What does the way we care for animals say about us?
Proverbs 12:10 מִשְׁלֵי
יוֹדֵעַ צַדִּיק נֶפֶשׁ בְּהֶמְתּוֹ
A righteous man knows the soul of his animal
You should not sit down to eat until you have first fed your animals (Talmud, Berachot. 40a; Gittin, 62a)
You should not buy an animal unless you can guarantee it will have an adequate food supply (Jerusalem Talmud, Ketubot, 4:8).
Moses and David are often described in our tradition as devoted shepherds who gave every animal in their flock personal attention. It was this trait of their personalities that made them worthy in God’s eyes of leading the Jewish people. ( Exodus Rabbah 2.2)
Once, while Moses was tending the flock of his father-in-law, Jethro, one young sheep ran away. Moses ran after it until the sheep reached a shady place, where he found a pool of water and began to drink. When Moses reached the sheep, he said: ‘I did not know you ran away because you were thirsty. Now, you must be exhausted [from running].’ Moses put the sheep on his shoulders and carried him [back to the herd]. God said, “Because you tend the sheep belonging to human beings with such mercy, you shall be the shepherd of My sheep, Israel.” ( Exodus Rabbah 2:2)
Look upon this land— Touch it. Sand under your bare feet, The squish of mud, Silky coat of cat, Soft rose petals, A smooth round rock, Rain on your face.
Touch it with your eyes. Cherry trees blossoming pink, Lake of blue and summer sky, The green of life, Purple grapes and apples red, Moon rising yellow, Orange sun going down.
Touch it with your ears. Splatter of rain, Crack of thunder, Wind whispering, Birds singing, The crying of babies and puppies, Kittens and ducklings.
Touch it with your nose. Pine-scent of woods, lilacs blooming, new-mown grass, smoke of chimneys, strawberries in the sun.
Touch it with your tongue. Lick of sugar, Tang of lemon, ginger, or spice, Bite of cold snow, Gulp of pure water.
Look upon this land— Touch it. Touch it in every way you can, For this land is part of you, And you are part of it.
Given into your care is this earth. See how beautiful it is. Be careful not to spoil it, For if you destroy the world, There will be no one after you to restore it.
(Molly Cone, Listen to the Trees, UAHC press, 1995, pp. 42-43)
Molly Cone was a well known children’s author, having published over 45 books. She was a founding member of Temple Beth Am in Seattle.
19. When you hold a siege on a city for many days, to wage war against it, to capture it, you shall not destroy its trees by wielding an ax against them, for you may eat from them, but you shall not cut them down. Is the tree of the fielda man, to go into the siege before you?
For a person is the tree of the field. Behold “ki” serves as a language of ‘perhaps’: is a tree a person such that you should enter into a siege to afflict it with famine and drought like city residents? Why should you destroy it?
ג)כי האדם עץ השדה. הרי כי משמש בלשון דלמא שמא האדם עץ השדה להכנס בתוך המצור מפניך להתיסר ביסורי רעב וצמא כאנשי העיר, למה תשחיתנו:
For a person is the tree of the field. A great Spanish grammarian said that a letter “hey” is missing, and so it is read like this: Is a tree a human? This explanation is incorrect in my eyes… In my opinion there is no need for all of this, and the explanation is as follows: “for you shall eat of it and not cut it down, for a person is the tree of the field” – the meaning is that a person’s life depends on the tree of the field [for food]…
א)כי האדם עץ השדה. ומדקדק גדול ספרדי אמר כי חסר ה”א וכן הוא הכי האדם עץ השדה וזה הטעם איננו נכון בעיני… ולפי דעתי שאין לנו צורך לכל זה וזה פירושו כי ממנו תאכל ואותו לא תכרות כי האדם עץ השדה והטעם כי חיי בן אדם הוא עץ השדה
Secondary Sources: Animals and People – Killing Animals and Killing People
Bereshit Chapter 9:1-7- בְּרֵאשִׁית
You are permitted to use the animals and employ them for work, rule over them in order to utilize their services for your survival, but you must not hold their life cheap or kill them for food. Your natural diet is vegetarian… Apparently the Torah was in principle opposed to the eating of meat. When Noah and his descendants were permitted to eat meat this was a concession conditional on the law against eating blood. This law implied respect for the principle of life (“for the blood is the life”) and hints that in reality all meat should have been prohibited. This restriction was designed to call to mind the previous total one. Cassuto: From Adam to Noah, on Genesis 1:27 Image source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Umberto_Cassuto
Umberto Cassuto was also known as Moshe David Cassuto (1883–1951).
