Vegetarianism and Kashrut
The moral and theological implications of vegetarianism can be seen as a
challenge to the rabbinic tradition.
Rabbi Louis Jacobs
Reprinted from Louis Jacobs, The Jewish Religion: A Companion,
published by Oxford University Press. Despite Rabbi Jacobs' arguments in the
last paragraph, a number of prominent rabbinic figures of the recent past have
been vegetarians, including Rabbi Avraham Yitzhak Hacohen Kook ("Rav
Kook," 1865-1935), the first Ashkenazi chief rabbi of Eretz Yisrael.
Vegetarians often quote two biblical passages in support of
their view that it is morally wrong for human beings to kill animals for food.
In the creation narrative (Genesis 2:29-30) both man and animals were given the
herbs of the field for their food and they were not permitted to prey on one
another. In Isaiah's vision (Isaiah 11:7), "the lion shall eat straw like
an ox." The first passage, however, only expresses the ideal that obtained
at the beginning of creation and the second an ideal for 'the end of days,'
later understood as referring to the Messianic age. It is nowhere stated in the
Bible that in the here and now vegetarianism is an ideal. On the contrary, when
Noah and his sons emerge from the ark, the animals are given to them as food.
In any event, in Judaism attitudes are not formed simply on the basis of
biblical verses culled from here and there but on the way the teachers of
Judaism have interpreted the religion throughout the ages.
To
be sure, Judaism is firmly opposed to cruelty to animals, but it does allow man
to use animals for his needs—to work for him and provide him with wool, skins,
and milk, for instance—and even permits him to kill them for food, though
insisting that the pain caused to animals in the process be reduced to a
minimum. The Talmud (Pesahim 109a)
states that meat and wine are the means by which man 'rejoices' and it is on
this basis that it has long been customary for Jews to eat meat and drink wine
on the festivals. In the Kabbalah, the further idea is introduced that when man
eats the meat of animals and then worships his Maker with renewed strength he
'elevates' the animal by using the strength it has given him in the service of
God. This is the Kabbalistic explanation of why the Talmud (Pesahim 49b) states that an am ha-aretz, the man who does not study
Torah, may not eat meat.
There
is, of course, no actual obligation for a man to eat meat and there are even a
number of Jewish vegetarian societies. But it can be argued that for a Jew to
adopt vegetarianism on the grounds that it is wrong to kill animals for food is
to introduce a moral and theological idea that implies that Judaism has, in
fact, been wrong all the time in not advocating vegetarianism. For this reason
many traditional Jews look askance at the advocacy of vegetarianism as a way of
life superior to the traditional Jewish way. Some pious Jews in the past did
not eat meat, but this was either as a penance or in order to control the
appetites, not as an idealistic stance in which the killing of animals for food
is in itself morally wrong. A further point worthy of mention is that the
suggestion made by some vegetarians that it is wrong to use animals because
they have equal rights to humans is
risky, in that it tends to obliterate the distinctions between animals and
human beings created in the image of God.
Louis Jacobs is an British rabbi and
theologian whose many books include Studies in Talmudic Logic and
Methodology and translations of Moshe
Cordovero's Palm Tree of Deborah and
Dov Beer Schneersohn's Tract on Ecstasy.
© Louis Jacobs, 1995. Published by Oxford
University Press. All rights reserved. No part of this material may be stored,
transmitted, retransmitted, lent, or reproduced in any form or medium without
the permission of Oxford University Press.
