On Sun, 14 Dec 2008 22:30:37 -0500 Shane Mage <shmage at pipeline.com> wrote:
> Clearly it is the presence of *blood* in the egg, fertilized or not,
> that makes it trief. A fertilized egg without blood spot is thus
> kosher, whether fried in butter or in oil. A fertilized egg that has
> gestated to the point where blood is visible may have gone bad and so
> should be shunned by anyone, Orthodox or not.
A careful and lengthy study of the sages leads to the inescapable conclusion that the blood is not a problem *per se*. If you're sure the egg doesn't contain a gestating fowl, then just scoop the blood out and scramble the fucker (in butter or not) and eat it with your lox.
But if you have reason to believe the blood represents a little developing pullunculus -- bzzt! Treyf!
Eggs, it turns out, can be treated and innocently eaten as meat rather than pareve in some cases -- e.g. if they're found in the body of a slaughtered fowl.
All of which makes the rabbis a little less absolutist -- but only a little -- than the Vatican. For the rabbis, it seems, fertilization as such is not the issue -- it's the presence of a detectable embryo. A nice rule-of-thumb preclinical view of the matter. For the Vatican, which is apparently modern and progressive enough to have benefited from a close study of embryology, fertilization has become the bright line.
--
Michael Smith mjs at smithbowen.net http://stopmebeforeivoteagain.org