He was a rabbi and Biblical scholar born in Florence, Italy.
Since the land had become filled with violence and man had allowed himself to do terrible things, man was no longer required to go without killing animals for food. It was far more important that he should control himself and hold back from killing other human beings, and respect the life of his neighbor.
Nehama Leibowitz on Rav Kook, Professor Nehama Leibowitz was a famous Israeli Bible scholar who developed a particular style of Bible study that was very popular around the world. Image source: www.lookstein.org/nechama_biography.html
I permitted you to shed the blood of every living except your own blood which I did not permit since you are human. I shall require it …. This is a general rule. Subsequently the text explains its detailed application. “By the hand of man” – if many slay a single person or one individual another, I shall seek out the blood. I shall also seek it out from any beast, by commanding another to slay it. For animals are permitted to you but not you to them.
Abraham Ibn Ezra. Born in 1089 in Spain. He was a poet,
astrologist, scientist, and an expert in Hebrew grammar. Image source: http://www.visitaporelmoncayo.com/
Permission was not given to man to destroy even the most inferior of his kind, until the Divine command to Noah. A special command of God was even required to allow Adam and Eve to make use of the plants which are lesser than the animals, as it is stated: (1:29): “behold I have given you all the herbs of the field.” Similarly, God commanded the shedding of a man’s blood, if his sin warranted it…. as in the Law of Moses, …. For man is the highest of God’s creatures, created in His image and enjoying the gift of intelligence. Other creatures must therefore fear him and one man must not destroy the other, since by doing so man destroys the highest work of God, made in His image, and he goes and destroys it. Radak
“Radak” is short for” Rabbi David Kimchi” He was born in southern France in the year 1160. He came from a family of famous scholars, which gave rise the famous saying; Where there is no ‘kemach’ (flour) there is no bread”.
In this week’s parsha, as Noah stands outside the ark surveying a post-deluge world, God blesses him and gives him new dietary parameters: “Every creature that lives shall be yours to eat; as with the green grasses, I give you all these.” (Genesis 9:3) This divine permission to eat meat is a big departure from the instructions given generations earlier to Adam and Eve, who were only allowed to eat a vegetarian diet.
No explanation is given in the torah for this change, which is bundled together with other injunctions against eating the blood of animals and against murder. But the rabbis argue that the permission to eat meat is an attempt to put boundaries on something people were doing prior to the flood, killing animals wantonly and without regard to the fact that to eat an animal was to take a life. God was setting up checks and balances to explicitly prevent this cruelty.
But “This concession to human weakness is not a license for savagery,” argues scholar Nahum Sarna. Meat cannot be eaten without recognition of its origins in life; God’s permission can be seen as the original injunction to eat mindfully.
…have we fulfilled our obligation to God by eating humanely raised meat, or should we be aiming for Edenic ideal of not eating meat at all?
Can eating meat ever be a holy act? I posed this dilemma to Naftali Hanau, owner of Grow and Behold, an ethical kosher meat company. Hanau, a former vegetarian (because of the historical lack of humanely raised kosher meat), argues that questions of sustainable eating must go beyond whether or not one should eat meat.
