It’s the best news on the kashrut front since Oreo cookies went kosher.[1] We’re talking about the Impossible Burger, “The Burger Formerly Known as Plants,” a veggie patty that – try it if you don’t believe this – tastes almost like meat.[2] And this is particularly good news for shomrei kashrut – kosher keepers – because the kosher certification of the Impossible Burger allows them to enjoy a kosher “cheeseburger” that tastes close enough to the real thing to win rave reviews from the cognoscenti.
Wait a minute, you might object: why would the Orthodox rabbinical authorities (poskim) accept the Impossible Cheeseburger as kosher? True, the patty is pareve, a purely vegetable concoction, so that to top it with with a slice of mozzarella would not transgress the prohibition against the consumption of meat-dairy mixtures (basar b’ḥalav). But while the Impossible Burger is not, in fact, meat, it sure looks (let alone tastes) like meat… and that would raise the problem of marit ayin (literally, “what the eye perceives”), a prohibition imposed by Rabbinic law upon actions that, though permissible in and of themselves, resemble prohibited actions. The concern is that the unlearned Jew will draw the wrong conclusion from the observant Jew’s behavior. You’d therefore think that on grounds of marit ayin the poskim would say “no” to the veggie cheeseburger – and kal vaḥomer to the meaty-looking, smelling, and tasting Impossible Cheeseburger – lest the ignorant think “gee, that observant Jew is eating a cheeseburger, so it must be okay to eat dairy along with meat.”[3] But – good news again – Rabbi Shlomo Aviner, a leading ḥaredi posek (albeit one with a penchant for making controversial, infuriating statements), has issued a p’sak (ruling) in defense of the Impossible Cheeseburger (here, in Hebrew). His decision rests upon several grounds, the most important of which has to do with familiarity. That is, the prohibition of marit ayin applies only when the action in question is a relatively rare or unknown thing, making it more likely that onlookers will draw mistaken conclusions from it.[4] “But nowadays,” he writes, “everybody knows about (non-dairy) margarine, soy schnitzel, and pareve milk”.[5] So no problem: shomrei kashrut may serve Impossible Cheeseburgers at their next picnic.
Oops – did we say “no problem”? Well, not entirely, because Rabbi Aviner hedges on his heter (permissive ruling). It turns out, he says, that maybe everybody doesn’t know. “Since the kosher cheeseburger is a new invention,” he continues, “and since people will wonder at this,” one should eat it only while keeping it in its distinctive wrapper, so that innocent onlookers will not mistakenly conclude that this shomer kashrut is eating a cheeseburger of the old-fashioned kind. Our posek, it seems, cannot bring himself to dispense with his concern over marit ayin after all. And that positively annoys us, because we think it’s time to consign marit ayin to the dustbin of halakhic history. It’s not that the concept has no value whatsoever. Indeed, marit ayin is a classic Jewish expression of the idea that our actions must not only be righteous; they must appear to be righteous to those with whom we live in community.[6] But in practice it has become much more an expression of intellectual elitism, of a rabbinical lack of faith in the basic intelligence of amkha, the average Jewish person. It is founded, to put it bluntly, upon a conviction that the average Jew is too ignorant to know the law and too shy (or maybe too dumb) to ask questions, so that, in our case, s/he is liable to be led astray at the sight of someone wearing a kippah and eating a veggie cheeseburger. For what it’s worth, we progressive halakhists do not share that conviction. We do not imagine that our fellow Jews are as clueless as all that, and we don’t think it’s a good idea to base religious policy upon such prejudice. We think it’s better – and we hope this suggestion doesn’t shock Rabbi Aviner[7] – to treat them like adults, to trust in their basic intelligence and common sense, and to presume that they will ask questions when they are perplexed. It’s better to explain matters of observance to our fellow Jews rather than simply to expect that they don’t (and won’t) understand.
In other words, it’s high time we said good-bye to the prohibition of marit ayin. That will be a hard sell to Orthodox poskim… but we trust not an Impossible one!
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[1] They’re kosher, but are they pareve? Although Oreos contain no dairy ingredients, they are baked on dairy equipment, which may be of concern to observant Jews who want to eat them along with a meat meal. We think the concern is overblown. Since the quantity of dairy “ingredients” that enter the Oreo batter in this way is infinitesimal, one can apply the batel b’shishim rule (according to which the offending ingredient is cancelled out if it amounts to less than 1/60 of the entire product) and eat the cookie. But there are complications – as always – and we won’t go into all that here.
[2] The magic ingredient is heme, a protein that transmits the meaty flavor that carnivores crave.
[3] See Shulḥan Arukh Yoreh De’ah 87:3, where Isserles allows the consumption of almond milk at a meat meal only if one places almonds next to the milk container, so that all will know that the “milk” is pareve.
[4] See Hilhot HaRosh, Nidah 9:7. As an example, Aviner cites the old Rabbinic prohibition against using silk thread to sew garments made of either linen or wool. That prohibition was valid, he remarks, at a time when silk was rare in Jewish communities, so that the onlooker might conclude wrongly that the action violated the prohibition against shaatnez. “But now that silk is widely available and everybody recognizes it for what it is, there is no reason for concern.”
[5] He’s not alone in this reasoning; Rabbi Ovadyah Yosef, in a responsum that Aviner cites, has said much the same thing and in more detail; Resp. Y’ḥaveh Da`at 3:59.
[6] In other words, it’s a positive good to conduct ourselves so as to avoid suspicion or a hint of scandal. See Mishnah Sh’kalim 3:2 and Bartenura ad loc.
[7] Of course, we doubt that he reads this blog. But you never know.