sauntered vaguely gayward

Brynn. Over 30 goddamn years old and tired af. Jewish. Transmasc, he/him. Queer. Also: Neurodivergent, disabled disaster. Too tired for everyone's bullshit, including my own. Expect pictures of dogs & cats, sneks & lizzurbs & birbs, Venom, MCU, Good Omens, She-Ra, Dungeons & Dragons, The Raven Cycle, Pokémon, Digimon, monsterfuckery, furry art, autism and ADHD stuff, stuff about Judaism, and more. Current icon made in collaboration with the talented, wonderful ran196242. Find me on AO3 at Brynncognito.

[azcrowleyfell]

Needed a new pinned post.

I'm basically on permanent/indefinite (semi-)hiatus from Tumblr.

I'll still occasionally pop on here for a few, but don't expect to see me on regularly or for long periods of time.

I've got bills to pay and shit.

[snissel613]

why arent corals kosher

I refuse to believe that Halakha recognizes coral as a fish and not at most a plant

[knaidelmaidel]

let me get this straight, you want to try to eat it???

[snissel613]

all I’m saying that if I did, Hashem wouldn’t stop me

[knaidelmaidel]

i mean בדרך שאדם רוצה ללכת and all that, but someone should stop you

[justanormalpersin]

If it isn't edible, it doesn't need to be kosher. If you want to eat a rock, you don't have to worry about it being kosher. You still shouldn't eat rocks

its not an avera , but it is still a really dumb idea

[snissel613]

you can even argue that being dumb and eating rocks is an aveira. But it's a different aveira

[clayandsorcery]

I need goyim to understand that this is literally what passages of Talmud look like.

[cantotallyeven]

[steelwoolf]

I have questions about whether we’re eating live coral, like a parrotfish swimming around biting chunks off the reef. If we’re doing that, coral shouldn’t be kosher because the little coral animals lack fins and scales. If we’re eating the calcium carbonate deposits the corals have left behind after dying and decomposing, that’s an entirely different question.

Depending on the size and amount of coral you eat, eating coral wouldn’t be bad for you. Are you swallowing large enough chunks to cause intestinal blockages? or grinding it up and using it as an additive? People use coral as a source of calcium in vitamins.

But given that corals globally are in danger due to warming oceans, please don’t eat coral.

[snissel613]

I do t think live coral needs fins and scales to be kosher for the same reason that seaweed doesn’t need fins and scales to be kosher

[tikkunhayam]

I would argue that halachically, corals should count as shellfish. In that they live in the water but have no bones, but possibly a calcium carbonate “shell” that the soft coral animal retreats into. Even fleshy soft corals such as Xenia and the various leather corals found in the red and Mediterranean seas would likely more closely resemble slugs or clams if not considered algae.

Not to mention many species of soft or large polyp stony corals (much more edible upon initial impression, compared to small polyp stony corals) are toxic. Dying of Palythoa toxicity is NOT kosher.

[fromchaostocosmos]

Also if one where to break a piece of coral off of the main body and eat it wouldn't that violate the Miztvah the forbids from eating a part of an animal while the animal still lives?

I would argue is does.

[penrosesun]

Breaking a piece of coral off to eat it would not violate the commandment to not eat a part of a still-living animal because the coral in a colony, not a single being. It would be like eating a handful of bees out of a hive, which, while treif and also inadvisable, would not be a violation the way that eating the claw of a Florida stone crab would.

As for why someone would eat the calcium carbonate deposits left behind by dead coral, I’d have to assume that we’d be talking about someone who is doing so for some sort of mystical or pseudoscientific reason, as I can think of few culinary or nutritional uses for calcium carbonate to begin with, and none at all that you couldn’t better source from other places. If the reasoning is anything to do with spirits and crystals and energy resonances, then it may be an avera on additional grounds, by virtue of maybe being some form of avodah zara.

[lethalbutterfly]

Calcium carbonate is the same stuff as Tums, so theoretically eating dead coral could help with heartburn, but in most cases it would just be easier to find and acquire tums. That being said I would not oversimplify the diversity of the human experience to the point that I would assume an underwater heartburn emergency could never occur. It would be contrived af though.

