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celestial
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 Mon, Feb 20 2012, 5:19 pm
| sarahd wrote: | | celestial wrote: | | Hmm, I thought the Torah encouraged us to be aware of what we were eating, and that animals used to be living? I thought living a Torah lifestyle meant trying your best not to be an "insensitive clod"? Forgive me for taking your words at face value, but laughing at the idea of sensitivity does not negate it is an important way to live our lives as servants of Hashem. |
Where does the Torah encourage us to be aware that the meat we eat used to be alive? Can you point me to the pasuk?
I don't find it necessary to be more sensitive than Hashem, who created these beings for man to eat (or to bring as korbanos to Him.) |
You sort of have to extrapolate it from the way the Torah discusses animals. (And as I said before, this comes from Rav Kook's teachings, I didn't make this up). Rav Kook discusses our many mitzvos related to kashrus have largely to do with instilling an awareness about the source of our food, which will hopefully transform us into better people.
Can you give the passuk that explicitly states 1) That the only reason Hashem created animals was for us to eat 2) That G-d is not sensitive to the suffering of animals or 3) That the overconsumption of meat (not on Shabbos) in the religious community that encourages practices like mass factory farming has anything to do with a sacrifice to G-d?
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celestial
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Mon, Feb 20 2012, 5:21 pm
| AlwaysGrateful wrote: | I have a question for all of you vegetarians out there, and please believe me, this is not a bashing question. It would belong in a "respectfully learning about vegetarians" question. (although I guess it would only apply to people who don't eat any animals, as opposed to people who would have no problem eating free-range animals, or whatever).
When the bais hamikdash returns, will you bring karbanos? And eat them? Is that somehow different? Will you eat the karban pesach on Pesach? And if you'd choke it down...would you feel it was barbaric? |
1. It is not unanimously believed that there will be karbanos when Moshiach comes.
2. When the time comes, I'm sure I will feel strongly about it in exactly the correct way, of which I do not know right now (I can only be the best I can be under the circumstances and knowledge life presents me now)
3. Personally, I think eating meat can be done in more or less aidel ways. Having proper kavannos and making it a rare occasion presents far fewer problems to me than chowing down thoughtlessly on animal carcasses on a daily basis. I think there's a reason it says an am ha'aretz should not eat meat. Personally, I'm an am ha'aretz. I find it difficult and an avoda to focus my kavanas properly. Maybe when Moshiach comes I will improve in this area.
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WriterMom
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Mon, Feb 20 2012, 7:18 pm
A Chabad shlucha taught me that their schechita has to be done not only by an observant Jew but by someone who studies chassidus, because it's important to protect against the coarsening effects of taking life. No such directive exists regarding harvesting crops, or surgery.
I have to say, those of you mocking vegetarianism or vegetarians: you know when someone says to you, "if G-d created the universe, then who created G-d" triumphantly, as if they've singlehandedly discovered a profound truth? You're arguing at that level, and you sound about as educated and refined as they do.
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bradybunch
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Mon, Feb 20 2012, 7:57 pm
I'm not grossed out by meat (or by surgery--I'm a medical student!). It's a dead animal, and that's fine.
But I'm a vegetarian, and so are my children, because I DO believe in animal welfare. And I think the Torah and halacha are on the side of animal welfare, as well. There's no way I can support factory farming. We were vegans (egg farming is just awful) for a long time, but when I started medical school I didn't have enough time to cook nutritious vegan meals anymore.
There are animals, even here where I live, that I would probably eat if they were properly shechted. Small, family-owned farms, and such. Not only can I not find kosher meat that suits my requirements for properly-treated animals, I have a feeling that if I could it would be prohibitively expensive.
I sometimes wonder how kosher meat is possibly considered kosher, considering the way the animals are treated. (Note I'm not suggesting that it's not kosher, since it's not at all my place to do so--I just don't understand how it IS.)
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WriterMom
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Mon, Feb 20 2012, 8:01 pm
| e_plus3 wrote: |
I sometimes wonder how kosher meat is possibly considered kosher, considering the way the animals are treated. (Note I'm not suggesting that it's not kosher, since it's not at all my place to do so--I just don't understand how it IS.) |
I hear you. Out here in the wild wild west, we keep trying to find an organic free-range cow (not too hard) and a schochet (harder, but not impossible) and enough local buyers (the hard part) so we can have kosher, fresh free-range meat.
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bradybunch
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Mon, Feb 20 2012, 8:02 pm
| Inspired wrote: | | Mrs Bissli wrote: | Another "food for thought" question. How about leather, do sensitive vegetarians consider about dead cow hide whenever you see leather shoes or handbags or a teffilin straps?
