On hybridization, gmo’s and more

The Lubavitcher Rebbe in a sicha on parshas Balak said the following:

Bilaam attempted to curse the Bnei Yisrael, but G-d caused him to bless them and praise them instead. Extolling Bnei Yisrael’s great merits and their endearment to G-d, Bilaam said, “Who has counted the dust of Yaakov?” According to one interpretation brought by Rashi, Bilaam was saying, “Even the mitzvos they observe with dust are innumerable!” For example, says Rashi, the Jewish people are commanded not to harness an ox and a donkey together when plowing the earth (Devarim 22:10), not to sow their fields with a mixture of seeds (Vayikra 19:19), and many similar mitzvos.

The Talmud enumerates several mitzvos that the Torah demands not only of Bnei Yisrael, but also of all of humankind, the children of Noach. Among the observances incumbent upon non-Jews as well, are the prohibition to crossbreed animals and the prohibition of grafting different species of trees together. Still, as the Talmud (Sanhedrin 56b) notes, only limited forms of these hybridizations are forbidden for gentiles. “They are permitted to… sow diverse seeds together; they are forbidden only to hybridize animals and to graft trees of different kinds.” The Torah prohibits a non-Jew only from direct and active mutation of nature, such as crossbreeding animals or grafting one species of tree upon another.

For a Jew, however, the prohibitions of this nature are much broader in scope. The Torah prohibits a Jew from even joining two different animals to plow under one yoke, or from planting a mixture of seeds—in which the hybridization happens on its own.

Based on Likutei Sichos, vol. 38, p. 96, fn. 50

 

After reading this sicha, I started to think to myself that since hybridization is forbidden to the Jews, and even on some level to non Jews,  perhaps that is why so many people are having problems with gluten and wheat. Because wheat used to be a healthy grain. But from 1960 the wheat harvested in America is wheat that is a hybrid product and no longer the original wheat. Since hybridization is forbidden to the Jewish people, perhaps our bodies reject it and develop antibodies to it….perhaps that is one explanation for the rise in gluten intolerance and even celiac.

When we human beings tamper with nature the way G-d created it, the results are not positive because our bodies are not created to digest such foods.

Definitely GMO foods are in that category. These are not things G-d wants or created. When we try to “improve” G-ds creation we can never win.

The more we get back to nature and to living the kind of life G-d created us to live, the happier and healthier we will be.