[penrosesun]

Hmm. I suppose if people were consuming it medicinally, then it would be equivalent to the Bekhorot 7b ruling on the medicinal consumption of donkey urine (and therefore treif, but not completely ill-advised)

[keshetchai]

Oh, also good for osteoporosis, I suppose!

But yeah, it all goes back to "seems easier to just use regular ol' marble dust.

...related important question: are we sure that coral is considered alive, and an animal of any kind, like, halakhically speaking?

I mean:

Coral doesn't bleed (which is the important part about eating a still living animal)

They don't have lungs or gills

They generally don't move? (I guess corallimorphs can...kinda crawl? But otherwise no they don't move).

How is coral really different from like, fungi above water? Sure it can be a collective mass (mushrooms and their mycellium colonies!), but it's not capable of bleeding, and it doesn't have lungs or gills, and it doesn't really move. It just kinda...spreads.

I'm just saying we have to establish that coral is significantly different from like, a portobello mushroom. Fungi are kosher but aren't technically plants.

[keshetchai]

No because fungi are bottom feeders of the ground and yet mushrooms are kosher.

The issue is whether or not these are creatures according to Torah. From Leviticus 11:

These you may eat of all that live in water: anything in water, whether in the seas or in the streams, that has fins and scales—these you may eat.

But anything in the seas or in the streams that has no fins and scales, among all the swarming things of the water and among all the other living creatures that are in the water—they are an abomination for you

and an abomination for you they shall remain: you shall not eat of their flesh and you shall abominate their carcasses.

Everything in water that has no fins and scales shall be an abomination for you.

Now, I am going to reference Bible hub here mostly because they have a nice Strong's Hebrew concordance feature that sefaria doesn't have that is easy to copy and paste from.

But basically I would argue that the important words we have to distinguish here are:

the teeming

שֶׁ֣רֶץ (še·reṣ)

Noun - masculine singular construct

Strong's 8318: A swarm, active mass of minute animals

life

הַחַיָּ֖ה (ha·ḥay·yāh)

Article | Adjective - feminine singular

Strong's 2416: Alive, raw, fresh, strong, life

and creatures

נֶ֥פֶשׁ (ne·p̄eš)

Noun - feminine singular

Strong's 5315: A soul, living being, life, self, person, desire, passion, appetite, emotion

So. Is coral an active (teeming) mass of minute animals? Well. It is a living colony in the same way that mushrooms are colonies of living things. But other things that swarm or teem are like... krill. shrimp. Locusts. Flies. Ants.

Y'know, stuff that moves. Swarms. Coral doesn't teem or swarm. It's static.

Which leaves us with living and creatures.

I would argue again that "living" implies regular movement — for example, you can have living waters. (Same root word for mayyim chayyim).

But also the other terms which appear beside the root word for life/living over and over again are basically:

Creeping, moving (Strong's 7430 רָמַשׂ ramas)

Flesh (Strong's 1320 בָּשָׂר basar)

Flying or soaring (5774 עוּף)

Having a soul (or literal breath) (5315, נֶפֶשׁ)

And nefesh is of course, also the last one in that list!

So is coral alive in the way Torah usually means things are living beings? Well, coral doesn't creep or move. It also doesn't have blood (which, arguably, means it can't have a carcass. It sort of has bones! But no carcass). It...MIGHT have flesh? I'm sort of unclear about this.

It can't fly or soar.

Which leaves us with:

Do corals have flesh? and,

do corals have souls? And if not metaphorically souls, do they have breath?

Well, coral do respirate. But so do plants. And neither of them have lungs. Also according to @montereybayaquarium's website coral get oxygen from algae? (Don't worry Monterey bay aquarium no one is actually going to eat the coral, this is all hypothetical)

Coral reefs get their bright colors from the algae — called zooxanthellae — living in their tissues. The zooanthellae provide the coral polyps with oxygen and nutrients produced from photosynthesis. In return, the coral polyps provide zooanthellae with carbon dioxide (a byproduct of the polyps’ “breathing” oxygen) and shelter.

