Vegetarianism and Parshat Noach

When I was growing up, I remember a Rabbi teaching me that all living things need to eat, but the difference between a human being and animal was that the human being could ascribe meaning to the act of eating and even raise eating to a holy dimension. Humans are capable of using their food to feed the needy and of stopping to thank G-d for the sustenance that they receive. In today’s parasha, eating takes on a dimension not found in the beginning chapter of Bereishit. At the beginning of the creation story, human beings are instructed to eat freely from every tree of the garden, and every herb of the field. It isn’t until Genesis chapter 9:3 that human beings are permitted to eat meat. Rabbi Abraham Isaac Hakohen Kook, the first Chief Rabbi of pre-state Israel in the early 20th century, felt that the permission given to Noah and succeeding generations to eat meat was a temporary concession. He felt that G-d would not create an everlasting law that permitted the killing of animals for food. According to Kook’s views, the degeneration of humanity to an all time low, caused G-d to concede to the people’s weakness and to give them permission to eat meat. At that time humans would even sever a limb off a live animal and eat it. So the rules changed. In Genesis 9:3 we read “Every moving thing that lives shall be food for you; as the green herb have I given you all. Rav Kook felt that individuals were going to need to concentrate on fixing the relationships that had deteriorated between human beings before worrying about controlling their hunger for consuming flesh. Another commentator, Polish Rabbi Isaak Hebenstreit, wrote in 1929 that G-d never wanted people to eat meat because it involved cruelty. He felt that “people shouldn’t kill any living thing and fill their stomachs by destroying others.” He saw the temporary permission to eat meat as a result of the fact that too much plant life was destroyed during the flood. It is also important to note that there was a stipulation made against eating blood while eating meat. In Genesis 9:4 we read, “Only flesh with the life thereof, which is the blood thereof, shall ye not eat.” As you know, one of the key components of kashruth to this day is the removal of blood from the meat. The removal of blood is designed to teach one reverence for life. For those who follow the laws of kashrut, it becomes obvious that the taking of an animal life for the purposes of eating, is not a casual matter. No matter what one’s dietary preference is, it is important to remember that Judaism does permit the eating of meat, although vegetarianism is also an acceptable shift in one’s diet as long as it is not based upon the concept that we have no moral right to kill animals. Unlike the PETA movement, Judaism does see humanbeings as having a unique status among all of the creatures of creation. As Rabbi Moshe Chaim Luzatto, an 18th century kabbalist pointed out, both animals and humans have souls, but the souls of humans and animals are not created equal. The human has the ability to choose to help the hungry rather than hoarding more food for him/herself. If one chooses vegetarianism, an acceptable Jewish point of view a reason would be that it is an attempt not to bring pain to animals. It is an attempt to show compassion for animals. I’d like to end with a story found on the Simple to Remember website about showing compassion for animals. It goes like this: In a small European village a shochet fetched some water to apply to his blade in the preparation process. At a distance he observed a very old man watching him and shaking his head from side to side disapprovingly. Finally the young shochet asked the old man for an explanation. The old man replied that as he watched him prepare the blade, it brought back memories of many years earlier when, as a young man, he had observed the saintly Rabbi Israel Baal Shem Tov (founder of the Chassidic movement) doing the same thing. But the difference he explained was that Rabbi Israel did not need to fetch water in order to sharpen the blade- rather the tears that streamed from his eyes were adequate. Shabbat Shalom.