Anan Ben David - Ananism in Practice

Ananism in Practice

A number of ben David's teachings differ from those of Rabbinic Jews and of the majority of modern Karaites. Anan rejected the admeasurements instituted by the rabbis (shi'urim); and instead of any permissible minimum for prohibited things—which the Talmud admits, as for instance shishim, one part in sixty, or ke-zait, "the size of an olive," etc.—he insisted that even the smallest atom of anything prohibited, mingling with an infinitely large quantity of a thing permitted, was sufficient to render the whole of the latter prohibited.

In addition, he maintained that as long as Israel is in exile the flesh of animals, with the exception of the deer, the pigeon and the turtle-dove, is forbidden from being eaten (although permitted animals may be eaten with dairy). Within Judaism, restrictions on consuming meat and poultry that extend beyond the Rabbinic concept of kashrut are not unique to Ananism—the Talmud relates that after the destruction of the Second Temple certain ascetics (perushim) such as Abu Isa sought to prohibit meat and wine because they had been employed in the Temple ritual, and that Rabbi Joshua ben Hananiah repressed the movement. In modern times, Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook, the first Ashkenazic chief rabbi of the British Mandate for Palestine, did not eat meat and argued that vegetarianism is supported in the Tanakh as a Jewish ideal.