Why Can't I Eat Bacon?!?

Rick,

What was God's purpose in instituting the food laws? 

Some have proposed the theory that God instituted the food laws for health reasons.  Others have put forth the idea that some animals (such as camels) are more useful as a beast of burden than as a food source.  However, I am not satisfied with these attempts to explain the laws that God set forth for His people.

"In his book 'To Be a Jew' (an excellent resource on traditional Judaism), Rabbi Hayim Halevy Donin suggests that the dietary laws are designed as a call to holiness. The ability to distinguish between right and wrong, good and evil, pure and defiled, the sacred and the profane, is very important in Judaism. Imposing rules on what you can and cannot eat ingrains that kind of self control, requiring us to learn to control even our most basic, primal instincts.

"Donin also points out that the laws of kashrut elevate the simple act of eating into a religious ritual. The Jewish dinner table is often compared to the Temple altar in rabbinic literature. A Jew who observes the laws of kashrut cannot eat a meal without being reminded of the fact that he is a Jew."  (http://www.jewfaq.org/kashrut.htm)

I agree with the findings of Rabbi Donin.  After all, if the food laws were about health, would that not imply that God did not care about the health of every other person who lived prior to the giving of the Law?

Check out what God told Noah in Genesis 9:3-4.
3 Every moving thing that liveth shall be meat for you; even as the green herb have I given you all things.
4 But flesh with the life thereof, which is the blood thereof, shall ye not eat. 

It appears that after the Flood, God told Noah that every living thing was good for meat.  Either God didn't care about Noah's health, or the food laws were not about health.

Again, I believe - like Rabbi Donin - that the food laws were an object lesson to help God's people learn about holiness.  They were learning that God makes a distinction between the common/ordinary things and the holy things.  It was not wrong to own a donkey, but it was wrong to eat a donkey.  The donkey, in and of itself, was not sinful.  God was trying to reorient the minds of His people to a correct understanding of true holiness.

In our culture, we must also strive to have a correct understanding of true holiness.  We cannot allow our views to be shaped by a particular church or educational institution or even by a church movement.  The Word of God must be our primary source for understanding God's holiness, and thereby understanding the holiness that God requires in our lives.