Dear Rabbi,
I’m not questioning IF mushrooms are kosher.
I was wonder what is the source for permission for eating mushrooms.
Given that specific permissions are given for plants, fish, poultry and animals, I would expect that specific permission would be given for mushrooms, which does seem to be classified within any of them – biology nor bracha.
Thank you in advance.
Respectfully,
Moshe Stern
Answer:
The general rule in Judaism is that if something is not prohibited, it is permitted — or in other words, everything is permitted unless it is explicitly prohibited (this principle emerges explicitly from Tosafos, Sukkah 25a, s.v. sheharei).
Based on this general rule, there is no need for special permission to eat mushrooms. Since there is no prohibition against them, it goes without saying that it is permitted to eat them.
Even when Adam was given “permission” to eat from the fruit of the trees, it is possible that this permission was only given in order to state the other side of the coin – the prohibition against eating from the Tree of Knowledge. If there would not have been a related prohibition, it seems that there would be no need for the permission.
Because there is no specie of mushroom that is forbidden (except for poisonous ones!), there is no need for the Torah to state their permission.
Best wishes.
Aren’t we only to eat of plants and food that bear seeds? Mushrooms don’t bear seeds so how can they be kosher? “And God said, Behold, I have given you every herb (bearing seed,) which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in the which is the fruit of a tree (yielding seed;) to you it shall be for meat.”Genesis 1:29
Please see Genesis 9:3, where G-d told Noah “Every moving thing that lives shall be food for you, like the green herbaIhave given you everything”. From this verse we see that all herbage was given to man to eat. If not from the time of Adam, surely from the time of Noah.
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