When God created the world, He did
not permit Adam and Eve to eat meat:
And God said, Behold I have given
you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all earth and every tree
in which is the fruit of a tree…to you it shall be for food. And to every beast
of the earth and to every fowl of the air…I have given every green herb for
food. (Breisheet 1:29-30)
In 1:28 God gave the blessing to be
fruitful and multiply and “have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the
fowl of the air, and over every living thing that crawls upon the earth.”
Humans were told to have dominion
over the animals but not to slaughter them or eat them.
After the flood and the immoral behavior
that led up to it, the focus was on man refraining from killing other people
and respecting human life. Man was no longer on the high moral level that would
require him to forego the slaying of animals.
According to Rav Avraham Yitzchak
HaKohen Kook, the “heter” (dispensation) to eat meat is only temporary. When
the time is ripe, the latent aspiration for justice for the animal kingdom will
come out into the open.
In the desert, the only red meat
that was permitted was meat that was part of a sacrifice in the Mishkan
(Tabernacle). Once they arrived in the Land of Israel they were permitted to
eat meat as long as it was slaughtered properly.
Rav Kook points out that the path of
following the laws of kosher slaughter will eventually lead us back to
abstaining from eating meat.
Nehama Leibowitz deduces that once
we fulfill Yishayahu’s prophecy (which is well know from the famous Israeli
folk song) of “Lo yisa goy el goy cherev, lo yilmedu od milchama”, “Nation
shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn the arts of
war anymore”, once humans stop killing each other, then we can expand man’s
compassion to the animal kingdom.
In the mean time, for those who do
eat meat, it should be slaughtered and eaten in a respectful manner. There are
a lot of disturbing phenomena in the Jewish community concerning meat and the
treatment of animals: Some slaughterhouses are Halachically kosher but the animals
are not treated properly. It is
unacceptable to have chickens cooped up all day in horrible conditions waiting
for Kapparot to be performed on them. Overindulging on meat at “all you can eat”
buffets may be kosher, but not in the spirit of the law. A solution must be
found for the amount of meat that gets wasted at weddings. Ostentatious siyum
parties (which celebrate the completion of a tractate of the Talmud) at
restaurants during the nine days leading up to Tisha B’Av make a mockery of the
idea of refraining from meat and wine as a symbol of mourning for the
destruction of Jerusalem.
We have not reached the point where
we are on a high enough spiritual level for the entire Jewish community to be
required to return to vegetarianism. However, even those who do eat meat must show
respect for all creatures.