There are many overlooked trade-offs in the food system. “How is it any better to eat conventional tofu, made from genetically modified soy and grown on a field covered in petrochemical fertilizer? Conventional food does not get a free pass on environmental sustainability just because something is a vegetable.” He pointed out that Amish farmers who raise his chickens – moving the coops by hand and restoring the soil – leave a smaller environmental impact than conventional vegetable farming.
One question I posed to Hanau was whether having greater access to sustainable meat meant he ate more of it, as I have found to be true in my house. He said that it had not, but that it was still an ongoing conversation in his family about how much meat to eat. Purchasing sustainable meat is not a license to eat it mindlessly, he says. All forms of eating can be savagery. All of them can be holy. This was the challenge to Noah and to us.
Rabbi Rachel Kahn-Troster is director of education and outreach for Rabbis for Human Rights-North America.
As a vegetarian who returned to meat-eating, I find the question “Is meat-eating ethical?” one that is in my head and heart constantly. The reasons I became a vegetarian, then a vegan and then again a conscientious meat-eater were all ethical. The ethical reasons of why NOT to eat meat are obvious: animals are raised and killed in cruel conditions; grain that could feed hungry people is fed to animals; the need for pasture fuels deforestation; and by eating meat, one is implicated in the killing of a sentient [conscious] being. Except for the last reason, however, none of these aspects of eating meat are necessary, yet they are exactly what make eating some meat unethical. Which leads to my main argument: eating meat raised in specific circumstances is ethical; eating meat raised in other circumstances is unethical. Just as eating vegetables, tofu or grain raised in certain circumstances is ethical and those produced in other ways is unethical.
What are these “right” and “wrong” ways of producing both meat and plant foods? For me, they are summed up well in Aldo Leopold’s land ethic: “A thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability and beauty of the ecological community. It is wrong when it tends otherwise.”
While most present-day meat production is an ecologically foolish and ethically wrong endeavor, happily
this is changing, and there are abundant examples of ecologically beneficial, pasture-based systems. The fact is that most farmers interested in ecology agree that animals are integral parts of truly sustainable agricultural systems. They are able to cycle nutrients, aid in land management and convert sun to food in ways that are nearly impossible for us to do without fossil fuel. If “ethical” is defined as living in the most ecologically sound way, then in fairly specific circumstances, of which each eater must educate himself, eating meat is ethical; in fact NOT eating meat may be arguably unethical.
The issue of killing of a conscious being, however, lingers….
For me, eating meat is ethical when one does three things. First, you accept the biological reality that death is part of the chain of life on this planet … Second, you combine this realization with that cherished human trait of compassion and choose ethically raised food, vegetable, grain and/or meat. And third, you give thanks.
Secondary Sources: Animals and People – Killing Animals and Killing People
Bereshit Chapter 9:1-7- בְּרֵאשִׁית
You are permitted to use the animals and employ them for work, rule over them in order to utilize their services for your survival, but you must not hold their life cheap or kill them for food. Your natural diet is vegetarian… Apparently the Torah was in principle opposed to the eating of meat. When Noah and his descendants were permitted to eat meat this was a concession conditional on the law against eating blood. This law implied respect for the principle of life (“for the blood is the life”) and hints that in reality all meat should have been prohibited. This restriction was designed to call to mind the previous total one. Cassuto: From Adam to Noah, on Genesis 1:27
Umberto Cassuto was also known as Moshe David Cassuto (1883–1951). He was a rabbi and Biblical scholar born in Florence, Italy.
Since the land had become filled with violence and man had allowed himself to do terrible things, man was no longer required to go without killing animals for food. It was far more important that he should control himself and hold back from killing other human beings, and respect the life of his neighbor.
Nehama Leibowitz on Rav Kook, Professor Nehama Leibowitz was a famous Israeli Bible scholar who developed a particular style of Bible study that was very popular around the world.
