pig leather | Imamother

cassandra

Mon, Jan 14 2008, 9:43 pm

So then maybe I'm just not getting it. If someone a child attaches himself to something that is essentially tumadik, but in this particular iteration is just a neutral farm animal, plays nicely with his friends, listens to his mother and eats his spinach, how is that bad chinuch for the child?

Also, the mothers who will not put clothing on their newborns that have non-kosher animals on them. How is this a chinuch issue?

Lechatchila Ariber

Mon, Jan 14 2008, 9:52 pm

cassandra wrote:

cassandra please refer to what I wrote and not what I didn't write.
AGAIN.
it is not tumadik
the pig in the farm animal set that the child is playing with is not tumadik.
He does not have to toivel in the mikvah
he does not have to do teshuva.
The point is that his mind is occupied with something that represents treifus which is tumadik. The Rebbe didn't want the children to be growing attached to such things and being occupied with it.

a child can listen to his mother and play nicely with his friend and eat spinach and still be exposed to things some wouldn't want for their kids.
Everyone has their "thing" they don't want to exposed their kids to and for lubavitchers its treifus (among other things)

Quote:

Also, the mothers who will not put clothing on their newborns that have non-kosher animals on them. How is this a chinuch issue?

I don't know.
I can't answer that question because I don't think that is what the Rebbe was referring to, and someone told me the same (as what I'm saying) when she asked her rov about it.

cassandra

Mon, Jan 14 2008, 9:57 pm

EstiS,

I'm really not attacking the position, I'm just trying to understand it, and for some reason it isn't getting through my thick skull.

I completely understand that the TOY isn't tumadik, it just represents something tumadik. But if the toy or character is intended to be neutral or represent a good value, how is getting attached to this detrimental? How is this teaching kids anything negative?

And if it is really so bad, then again, why is the leather ok? Wouldn't you want to distance yourself from it as far as possible?

The two positions (Miss Piggy bad, Pig leather good) just seem incongruous to me and I can't seem to grasp the difference

Lechatchila Ariber

Mon, Jan 14 2008, 10:08 pm

cassandra wrote:

I'm going to try one more time and that's it, you either understand it or not. you either respect it or not.

Quote:

But if the toy or character is intended to be neutral or represent a good value, how is getting attached to this detrimental? How is this teaching kids anything negative?

what do you mean by this? what do you mean by its "intention" and what does its intention have to do with anything. the toy is a figure of a pig and a pig is a pig is a pig...has nothing to do with the intention in its manufacturing.
a pig has no evil representations to the manufacturer and to non-Jewish people but to us it does represent tuma. It makes no difference to me that the lovely Mrs. Jones down the street is a lovely person but eats ham for breakfast and her kids are oh so well mannered. I still don't eat the ham.

Quote:

And if it is really so bad, then again, why is the leather ok? Wouldn't you want to distance yourself from it as far as possible?

sigh...again: the shoes don't teach them anything. They wear them, have no concept of where they came from and even if you tell them, they will not be looking at their feet and thinking and seeing "pig, pig, pig"

The toy is in their sight. They see the pig, they play with the pig, they think "pig".

Clarissa

Mon, Jan 14 2008, 10:15 pm

Wouldn't a child who plays with a Miss Piggy doll be less likely to eat pig? "Now honey, we don't eat Miss Piggy, right?" "No, Mama, I would never eat Miss Piggy! She's not only treif, she's cute." Maybe children should play with little stuffed pigs and lobsters.

I don't understand the logistics of how one completely eliminates all imagery of certain animals from their environment. Between books and songs, lots of animals, potentially kosher and treif, are on the scene, aren't they? At that point, they're not even thinking of them as food or potential food, they're thinking of them as cute little farm, jungle or zoo animals, to be looked at or played with or petted.

eta: don't we just teach our kids that G-d created all living creatures, and they're all here to be enjoyed, studied or observed, but only some are okay to eat, because we're Jews?

Last edited by Clarissa on Mon, Jan 14 2008, 10:17 pm; edited 1 time in total

cassandra

Mon, Jan 14 2008, 10:16 pm

I'm sorry you are becoming exasperated by my questions. I would love to respect it, but I really do have trouble understanding it. My basic problem is: if a figure has no meaning, how can it be bad chinuch? How can the thought of a pig be detrimental when a pig doesn't mean anything to a child beyond "pink animal"?

Maybe I should start a separate thread so that someone else who had this view can explain it to me (if you don't mind) because it seems like there is something missing in my questions or your answers.

leomom

Tue, Jan 15 2008, 12:34 am

Clarissa wrote:

If I may jump in here... I think it depends what you believe about why we eat only kosher animals. If it's mean to eat an animal (poor thing!) then we wouldn't want to eat our cute, cuddly friends...

