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July 16, 1999/3 Av 5759, Vol. 51, No.41
Let them eat meat; I'll take minestrone
Focus on Family
JANE ULMAN
Special to Jewish News
If God had wanted us to be vegetarians, he wouldn't have invented animals," announces Zack, my 15-year-old carnivorous son.
He turns the large steak sizzling on the outdoor barbecue for him and his brothers, Gabe, 12, and Jeremy, 10. My husband's piece of fish is relegated to a far corner of the grill; my veggie burger to the opposite corner.
My fourth son, Danny, 8, opts for a can of minestrone, announcing that he's now a vegetarian. "Eating animals is disgusting," he explains.
I sympathize. My own conversion occurred almost nine years ago, while I was preparing a Thanksgiving turkey. I took a good look at the hapless, headless bird - its legs, its wings, the cavities in which I was packing the stuffing - and, "cold turkey," you might say, I quit eating meat.
"Never eat anything that looks like what it is," my brother, Michael, advises. According to his philosophy, hamburgers are fine, but drumsticks, whole pan-fried trout or rump roast are not.
I have a different criterion. Never eat anything that once had a face or a mother. That makes me a vegetarian - someone who doesn't eat meat, poultry or fish. But I do eat dairy and eggs, so technically I'm a lacto-ovo vegetarian.
A vegan, on the other hand, is a fundamentalist vegetarian, someone who avoids eating all animal flesh and products, including eggs, dairy and even honey.
Even more extreme than a vegan is a fruitarian, someone who only eats foods the harvesting of which doesn't kill the plant. An apple is permitted, for example, because it can be picked without killing the tree. A carrot is not, since "picking" it destroys the plant.
I'm not that botanically empathetic. Neither is my husband, Larry, who has sworn off meat and poultry but still eats fish. I call him a "fishetarian," though the proper term is pescetarian. He does avoid raw fish; he's reluctant to give bacteria any opportunity to start breeding in his intestines.
Society's current obsession with nutrition and health may be a trend, but vegetarianism isn't. It's been around, well, since Adam and Eve. Indeed, in the Garden of Eden, God gave two dietary laws. Firstly, God announced to Adam and Eve: "I give you every seed-bearing plant that is upon all the earth, and every tree that has seed-bearing fruit; they shall be yours for food" (Genesis 1:29). This gift of "all the green plants for food" (Genesis 1:30) applied also to all the animals and birds, who were herbivorous and who did not prey on one another.
God's other dietary admonition, at Genesis 2:17, was to not eat the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. And ever since human beings' eviction from the Garden of Eden, we've been covering ourselves with various forms of fig leaves and having a difficult time resisting temptation.
In Noah's time, after practically wiping out the world with a major flood, God relented with the great post-diluvian compromise, allowing man to eat meat. He stated in Genesis 9:3, "Every creature that lives shall be yours to eat."
He did, however, impose restrictions: no drinking of blood, which is synonymous with life; and no cutting of limbs from living animals, which was how early man kept meat fresh. In other words, animals must be slaughtered in a compassionate manner. This is the essence of the divine compromise and the basis of kashrut (keeping kosher), which is related to holiness rather than health. Man is allowed to eat meat, to yield to his carnivorous lust, but he must also learn to revere life.
Eating meat is a choice, not a commandment. And animals can be killed only to satisfy a human need, not to indulge a desire for sport. The Talmud, in fact, definitively discourages hunting, and any animal killed in that manner is considered treif (not kosher).
For many Jews, vegetarianism is the highest form of kashrut - and not just a convenient means of avoiding the meat/dairy fuss.
Other Jews, however, believe it is important to eat meat on the festivals of Sukkot, Passover and Shavuot. Traditionally, on these pilgrimage holidays, Jews sacrificed animals on the Temple altar in Jerusalem.
But a vegetarian lifestyle, even a partial one, fulfills several significant Jewish mitzvot (commandments), including:
- Bal tashit (not destroying). We are admonished not to be wasteful. Yet more than 70 percent of all grain grown in the United States is fed to animals destined for the slaughterhouse, while 15 to 20 million people worldwide die of hunger every year.
- Shmirat haguf (defending our bodies). Many people, for health reasons, want to avoid the cholesterol, carcinogens and calories associated with meat eating. Additionally, others are wary of the hormones, pesticides and antibiotics fed to today's livestock.
- Tsa'ar ba'alei chaim (being kind to animals). Interpretations of this commandment range from not mistreating animals while they are alive, such as crowding calves and chickens into unsanitary and uninhabitable cages, to not killing them for food.
While I'm not a veg-evangelist, I do want to point out that vegetarians are not just crazy people who like to eat side dishes. A few of the world's famous Jewish vegetarians have included Albert Einstein; writers Isaac Bashevis Singer, Franz Kafka and S.Y. Agnon; visionary Zionist A.D. Gordon; and Palestine's first chief rabbi, Abraham Isaac Kook.
Also, we all may be ultimately destined for a fleshless future. For just as the world started out vegetarian in the Garden of Eden, so may it end vegetarian in the Messianic Age. The prophet Isaiah says, "The wolf shall dwell with the lamb, the leopard lie down with the kid ... and the lion, like the ox, shall eat straw" (Isaiah 11:6-7).
But until this inviolate, idyllic time arrives, I will continue to make Sunday night barbecues an ecumenical event - with steak for the carnivores, fish for the pescetarian and veggie burgers or minestrone for the vegetarians.
And if anyone questions my aversion to eating animals, I'll tell them about Singer, who was once asked if he were a vegetarian for health reasons. "Yes," he replied. "I do it for the health of the chickens."
Jane Ulman writes from Encino, Calif. This column was distributed by Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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