Introduction to Question and answer series:

Living with the Torah means interacting with it. When we interact with the world we have questions under all different situations. What are the answers and how should we deal with them? The answers lie in the Torah and Chazal who direct us with Hashkofas HaChaim, the Jewish outlook on life. The wellspring from where all this starts is the Torah.

Often, the chance when the Jewish family gets to discuss and impart hashkofic issues is around the Shabbos table. I therefore thought it would be a good idea to do various articles mainly on the parsha by offering questions to open up the parsha for discussion and bring out the Torah perspective on different situations in life.

In the following article appears a few general interesting questions and answers.

Question about honey from bees:

Q. We know that whatever comes out from an animal is considered like it. Kosher milk can only come from a kosher animal. E.g. a cow and not a camel. Yet, we find that a bee is not kosher and we are able to eat it’s product of honey?

A. The Rambam (Hilchos Ma’acholois Asurois 3:3) explains that honey is permitted since it is not produced through the body of the bee, like other animails. Instead, the bees collect from flowers a sugary juice called nectar from the blossom by sucking it out with their tongues. They store it in what’s called their honey stomach, which is different from their food stomach. When they have a full load, they fly back to the hive. There, they pass it on through their mouths to other worker bees who chew it for about half an hour. It’s passed from bee to bee, until it gradually turns into honey. Then the bees store it in honeycomb cells, which are like tiny jars made of wax. The honey is still a bit wet, so they fan it with their wings to make it dry out and become more sticky. When it’s ready, they seal the cell with a wax lid to keep it clean. This is made as their food storage in the winter.

Can i theoretically eat any worms?

Q. Are there any worms that i would be permitted to eat?

A. The Rambam (ibid. 2:14-15) points out that the Torah only prohibits worms that go on the ground. This means that worms that are produced and grow inside a detached fruit and have not yet left it and gone on the ground are permitted to eat. This is theoretical since in practice (Shulchan Oruch Y.D. 84:7-8) we have no way of really knowing when we find a worm in a fruit if the worm came whilst the fruit was still attached to the ground in which case it would be forbidden or if it only developed after being detached. Therefore we must be stringent and throw them away. However, the implication was that if we would detach a fruit and then isolate it and monitor it for worms and catch the worms before they left the fruit, these worms would be permitted!