Our Gemara discusses various situations of meat and food whose chain of custody was broken, and thus we are unsure whether it is kosher. One such case discussed is when a kite bird swooped down and grabbed a piece of meat, and then brought it back. The question being, can we assume it is the same piece of meat, or another?

This is similar to the situation described in Melachim (I:17:6) that ravens brought food to Eliyahu HaNavi while he was on the run hiding out from Izevel’s assassins. The Gemara Chulin (5a) says that the meat came from King Ahab’s kitchen (and deals with the concerns of its kashrus, which are technical, but clearly the meat was meant by his staff to be kosher.  However, the Midrash (Bamidbar Rabbah 23) says it came from King Yehoshafat’s kitchen. King Ahab was an idolator, in charge of the non Judah portions of the kingdom, while Yehoshafat was a G-d fearing king, in charge of Judah, and continuing the Davidic monarchy.) 

Years ago I heard in a Shiur from Rabbi Avigdor Miller ZT”L who said, you see from this, that idolatry Was not so simple. The idolaters may have still been devout in numerous ways. Here we see that king Ahab kept the kitchen kosher enough for Eliyahu HaNavi and yet he was steeped in idolatry. Rabbi Miller drew a comparison to modern religious life, where we act with all kinds of pious activities, and yet have televisions in our homes. If he were around today he would be discussing the Internet and smartphones. His point being, that our hypocrisies and inconsistencies follow a pattern of human behavior that seems to be age old. He also was saying, we should not feel proud of ourselves that we are especially holy because we do not worship idols. Idolatry has not much of a draw in the modern world, but we have our own idols and false prophets.

As a side point, one might ask on Rabbi Miller that the Midrash Rabbah seems to argue and make the opposite point, That the ravens specifically did not take the meat from King Ahab’s kitchen, and instead went to King Yehoshafat’s kitchen! However, it is not a refutation. A close reading of the text tells us that the ravens refused to take meat from the kitchen of king Ahab because they did not want to have association with an idolater. This implies that the meat itself was technically kosher and fit for consumption. Otherwise, they would have had a more concrete and tangible reason to refuse his meat. So Rav Miller‘s original thesis is maintained even according to the Midrash Rabbah, that at least as far as King Ahab is concerned, he was keeping a Glatt kosher kitchen.