatever in the water does not have fins and scales is detestable to you. Leviticus 11:12 NASB
Is detestable – From the JPS Torah Commentary on Leviticus: “All those water creatures that do not swim by the usual means of fins but, instead, crawl are considered impure.” Bubba Gump shrimp are on the list. Why?
Perhaps you should consult this web site: https://www.peta.org/living/food/top-10-reasons-eat-shrimp/. It declares that we should not eat shrimp because:
- Shrimp has a right to life
- Shrimp digest parasites and dead skin which you then eat
- Shrimp may contain toxic contaminants
- Shrimp nets catch endangered dolphins
- Shrimp farming destroys fish habitats
- Shrimp processing plants often use “slave” labor
- Shrimp varieties are just being understood by scientists
- Shrimp are loaded with cholesterol
- Many varieties of shrimp are near extinction
- Vegan substitutes are readily available
So there you have it. All the “right” reasons for not eating shrimp. Of course, we would need another list for crab, lobster, clams, etc. What you should notice is that the biblical prohibition isn’t even on the list. Why? Because what’s on the list are health conscious and environmental reasons. Nothing religious or spiritual, please. In backwards exegesis, people use reasons like these to justify the biblical prohibition, as if God were merely protecting your health and the well-being of the aquatic species. Nothing could be further from the truth.
The supreme morality is suprahuman. Anthropomorphizing the moral law and connecting it with a sociological process, as many thinkers have done, restricts it to the secular utilitarian realm, thereby destroying the moral world. [For] the moral law is, in essence, the law of existence, and moral action is action interwoven with the drama of the great creation.[1]
In other words, we don’t eat certain creatures of God’s creation because He says so. Period! Any attempt to “explain” why this is the case is anthropomorphizing God’s moral law. Such a maneuver is a way to make rational what is essentially supra-rational. We are back in the Garden listening to the serpent. “Why would God ask you to do something that He doesn’t explain? Don’t you have a mind of your own? Can’t you decide what’s good for you?” You know the rest.
Topical Index: shrimp, detestable, moral law, Leviticus 11:12
[1] Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik, And From There You Shall Seek, trans. Naomi Goldblum (Ktav Publishing House, 2008), p. 134.