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When I was a vegetarian did not wear or use leather or anything with animal products or tested on animals. I also told my high school that I would not do any animal dissections or anything that harmed or used animals. |
I do not buy anything made with leather. I have some old things, and some hand-me-downs, that are leather, and I continue to use them. I don't have sons old enough to wear tefillin so I haven't even thought about that but it's a good way in the future.
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bradybunch
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Mon, Feb 20 2012, 8:05 pm
| WriterMom wrote: | | e_plus3 wrote: |
I sometimes wonder how kosher meat is possibly considered kosher, considering the way the animals are treated. (Note I'm not suggesting that it's not kosher, since it's not at all my place to do so--I just don't understand how it IS.) |
I hear you. Out here in the wild wild west, we keep trying to find an organic free-range cow (not too hard) and a schochet (harder, but not impossible) and enough local buyers (the hard part) so we can have kosher, fresh free-range meat. |
Yes, many of my non-Jewish friends are able to get good meat. I have yet to find enough people who would be willing to chip in to have the above happen.
I do have a local family farm that I buy eggs from, thankfully. At least I don't have to worry about kashrus there.
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gp2.0
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Mon, Feb 20 2012, 8:45 pm
| celestial wrote: | | gp2.0 wrote: | Watching footage of factory farming, with these animals who never have a normal life and are then slaughtered, can bring tears to my eyes. Free-range animals who are raised on a family-run farm or ranch have good lives, at least.
Death is never a happy occasion.
Having food to eat is a happy occasion.
I am sad that the best way for people to be healthy is by killing and eating other living things. But I'm still going to put MY health first. Law of the jungle.
And now, I have a question for the vegetarians: Don't you care that every time you eat a fruit or vegetable you are killing it?
You tear an apple off a tree. There is an audible snap as the limb holding the child to its parent severs. You bite into the apple. There is a loud crunch as its flesh tears apart. The juices that were carrying nutrients to its heart drip down your hand. You then discard the seeds, the potential life of a baby tree.
You can't hear the apple trees screaming as their babies are taken from them. You can't hear the apple screaming as you rip it apart. But that doesn't mean they aren't screaming.
In every leaf of every plant there is a spark of soul, which you snuff out when you kill it.
If you're OK with eating plants, I don't see why you're not OK with eating animals. |
I agree with you up until "law of the jungle". Humans are given brains, reason, compassion, and G-d intends for us to use them.
As for your subsequent "argument", if you can even call it that (I find most people intuitively understand the difference between torturing animals and plants, so I assume from a normal person this is more teasing than a discussion) - Animals have central nervous systems, just like human beings, and exhibit signs of pain, suffering, emotion, fear. Especially mammals like cows, who have been known to jump fences when their fowls are taken from them to be slaughtered, or cry in line for the slaughter. Even in the rare, illogical scenario that animals only show signs of pain and don't actually experience it or are not conscious of it (how would that aid their survival in the natural world, exactly?), the Torah teaches us to be compassionate anyway, because of our humanity, not because of their animal-ness. Even the capital punishment, something the Torah advocates as part of our punitive system if a person is truly guilty of certain things, is something Rabbi Akiva feels is spiritually harmful on the part of the slaughterer. In other words, just because G-d deems someone should die or experience pain, who says it has to be through me? |
Yes, I was teasing.
Of course we need to be compassionate to everyone and everything at all times, even while we lead animals to slaughter and kill them. There is a story about a Tanna who was 'punished' in that he witnessed someone being mechalel Shabbos. The reason for this punishment was because a sheep on the way to being slaughtered ran up to him and tried to hide behind him, and he told it "Go, this is your purpose in the world." And he should have shown more compassion.
Personally I would love to live in a world where we could survive solely on plants, such as Adam and Chava did. I would be very glad if that was the world when Moshiach came.
Korbanos can be of herbs too.
But in today's day, eating meat is not an issur in the Torah. Aren't you all always protesting when ladies 'add to the Torah' regarding tznius rules? So why is this any different? The Torah teaches us to be compassionate, but not to refrain from eating meat altogether.
I do also agree that if everyone had a farm in their backyard, they would eat chicken probably once a month, cow and sheep probably never, and get most of their protein from eggs. Factory farming is probably not the way things were meant to be. Although who are we to say what is and isn't meant to be?