Coral polyps can have mouths, but they don't really breathe with lungs. So I'm not sure they have that kind of nefesh (breath of life). And corals are like, a bunch of skeletal base material with living polyps on the top. But are they fleshy? But all their color comes from the algae living in them.

For this I go back to the presence of blood being a big factor, because again, mushrooms have flesh but don't have blood, and so halakhically...that fungi is a plant.

Also apparently Octocorals don't have those exoskeletons? So at that point how would we know something is an octocoral versus like...a seaweed?

I think either seaweed isn't meant to be kosher, or actually corals are kosher because seaweed is. Oysters have gills and hearts. Scallops have a gajillion eyes. Really easy to see those aren't plants.

Basically if you look at a coral does it have a breath and soul, does it fly or creep, does it bleed, does it have flesh, does it move around in general? Could it possibly be a plant, halakhically speaking? (Not by scientific taxonomy!) Would bronze age folks look at it and go "yeah, that's a plant."? Also important: what IS a plant? Halakhically?

Many such questions. Anyways I don't think corals have souls.

[yedidnefesh]

So... The Gemara does seem to view coral as a tree, or at least it discusses coral as producing wood in Rosh Hashanah 23a. OP appears to be in the right that it's halachically a plant!

[tikkunhayam]

That’s actually a fantastic point. I didn’t consider if at first because it’s not a snackable species, but the precious corals (Corallium) are found fairly commonly in the Mediterranean. Although they are octocorals, they have a hard skeleton that grows in a distinctive tree-like pattern. Moreso, the small polyp size means that there is little distinctive segregation on the skeleton, unlike similarly structured stony corals. I’ve attached an image of Corallium rubrum (the species ancient Israelites would have come into contact with) with a common Red Sea acropora for comparison.

Although Acropora horrida (second image) is definitely tree-like in branching patterns, the smooth surface of the Corallium (top) is much more easily intuited as simply a red branch. Not to mention, the skeleton of octocorals is fairly soft! It’s made of intermeshed spicules of calcium carbonate, versus the more crystallized structure of the calcium carbonate of true hard corals. You can almost think of it as balsa wood structure versus hardwood which is really only relevant in that it’s great for carving jewelry! Precious corals also live in very deep water and would be unlikely to have been specifically observed in their living form (below)

All of this to say. The corals the ancient rabbis had familiarity with would absolutely more resemble wood than animals on pretty much every level.

[azcrowleyfell]

Gone

Still I remain

Bereft

Chest-cracking, rib-breaking

Torn asunder

Split and spilled open

Over-welling

Cavernous echo

Longing, yearning, unanswered

[kotse]

anthony joe crowley

support me on kofi

[elizabetharte]

🐍: Apples?

[artbeanwithaj]

HAPPY VALENTINE 💌

[mumblers-lobby]

it's been 2 years already since their divorce? unbelievable.

[c0smicdisaster]

I'm starting to fall behind but I'm still going!

Day 10 ; Pub

[thejewitches]

The crimson pomegranate family is perfect for all pom lovers.

You can shop here.

[alwaystuesday]

"I lied"

My paintings now a pair as nature intended

Click for full quality

Prints | Ko-fi

[rbarrysncream]

“Well…you said ‘trust me.’”

“….And you did.”

[johnnythecheesy]

Flamey Man

Posted using PostyBirb

[stickyswords]

Little guys in a line

[angemonn]

THEIR BABY CHOICES 

[waitingforthecat]

Image description: screenshots from Digimon Frontier.

The first shows Salamon/Plotmon standing on top of Patamons head, who stands on Lopmons head. They are in a field of flowers. The subtitles read: “[laughter]”.

The second shows the kids, Neemon and Bokomon, everyone is holding a baby level digimon. Kouichi holds a Poyomon, Kouji holds a Tokomon, Izumi holds Poromon, Neemon holds a Minomon, Junpei holds a Mochimon, Tomoki holds a Uppamon, Takuya holds a Chicomon, and Bokomon holds a Bubbmon.

[intriga-hounds]

fatherhood amirite???

[intriga-hounds]

sivi met his granddaughter tonight

he did not like it

[boxheadpaint]

not a single happy camper in this image

[serendipitous-snoots]

some photos of Hilla (and a few @intriga-hounds) Scampering