Happy Clam on the Half-Shell Day

It’s National Clam on the Half-Shell Day. I am not really a shellfish eater. I was never really against the food but otherwise, never really for it. When I read Leviticus and learned it was not kosher and I could therefore proclaim some kind of holy justification against eating shellfish, I was all about it. Even today, I avoid shellfish, not to the extent of refusing to eat it if it were set in front of me at a meal but I would most likely not select it if given a choice.

Reading Leviticus also helped me finally come to grips with my vegetarian past (a late high school and into college phase). I thought I was being ethical or something like that but then I realized I was just sort of self-righteous. Then, I got really fat from way too much pasta alfredo and moved to the south where it was difficult to find a vegetable with out a hunk of meat swimming in it anyway. So, as incrementally as I began, I stopped.

I was still bothered, however, as I’d eat meat for dinner and think, why don’t I just eat my cat tomorrow? What’s the difference? I demand nothing short of consistent logic! Oh there is a difference: “You may eat any animal that has a split hoof completely divided and that chews the cud.” (Lev 11:3)

Don’t eat the cats.

Of course, in Acts 10, Peter has a vision of a sheet full of animals of all kinds and a voice says, “Get up, Peter. Kill and eat...Do not call anything impure that God has made clean.”

Go ahead, eat the cats.

Later, Peter concludes that the vision was actually about baptizing some Gentiles.

So, no, do not eat the cats.

Bottom line, learning a bit about kosher eating freed me from having to even fathom eating the cats. It’s been a great relief to me and I’d imagine the cats...assuming, strongly assuming...they CAN read my mind and consequently know how self-righteous I am regardless of what I eat.