Now. Plant perception. It's certainly not a new idea. I used it to illustrate a point, but I didn't make it up.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P.....al%29
http://www.wired.com/wiredscie.....lues/
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/ear......html
We don't know if it's true that their reaction is pain as we know it but it may be painful to them. Opening your mind to the possibility raises many interesting questions regarding morality vs. survival, I think.
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gp2.0
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Mon, Feb 20 2012, 8:54 pm
| shabbatiscoming wrote: | | gp2.0 wrote: | Watching footage of factory farming, with these animals who never have a normal life and are then slaughtered, can bring tears to my eyes. Free-range animals who are raised on a family-run farm or ranch have good lives, at least.
Death is never a happy occasion.
Having food to eat is a happy occasion.
I am sad that the best way for people to be healthy is by killing and eating other living things. But I'm still going to put MY health first. Law of the jungle.
And now, I have a question for the vegetarians: Don't you care that every time you eat a fruit or vegetable you are killing it?
You tear an apple off a tree. There is an audible snap as the limb holding the child to its parent severs. You bite into the apple. There is a loud crunch as its flesh tears apart. The juices that were carrying nutrients to its heart drip down your hand. You then discard the seeds, the potential life of a baby tree.
You can't hear the apple trees screaming as their babies are taken from them. You can't hear the apple screaming as you rip it apart. But that doesn't mean they aren't screaming.
In every leaf of every plant there is a spark of soul, which you snuff out when you kill it.
If you're OK with eating plants, I don't see why you're not OK with eating animals. | Here is your answer:
http://youtu.be/Ov5Jgw_Nwx4 |
AWESOME! 
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bluebird
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Mon, Feb 20 2012, 9:25 pm
| e_plus3 wrote: | | I do not buy anything made with leather. I have some old things, and some hand-me-downs, that are leather, and I continue to use them. I don't have sons old enough to wear tefillin so I haven't even thought about that but it's a good way in the future. |
Ditto, although I will admit it's hard with shoes.
Re: korbanot. It's not clear that they'll be reinstated. If they are, then I would hope that the coming of Moshiach and recognition and adherence to halacha would put an end to factory farming and other forms of animal cruelty. I still might not eat meat, but would bring korbanot if I had to.
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WriterMom
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Mon, Feb 20 2012, 10:03 pm
| gp2.0 wrote: |
But in today's day, eating meat is not an issur in the Torah. Aren't you all always protesting when ladies 'add to the Torah' regarding tznius rules? So why is this any different? The Torah teaches us to be compassionate, but not to refrain from eating meat altogether.
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Straw man. Nobody has argued that everyone should be vegetarian, still less that it should be considered a mitzvah to be vegetarian. What they are saying is that it's not ok to tell them they are worse Jews than carnivores, because they're not carnivores.
However, IME vegetarianism among the orthodox is fairly coterminous with critical thinking. I admire critical thinking, even when it leads to answers I disagree with, and think poorly of sheep-like conformity, even if it leads to behaviors I agree with.
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September June
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Mon, Feb 20 2012, 10:13 pm
| gp2.0 wrote: |
AWESOME! |
Thanks for the laugh!
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AlwaysGrateful
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Mon, Feb 20 2012, 10:16 pm
| WriterMom wrote: | | gp2.0 wrote: |
But in today's day, eating meat is not an issur in the Torah. Aren't you all always protesting when ladies 'add to the Torah' regarding tznius rules? So why is this any different? The Torah teaches us to be compassionate, but not to refrain from eating meat altogether.
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Straw man. Nobody has argued that everyone should be vegetarian, still less that it should be considered a mitzvah to be vegetarian. What they are saying is that it's not ok to tell them they are worse Jews than carnivores, because they're not carnivores. |
Actually, I don't think that's what OP is saying. Which part of "Ew, how could you possibly touch raw meat? It's like touching human entrails!!" means that people shouldn't tell vegetarians that are are bad Jews?
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imamiri
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Mon, Feb 20 2012, 10:20 pm
| AlwaysGrateful wrote: | | WriterMom wrote: | | gp2.0 wrote: |
But in today's day, eating meat is not an issur in the Torah. Aren't you all always protesting when ladies 'add to the Torah' regarding tznius rules? So why is this any different? The Torah teaches us to be compassionate, but not to refrain from eating meat altogether.
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Straw man. Nobody has argued that everyone should be vegetarian, still less that it should be considered a mitzvah to be vegetarian. What they are saying is that it's not ok to tell them they are worse Jews than carnivores, because they're not carnivores. |
Actually, I don't think that's what OP is saying. Which part of "Ew, how could you possibly touch raw meat? It's like touching human entrails!!" means that people shouldn't tell vegetarians that are are bad Jews? |
I don't think WriterMom was talking about the OP.