BUT if by eating meat we are elevating the kosher animals then (1) we're not being mean, and (2) we can play with toys of kosher animals and enjoy everything about them, because they are "fit" for Jews to eat....

Because they are fit for Jews to eat FOR A REASON. Kosher animals are gentle, non-predatory, ruminating animals. (Even the fact that they ruminate has significance according to Chassidus.) When we literally make them part of our bodies by eating them, we are also making their natures part of ours.

And if we eat them for that reason (and forgo eating non-kosher animals because of their predatory or other non-kosher natures), then it makes sense that we would not want our children to play with and grow attached to "cuddly" lions and "cute" bears. THIS is the chinuch issue, as far as I understand it.

leomom

Tue, Jan 15 2008, 12:38 am

In other words, we don't avoid non-kosher animal toys as a way to train children not to eat non-kosher animals. We just don't want them to cozy up to the qualities that these animals represent.

This is my understanding!

(Also, Clarissa, by your logic, if we want to train children to keep kosher, we should specifically NOT allow them to play with toy cows and chickens, so they won't have any psychological block against gobbling them up. Confused

)

Clarissa

Tue, Jan 15 2008, 8:01 am

yy wrote:

)

I was kind of kidding, there. The suggestion was tongue in cheek. Had I continued ruminating there, I would have said no to toy cows and chickens. I was serious, however, when I said the other point, the one about teaching our kids about all of the animals, how and why they were created, and which ones we don't eat. I don't see the harm in letting them play with or observe any animal at all. Kashrut rules still stand.

Playing with a little toy lion doesn't mean that a child will actually grow up thinking that lions are kind and cuddly creatures, in real life. Kids grow to understand that toys are toys, and real life is real life. But the fact is that lions and tigers and bears (oh, my!) are beautiful and amazing, whether or not they are gentle or allowed in terms of kashrut.

Clarissa

Tue, Jan 15 2008, 8:08 am

Ruchel wrote:

I don't see why having a Miss Piggy plushy would be worse than having a dog. A good number of frum Jews have (obviously) non kosher) pets.

Even if someone doesn't have a dog themselves, you can't avoid seeing people walking their cute little pooches. What do they do, cover their children's eyes? And what kid translates seeing, or playing with, an animal to wanting to marinate, grill and eat it?

Crayon210

Tue, Jan 15 2008, 10:40 am

Clarissa wrote:

Ruchel wrote:

I don't see why having a Miss Piggy plushy would be worse than having a dog. A good number of frum Jews have (obviously) non kosher) pets.

Even if someone doesn't have a dog themselves, you can't avoid seeing people walking their cute little pooches. What do they do, cover their children's eyes?

When I'm pregnant I avert my eyes from treif animals. But that's a different story.

Quote:

And what kid translates seeing, or playing with, an animal to wanting to marinate, grill and eat it?

None. That's not why Lubavitch kids don't play with treif animals. It's because of surrounding the child with purity and holiness, and pigs and bears and dogs do not represent purity and holiness (if cassandra is still with us-it's the IMAGE that's the problem, not the skin or fur).

Lechatchila Ariber

Tue, Jan 15 2008, 4:51 pm

Clarissa wrote:

there is no problem with teaching them about the different animals
Lubavitch kids have been taken to farms, played with the rabbits etc.
its the idea of constantly having them surrounded with it.

Quote:

Playing with a little toy lion doesn't mean that a child will actually grow up thinking that lions are kind and cuddly creatures, in real life. Kids grow to understand that toys are toys, and real life is real life. But the fact is that lions and tigers and bears (oh, my!) are beautiful and amazing, whether or not they are gentle or allowed in terms of kashrut.

Oh I just HAVE to answer this one.
Years ago I used to do some teaching and I've seen kids:
roar like a lion and end up hurting other kids,
repeatedly hurt other kids with the excuse they are power ranges,
... etc

so you still want to tell me they are just toys?

We can learn how amazing all those animals are without steeping them in an environment with treif animals.

you seem to think that lubavitchers shield their kids from actually knowing these creatures exist. This is not so!

amother

Tue, Jan 15 2008, 4:56 pm

EstiS wrote:

you seem to think that lubavitchers shield their kids from actually knowing these creatures exist. This is not so!

I have a Rabbi and Reb. who are Lubavitch (anon to protect their id) and when their first was growing up, whenever he'd see a dog he'd say "cow!" All treif animals were a cow. Of course that changed when he got older, but I just think that's weird.

I get the whole, not having a stuffed teddy bear, even though I don't hold by it (though I do think it's adorable when dd hugs his stuffed torah), but to not use their real names?