misAdventures of Workmonkey 3.0

While eating breakfast this morning (by morning, of course, I mean 2 PM) at the local diner, a Jewish family of four took the table behind us. After several minutes, their order of two club sandwiches (one with bacon, one without) and onion rings arrived. After a few seconds of silence, I heard the old Jewish grandmother admonish (what I assumed was) her six-year-old grandson:

Old bag: "Simon! Don't eat that bacon!"

Simon: "Why?"

Old bag: "Because it isn't Kosher."

Simon: "But it tastes good."

Old bag: "You're father has explained this to you already."

Simon insisted on the great taste of bacon (as I was eating bacon at the time, I can attest to its tastiness), but to no avail. He was unable to enjoy the pleasures of bacon, at age 6. Why exactly? Because of some rules adult people made about 2200 years ago. Specifically, the rules against bacon (and other pork products) are spelled out in Leviticus, Chapter 11, Verses 7-8:

"And the swine, though he divide the hoof, and be cloven footed, yet he cheweth not the cud; he is unclean to you. Of their flesh shall ye not eat, and their carcass shall ye not touch, they are unclean to you."

Thus, thousands of years later, little six-year-old Simon can't have bacon. This is not a knock on Jewish rules, as rules exist across every religion, culture, and peoples. But I couldn't help thinking what a cheat it was for Simon to have to pay the price of the rules adults created thousands of years specifically intended to tell us how to live, eat, and play without pleasure. In Simon's simple mind, bacon tastes good, so he should be able to eat it. What is Leviticus to him? The adults around him carry the baggage of experience, and thus tried to teach him an important lesson early: There's a bunch of tasty food you can't eat and pleasurable activities you cannot do. Just accept it now, and don't question it, as people smarter and holier than you have already thought it all through. Just follow these rules. As Simon grows older, he'll learn thousands of more rules and restrictions that will strip his life of happiness, until he becomes the cynical, bitter, neurotic man identical to everyone around him.

I watched Simon reluctantly put down the bacon, and pick at his now porkless sandwich. I felt for him. All this human logic and thinking had deprived him of the simple act of eating a crispy strip of goodness. He couldn't even make it past six years of life without feeling the burden most of us feel on a regular basis. The funny part is, Simon's logic, even less two thousand years of development, was more more convincing than his grandmothers: Bacon tastes good, so he should be able to eat it. Unfortunately for Simon, and us, all of our years of thinking has ensured that our world is a whole lot less fun than his. Let's hope it's for something a whole lot better than bacon.