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WriterMom
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Mon, Feb 20 2012, 10:22 pm
| AlwaysGrateful wrote: |
Actually, I don't think that's what OP is saying. Which part of "Ew, how could you possibly touch raw meat? It's like touching human entrails!!" means that people shouldn't tell vegetarians that are are bad Jews? |
OK, it's entirely possible I misunderstood, but I thought it was purely an aesthetic thing. Like I loathe the feel of peaches, so much that I only eat peaches if they're canned, frozen, or someone has removed the peel for me. I love eating liver, but can hardly even buy it - looking at it raw, even through cellophane, icks me out.
If the OP was trying to say "what is wrong with meat eaters that they aren't offended by raw meat," then yes, it's not appropriate to suggest that meat eaters are less moral, or worse Jews, than vegetarians.
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celestial
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Mon, Feb 20 2012, 11:52 pm
| WriterMom wrote: | A Chabad shlucha taught me that their schechita has to be done not only by an observant Jew but by someone who studies chassidus, because it's important to protect against the coarsening effects of taking life. No such directive exists regarding harvesting crops, or surgery.
I have to say, those of you mocking vegetarianism or vegetarians: you know when someone says to you, "if G-d created the universe, then who created G-d" triumphantly, as if they've singlehandedly discovered a profound truth? You're arguing at that level, and you sound about as educated and refined as they do. |
Thanks for pointing that out. Every possible inane rebbutal/teasing has come my way since I became vegetarian post-BT (6 years ago) and every time it is both regurgitated and weak as well as said with the utmost arrogance. It would be funny if it weren't so sad.
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celestial
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Mon, Feb 20 2012, 11:54 pm
| gp2.0 wrote: | | celestial wrote: | | gp2.0 wrote: | Watching footage of factory farming, with these animals who never have a normal life and are then slaughtered, can bring tears to my eyes. Free-range animals who are raised on a family-run farm or ranch have good lives, at least.
Death is never a happy occasion.
Having food to eat is a happy occasion.
I am sad that the best way for people to be healthy is by killing and eating other living things. But I'm still going to put MY health first. Law of the jungle.
And now, I have a question for the vegetarians: Don't you care that every time you eat a fruit or vegetable you are killing it?
You tear an apple off a tree. There is an audible snap as the limb holding the child to its parent severs. You bite into the apple. There is a loud crunch as its flesh tears apart. The juices that were carrying nutrients to its heart drip down your hand. You then discard the seeds, the potential life of a baby tree.
You can't hear the apple trees screaming as their babies are taken from them. You can't hear the apple screaming as you rip it apart. But that doesn't mean they aren't screaming.
In every leaf of every plant there is a spark of soul, which you snuff out when you kill it.
If you're OK with eating plants, I don't see why you're not OK with eating animals. |
I agree with you up until "law of the jungle". Humans are given brains, reason, compassion, and G-d intends for us to use them.
As for your subsequent "argument", if you can even call it that (I find most people intuitively understand the difference between torturing animals and plants, so I assume from a normal person this is more teasing than a discussion) - Animals have central nervous systems, just like human beings, and exhibit signs of pain, suffering, emotion, fear. Especially mammals like cows, who have been known to jump fences when their fowls are taken from them to be slaughtered, or cry in line for the slaughter. Even in the rare, illogical scenario that animals only show signs of pain and don't actually experience it or are not conscious of it (how would that aid their survival in the natural world, exactly?), the Torah teaches us to be compassionate anyway, because of our humanity, not because of their animal-ness. Even the capital punishment, something the Torah advocates as part of our punitive system if a person is truly guilty of certain things, is something Rabbi Akiva feels is spiritually harmful on the part of the slaughterer. In other words, just because G-d deems someone should die or experience pain, who says it has to be through me? |
Yes, I was teasing.
Of course we need to be compassionate to everyone and everything at all times, even while we lead animals to slaughter and kill them. There is a story about a Tanna who was 'punished' in that he witnessed someone being mechalel Shabbos. The reason for this punishment was because a sheep on the way to being slaughtered ran up to him and tried to hide behind him, and he told it "Go, this is your purpose in the world." And he should have shown more compassion.
Personally I would love to live in a world where we could survive solely on plants, such as Adam and Chava did. I would be very glad if that was the world when Moshiach came.
Korbanos can be of herbs too.
