Reason enough!

Many people are sharing their opinions with the world these days by adding their comments to blogs and websites (and you, dear reader, are invited to add your comments to this blog!).  A comment that I have seen on a number of occasions is one which disdains the rabbis for focusing their attention on - what the person writing the comment thinks is - trivial in the "greater scheme of things."  They often use the topic of infestation of fruits and vegetables such a strawberries as an example of what irks them.  They wonder why the rabbis "obsess" about "invisible" bugs as though somehow the rabbis have only x amount of time and if they use it on bugs in our food, they won't give the proper attention to predators in our midst.

Rashi tells us in parshas Shemini 11: 45 that if Hashem took us out of Egypt only so that we don't defile ourselves with swarming things like the other nations do, that would have been reason enough!

Yes, there are important issues in Jewish society that needs the attention of our leaders, but lavin d'oraisa (Biblical prohibitions) rank way up there in G-d's scheme of things and this particular prohibition of not to consume insects was reason enough for G-d to take us out of Egypt! Let's get our priorities straight.