JERUSALEM—Ending a strict, six-millennia prohibition of the consumption of cloven-hoofed beasts, the World Rabbinical Council announced Tuesday that Jews worldwide may “dig in to the delicious taste of ham.”

“The Jewish people have always had the utmost reverence for the laws of God, as handed down from Abraham to his son Isaac, to his son Jacob.

However, from time to time, it is necessary to make slight revisions and modernizations to these laws,” said council president Rabbi Menachem Saperstein, sucking on a hambone, his white beard soaked with succulent ham drippings. “As no less a Talmudic scholar than Moses Maimonides once wrote, ‘Change is the way of the Lord.’”

Added Saperstein, “Mmm… this is some tasty ham.”

According to Rabbi David Feinberg, head of the American Congress of Orthodox Rabbis, the newly approved ham will be incorporated into a number of Jewish customs.

“During the Passover seder, which commemorates our people’s deliverance from slavery in Egypt, we will remember the day God brought us unto the Land of Milk and Honey by drinking a tall glass of milk with a thick slice of honey-glazed ham,” Feinberg said. “And joining the charoses and maror on the seder plate will be a ham roll, symbolizing the juicy, mouth-watering taste of freedom.”

Feinberg also noted that an abbreviated version of Passover, to be called Hamover, will be observed on the third Saturday of every month. The new holiday, he said, will involve “the eating of tons of ham.”

Read More Here

[I hope this was done in the spirit of progress and not to get a free hand out of ham soup in France-ed (see link below about story of free ham soup in France)]

http://www.ejpress.org/article/5167