But in today's day, eating meat is not an issur in the Torah. Aren't you all always protesting when ladies 'add to the Torah' regarding tznius rules? So why is this any different? The Torah teaches us to be compassionate, but not to refrain from eating meat altogether.
I do also agree that if everyone had a farm in their backyard, they would eat chicken probably once a month, cow and sheep probably never, and get most of their protein from eggs. Factory farming is probably not the way things were meant to be. Although who are we to say what is and isn't meant to be?
Now. Plant perception. It's certainly not a new idea. I used it to illustrate a point, but I didn't make it up.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P.....al%29
http://www.wired.com/wiredscie.....lues/
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/ear......html
We don't know if it's true that their reaction is pain as we know it but it may be painful to them. Opening your mind to the possibility raises many interesting questions regarding morality vs. survival, I think. |
Again, as I said before, animals have a central nervous system and have far more in common with us in terms of pain and suffering than plants do. And it is more about our humanity than pain, though both are important.
If you saw a man in an allyway pointlessly kicking and mutilating a cat, versus a man on a field ripping to shreds a piece of grass, which one would you want as a son-in-law?
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gp2.0
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Tue, Feb 21 2012, 12:25 am
| celestial wrote: |
If you saw a man in an allyway pointlessly kicking and mutilating a cat, versus a man on a field ripping to shreds a piece of grass, which one would you want as a son-in-law? |
Neither. The first indicates cruelty, the second laziness and ignorance. I had a link to a story before but I lost it, about a guy who is walking in a forest and absentmindedly pulls a leaf off a tree and begins shredding it. He is admonished by his father (or father-in-law) who reminds him that leaves also have souls and a tafkid in this world and one shouldn't treat them so carelessly.
The man may cut his wheat if it is for a good reason, such as food or parnassa. Same with killing an animal. We are allowed to do it for food or parnassa, or as part of a mitzva like Shabbos and Yom Tov.
And of course, there is an actual halacha that one is not allowed to cut down a fruit tree for no reason, and there is a minority opinion that this applies to ALL trees.
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celestial
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Tue, Feb 21 2012, 12:39 am
| gp2.0 wrote: | | celestial wrote: |
If you saw a man in an allyway pointlessly kicking and mutilating a cat, versus a man on a field ripping to shreds a piece of grass, which one would you want as a son-in-law? |
Neither. The first indicates cruelty, the second laziness and ignorance. I had a link to a story before but I lost it, about a guy who is walking in a forest and absentmindedly pulls a leaf off a tree and begins shredding it. He is admonished by his father (or father-in-law) who reminds him that leaves also have souls and a tafkid in this world and one shouldn't treat them so carelessly.
The man may cut his wheat if it is for a good reason, such as food or parnassa. Same with killing an animal. We are allowed to do it for food or parnassa, or as part of a mitzva like Shabbos and Yom Tov.
And of course, there is an actual halacha that one is not allowed to cut down a fruit tree for no reason, and there is a minority opinion that this applies to ALL trees. |
Right. Exactly.
And let me pose the question again, nonewithstanding all the above:
Those two men I mentioned are the only options you have for your daughter. Which one demonstrates middos you find most unacceptable?
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sarahd
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Tue, Feb 21 2012, 6:16 am
| celestial wrote: | | sarahd wrote: | | celestial wrote: | | Hmm, I thought the Torah encouraged us to be aware of what we were eating, and that animals used to be living? I thought living a Torah lifestyle meant trying your best not to be an "insensitive clod"? Forgive me for taking your words at face value, but laughing at the idea of sensitivity does not negate it is an important way to live our lives as servants of Hashem. |
Where does the Torah encourage us to be aware that the meat we eat used to be alive? Can you point me to the pasuk?
I don't find it necessary to be more sensitive than Hashem, who created these beings for man to eat (or to bring as korbanos to Him.) |
You sort of have to extrapolate it from the way the Torah discusses animals. (And as I said before, this comes from Rav Kook's teachings, I didn't make this up). Rav Kook discusses our many mitzvos related to kashrus have largely to do with instilling an awareness about the source of our food, which will hopefully transform us into better people.
Can you give the passuk that explicitly states 1) That the only reason Hashem created animals was for us to eat 2) That G-d is not sensitive to the suffering of animals or 3) That the overconsumption of meat (not on Shabbos) in the religious community that encourages practices like mass factory farming has anything to do with a sacrifice to G-d? |
I can't (or rather, I could for some things but I don't have time right now to do research) but I am not making any of these claims, so I don't feel obligated to support them.
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