What is the whole issue of eating cheese that is “kosher”? One set of opinions I read says that most processed cheese is not kosher, and another set of opinions says most processed cheese is just fine.
Curdling animal milk to make cheese is one of the oldest practices in human culinary history, and was something certainly found in the Ancient Near Eastern diet of Ancient Israel, as well as the Mediterranean diet of Second Temple Judaism and its Diaspora. While cheeses have been produced by the Jewish community for centuries, the issue of procuring cheese from a non-Jewish source, which may have been produced using the milk, or some other byproduct, of a non-kosher animal, has seen to the issuance of many Rabbinic directives. In the more modern period, especially in North America with its agriculture highly regulated, the issue of rennet for cheese production, introducing the rennin enzyme for the coagulation of the milk, is debated within the Jewish community. On the whole, Orthodox Jews will only eat certified-kosher cheese which has been produced entirely under Rabbinic supervision.[1] Conservative Jews, on the other hand, are generally prone to consider all commercially-produced cheeses as being kosher.[2]
There has not been a huge amount of contemporary Messianic discussion about the issue of cheese, but among that which has been printed and widely disseminated, there has been a tendency to lean toward a somewhat Orthodox Jewish approach to cheesemaking.[3]
Many of today’s Messianic people, Jewish or non-Jewish, are not too familiar with the issues of cheese production, and the debates over rennet between Orthodox and Conservative Jewish authorities. Given the fact that most kosher-friendly Messianic people are prone to only keep a kosher-style diet, mainly avoiding pork and shellfish, and with that eating a wide variety of commercially-processed meats—they would similarly be most likely to accept the mainstream Conservative Jewish view on cheese production, which has ruled that most rennet used in cheesemaking is acceptable for Conservative Jews to eat.[4]
NOTES
[1] Yacov Lipschutz, Kashruth: A comprehensive background and reference guide to the principles of Kashruth (Brooklyn: Mesorah Publications, Ltd, 1989), pp 56-57 summarizes the basic Orthodox position on cheese production; Sue Fishkoff, Kosher Nation: Why More and More of America’s Food Answers to a Higher Authority (New York: Schoken Books, 2010), 83 reports how much of the process of making hard cheeses has been streamlined by Orthodox Jews.
[2] Samuel H. Dresner, The Jewish Dietary Laws: Their Meaning for Our Time (New York: The Rabbinical Assembly of America, 1982), pp 64-65 summarizes the basic Conservative Jewish position.
[3] Aaron Eby, Biblically Kosher: A Messianic Jewish Perspective on Kashrut (Marshfield, MO: First Fruits of Zion, 2012), pp 125-126.
[4] Consult the specific summary offered by Isaac Klein, A Guide to Jewish Religious Practice (New York: The Jewish Theological Seminary of America, 1979), 306.