Once while Honi HaMa’agal (the circle-maker) was walking down the road, he saw a man planting a carob tree. Honi asked, “How many years will it take for this tree to bear fruit” The man answered that it would take 70 years. Honi said, “Are you so healthy that you expect to live that long to enjoy its fruit?” The man answered, “I found a fruitful world, because those who lived before me planted trees for me. In the same way, I shall do this for my children.”
( Babylonian Talmud, Ta’anit 23a)
Shimon bar Yochai
Shimon bar Yochai: “if you are holding a sapling in your hand and someone says that the Messiah has drawn near, first plant the sapling, and then go and greet the Messiah.” Avot d’Rebbe Natan 31b
Secondary Source: Different Meanings of Lech L’cha
Rashi: Go forth: Heb לך לך, literally go to you, for your benefit and for your good, and there I will make you into a great nation. If you stay here I won’t give you children. Moreover. If you go, I will make your character known in the world.
— Rosh Hashanah 16b, Tan.
Picture: By Guillaume de Paris, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=41460972
Avivah Zornberg: was born in London and grew up in Glasgow, Scotland, where her father was a Rabbi. She studied with him from childhood; he was her most important teacher of Torah. For the past thirty years, she has taught Torah in Jerusalem.
“Lech L’cha” – start travelling – this is a travel narrative. Not to go to a particular place to do business, but as an open-ended travel. To discover something about the place you are in – like in Gulliver’s Travels or the Odyssey – it seems the journey itself offers you something you wouldn’t get by staying home… You can never know how it will change you, but the journey itself changes you. Matan lecture: http://www.matan.org.il/eng/show.asp?id=35416 Photo: http://www.avivahzornberg.com/
Joel Lynn: was a journalist for a New Jersey newspaper. He now lives and teaches in Israel.
A look at the Hebrew in this sentence reveals something.
The word “Lekh” is the command form of the word, “L’lekhet“–“to go.”
The next word, “l’kha,” tells us that the previous word is directed to a second person (for example, “Ten l’kha” would mean “give to you“).
“… Commentators offer various meanings of this extra word, translating the sentence as “Go for yourself,” “Go by yourself” or “Go to yourself… [My] favorite of the three is “Go to yourself.”
While Abraham had many difficult tests to overcome in his lifetime, the most important one is the first one we read about in the Torah: “Go to yourself.” Realize what your mission in life is. Recognize your potential. Become YOU. Without this, there would never have been a covenant, a circumcision, a binding of Isaac, or a founding of the Jewish people.
Source: http://www.myjewishlearning.com
Rabbi Naftali Citron: Rabbi Citron is now serving as Rabbi of the Carlebach Shul in New York.
This week’s Torah reading, Lech Lecha, is especially significant because it represents the first Divine encounter of our forefather Abraham. The words “Lech Lecha” are often translated as “Go forth!” but these words may also mean that Abraham is supposed to “travel more deeply into himself.” As we begin our spiritual inner journeys modeling those of Abraham and Sarah, it is important to experience the depth of our own souls as we go forth to face the world. The word that is often associated with such intention and devotion in Judaism is kavanah.
You should not sit down to eat until you have first fed your animals.
(Talmud, Berachot. 40a; Gittin, 62a)
You should not buy an animal unless you can guarantee it will have an adequate food supply. (Jerusalem Talmud, Ketubot, 4:8)
Shepherds
Moses and David are often described in our tradition as devoted shepherds who gave every animal in their flock personal attention. It was this trait of their personalities that made them worthy in God’s eyes of leading the Jewish people.( Exodus Rabbah 2.2)
Once, while Moses was tending the flock of his father-in-law, Jethro, one young sheep ran away. Moses ran after it until the sheep reached a shady place, where he found a pool of water and began to drink. When Moses reached the sheep, he said: ‘I did not know you ran away because you were thirsty. Now, you must be exhausted [from running].’ Moses put the sheep on his shoulders and carried him [back to the herd]. God said, “Because you tend the sheep belonging to human beings with such mercy, you shall be the shepherd of My sheep, Israel.”
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