Community Magazine April 2013

At first, it aroused strong opposition in the scientific community, for no one could explain how the continents could drift when they were anchored in the foundation rock of the oceans’ floor. Since then, it has been discovered that the Earth’s crust is not one single landmass, but is rather divided into dozens of tectonic plates that are joined together, and which float independently on the molten interior of the Earth, each in constant movement in relation to the others. Using measurements from satellites, it has been discovered that South America continues to drift away from Africa at the rate of ten centimeters a year. The speculation has be come a universally acknowledged theory. Was this fact known to the Torah and the Sages of Israel? The answer is found in the ninth verse of the Torah: “And Gd said: ‘Let the water gather under the heavens to one place and let the dry landmass appear,’ and so it was” (Beresheet 1:9). The verse speaks of a “dry landmass,” in the singular form (“ hayabashah ”), and not “dry landmasses.” The Zohar is explicit: “It was taught: The water brought forth one dry landmass, and it became seven landmasses [continents]” ( Zohar Hadash 12:1). BEE HONEY The Mishnah states: “Whatever is taken out from the impure is impure, and whatever is taken out from the pure is pure” (Bechorot 5b). This rule states that the milk of a female camel, for example, is prohibited for consumption, because it originates from an impure (non-kosher) animal. The same applies to eggs from an “impure” bird such as an eagle. However, the milk of a cow and hen’s eggs are kosher, since they originate from kosher animals. In light of this rule, the question arises why bees’ honey is kosher. Honey originates from an impure creature – a bee, which is obviously forbidden for consumption – and thus it should also be impure. The Sages (ibid. 7b) answered: “Because they [the bees] bring it [the nectar] into their bodies but they do not extract it from their bodies” (ibid.). The Rambam explains this answer in Hilchot Ma’achalot Asurot (3:3): “Bees’ honey is permitted because it is not extracted from their bodies; rather, they gather it from the plants into their mouths and spit it out in the hive so that they will have food in the winter.” In other words, honey does not pass through the bee’s entire digestive system; rather, it enters its body and is discharged from the same place where it had entered. Let us examine the production of honey based on the latest scientific findings. The process begins when the bee leaves its hive to forage for nectar. When it finds a suitable flower, it lands on the petals and makes its way to its base, from which it sucks the nectar through its proboscis into its honey stomach, or the crop, where the nectar is stored temporarily, until the bee returns to the hive. Once it arrives back at the hive, the bee discharges the nectar from its stomach, handing it over to another bee that is in charge of storing the nectar in the honeycomb. The foraging bee keeps a little nectar in a separate part of its stomach, separated from the honey stomach by a sphincter, for its own nourishment. This small amount continues on the path through the bee’s digestive system until it is completely digested. The nectar is turned into honey in two possible ways. One way is to remain in the bee’s stomach long enough to react with the enzyme invertase excreted by the bee’s stomach on its way back to the hive. Invertase converts the nectar’s sucrose, a complex sugar, into two simple sugars, fructose and glucose, from which the honey is made. If the nectar did not remain in the bee’s stomach long enough to undergo this chemical reaction, it will turn into honey during the storage period in the honeycomb, where it undergoes a process of dehydration, which activates the invertase, causing the chemical breakdown into honey. These facts demonstrate that the honey does not pass through the bee’s digestive system. Rather, it only enters the upper portion and is later expelled the same way it came in. This corroborates the halachic distinction drawn by the Talmud between an impure animal’s milk and bees’ honey. The milk is prohibited because “whatever is taken out from the impure is impure,” whereas honey is permitted because it is not considered “taken out from the impure,” since, as the Talmud said, “They do not extract it from their bodies.” This means that it does not pass through the bee’s digestive system, and is only stored in its body until it brings it to the hive, at which point it is expelled. Already two millennia ago, when scientific knowledge in this area was non-existent, the Sages knew about the process through which bees produce honey, without conducting scientific experiments. They obtained this knowledge through Torah tradition, without requiring any scientific research or experimentation! THE PURE AND IMPURE FISH The Torah writes in Vayikra (11:9): “Among all [creatures] that are in the water, you may eat these: any [of the creatures] in the water that has fins and scales, those you may eat, whether [it lives] in the seas or in the rivers.” We are given here two physical properties of the kosher fish that are permitted for consumption: 1) fins and 2) scales. The Torah states clearly that a fish may be eaten only if it has both fins and Bees’ honey is kosher because it does not pass through the bee’s digestive system. Nectar is collected in the bee’s stomach and, back at the hive, is discharged through the bee’s mouth. This fact was known to the Jewish Sages thousands of years ago . 38 COMMUNITY MAGAZINE