Many interpret Jesus’ clash with the Pharisees over the matter of food laws (Mark 7 and Matthew 15) as demonstrating that Jesus’ central concern was addition of own man-made laws to the core of Torah. I am convinced that Jesus was doing something much more radical – He was declaring the abolition of the Torah purity laws.
I believe that the strength of my proposal lies in how well it explains why (1) Jesus immediately withdraws from public to explain His teaching (in the Markan account, see verses 17 and ff) and; (2) why the Pharisees ultimately sought Jesus’ death. The view that Jesus is simply critiquing Pharasaic extensions to Torah does not explain these things nearly as well. Granted, if the dispute is really about man-made addition to Torah, there is a sense in which both (1) and (2) appear to be explained: Jesus needs to withdraw from public to explain the parable since the Pharisees are angry at being challenged and, ultimately, they seek His death since they view Him as a challenge to their authority in respect to interpreting Torah.
This line of thinking is, I suggest, the path of least intellectual resistance, and ultimately does not work. First, such an analysis pre-supposes that the Pharisees had a general habit of responding with murderous intent to those who challenged their interpretation of Torah. I suggest that a proper knowledge of history suggests otherwise. While the Pharisees often hotly debated Torah interpretation among themselves, there is no record of them resorting to violence against one another over such matters. There is no record at all of violent clashes between the Shammaites and the Hillelites – two Pharisaical schools of thought that disagreed significantly on how to properly interpret the Torah.
In summary, then, the history suggests that the Pharisees would not respond to debates over Torah interpretation with violent wrath – they were continually engaged in such disputes without seeking the deaths of those with whom they differed. So if Jesus is merely telling the Pharisees that they have gone beyond the intent of Torah with their rules about handwashing, that would hardly explain why Jesus had to withdraw from public (Mark 7:17 and following). Now, if, as I suggest, Jesus is really declaring the end of the Levitical purity laws (“In saying this, Jesus declared all foods ‘clean’â€Â), then we have a credible explanation for why the Pharisees would seek the demise of Jesus - any declaration like that would strike to the very heart of Jewish self-identity (this will be elaborated below).
I can imagine that an objector would appeal to this statement from Jesus to sustain the view that Jesus is indeed concerned with Pharisaical additions to the law:
8 You have let go of the commands of God and are holding onto the traditions of men.
And, in following verses, we have more of the same – Jesus is indeed critiquing the Pharisees for their man-made additions to Torah. But if, as I have been arguing, this explains neither the need for Jesus to explain himself in private nor the fact that the Pharisees ultimately sought his death, we need to ask if something more fundamental (and more challenging to the Pharisees) is going on here. Of course, any such explanation would need to at least make sense of why Jesus does indeed rebuke the Pharisees for adding to Torah.
I suggest that my proposal succeeds on both counts. First, I suggest that it is self-evident that a declaration of the overturning of the food laws easily explains the move to seek Jesus’ death in a way in which a dispute over the technicalities of interpreting Torah would not. I will expand on this shortly. Second, we can indeed make sense of Jesus’ rebuke of Pharasaical additions to Torah in the context of the view that Jesus is overturning the Levitical food laws. More specifically, we can understand such a rebuke as an expression of Jesus’s view that He, and not the Pharisees has the right to make determinations about the status of the Torah. In short, we err if we see the content of the material in verses 6 to 9 of the Markan version, as Jesus’ main point. Instead, the main point is that Jesus is setting Himself up as the authority on matters related to Torah by challenging the Pharisees on handwashing. He goes on to declare the abolition of the food laws, but does so privately so as to not bring about His own death before the time is right.
Now to fill in the case for why abolition of the purity laws would elicit violent wrath from the Pharisees. Most Christians have a general sense that the Pharisees were “zealous†for Torah. But what are the underpinnings of such zeal? I suggest that the Pharisees saws certain elements of the Torah – in particular, Sabbath, circumcision, food laws, and the Land – as “ethnic boundary markers†that demarcate the Jew from his pagan neighbours. While I will not argue the point in detail here, it should be clear that a central element of Jesus’ program was a re-definition of who the true people of God were. Here, we have a clear case from Jesus that the people of God is not to be simply identified with ethnic Israel:
I say to you that many will come from east and west, and recline at the table with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven; 12but the sons of the kingdom will be cast out into the outer darkness; in that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth."
Here we have a clear re-working of the boundary markers of the people of God – and the markers, whatever they turn out to be, are certainly not the ethnic markers provided by Torah such as the food laws – clearly Jesus is implying that Gentiles will be at the great banquet while some Jews will not. The parable of the Good Samaritan makes the same point – the Samaritan is deemed to be a member of God’s family even though he is not Jewish. Note, also, that Paul goes to great lengths to mount same argument – his concept of a “true Israel†as set against “ethnic Israel†(e.g. Romans 9) shows that he, too, sees the boundary marker of the true people of God as both including some Gentiles and excluding some Jews.
Given these other teachings from Jesus (and Paul as well), a declaration of the end of the kosher food laws should not be surprising. Such laws functioned as boundary markers for the people of God. Naturally enough, as the self-appointed guardians of Jewish national identity, the Pharisees would take greate exception to any challenge to the legitimacy of such markers. If Jesus really is re-defining the true people of God, then it makes perfect sense that he would declare the end of the very markers that sustained the old picture where only the Jew has God’s favour.
and that it is necessary to forgo meat on certain days. 
So, I know exactly what you mean. My husband doesn't yet realize that I don't eat them. It, to me, is a personal choice for health and to follow Him. 