Here’s one that’s really important because we’ve got a lot of sports fans in this town: touching the skin of a dead pig makes one unclean. Leviticus 11:7. If they promise to wear gloves, can the Washington Redskins still play football? Can Notre Dame? Can West Point?
The question assumes that it is important that people avoid becoming unclean. Why should that be? Uncleanness is not a punishable crime. If a member of the Israelite covenant community touched the skin of a dead pig, they were unclean until the evening (verse 39) which means they could not come to the sanctuary on the same day. If they handled the skin, they should also wash their clothes (verse 40) which, one might assume, football players would do anyway after a match. Given that the use of pig skin is hardly essential to playing American football, ancient Israelites would presumably have used a different leather if they had played American football but they would not have had to call off a match against the Moabites just because the ball was made of dead pig skin.
What’s more the function of these laws was to set apart the Israelites as a holy people of YHWH (cf. verses 44-45; see also Lev 20:24-26). Laws touching all of life were a constant reminder that Israel was to be distinct from other nations. But this does not mean that all the laws were of equal weight and significance. Idolatry and immorality whose seriousness is underlined by the punishment specified for them are the real deal, as it were. Dietary laws were YHWH’s forget-me-not and forget-not-that-you-are-to-be-holy.
The different cultures suggested by the reference to three football clubs [*] highlights how strange it would be to make dietary laws a universal norm, thereby erasing cultural distinctives. It would be like requiring all teams to wear the same jerseys. The church has always made a distinction between, on the one hand, laws which reflect God’s character which God’s people are to imitate at all times and in all places, and on the other hand, laws which were given to Israel specifically to mark them out as distinct and remind them of the call to be holy to YHWH.
See also Hayim Donin's comments on the dietary laws.
[*] The Washington Redskins, founded in 1932 as the Boston Braves and renamed “Redskins” after they moved to Fenway Park, were under pressure from major sponsors to change their name and since July 2020 are the Washington Football Team.
The Notre Dame Fighting Irish football team is the intercollegiate football team representing the University of Notre Dame in Notre Dame, Indiana.
West Point is The United States Military Academy in New York.
