SPEAK TO THE ISRAELITE PEOPLE THUS: THESE ARE THE CREATURES THAT YOU MAY EAT FROM AMONG ALL THE LAND ANIMALS.

(Vayikra 11: 2)

 

The Laws of Slaughter and the Restrictions on Eating Meat are Stages Towards a Higher Spiritual State

These are the creatures that you may eat: It begins by permitting certain types of meat, (and so with grasshoppers and fish), implying that it would be best not to eat any living thing at all. That is why it had to begin: Speak to the Israelite people thus: these are the creatures that you may eat - the permissibility of meat-eating is a new idea that must be explicitly set forth.

(From the Hatam Sofer's Torat Moshe, as quoted by Prof. Nehamah Leibowitz in her Iyyunim Hadashim BeSefer Vayikra, pg. 127)

 

A Torah scholar - a spiritual man - regularly engaged in the slaughter and sacrifice of animals? This does not jibe with the heart's pure feelings. Even though it remains necessary to practice the slaughter and consumption of living beings, in any event it is proper for this work to be performed by those who have not yet refined their emotions. It is fitting for ethical, knowledgeable, and pious scholars to supervise and see to it that the animals are not killed in a barbaric manner, so that a noble light may enter into the whole matter of meat-eating, a light which will, in time, illuminate the entire world. This is truly bound up in the laws of slaughter.

(From R. A.I. Kook ZTz"L's Iggrot HaRAYaH, #178)

 

 

The Commandments Were Given Only in Order to Purify People?

Shalom Bahbout

In a way, the book of Bereishit may be read as heralding things to come in the later parts of the Torah. This interpretive principle, that "The deeds of the fathers are a sign for the sons," is usually applied to the narrative portions of the Torah, rather than to halakhic passages.

Indeed, Bereishit contains few commandments, and the "halakhic" materials of Bereishit receive scant attention from the Sages. That being said, even a literal reading of the opening two chapters of Bereishit reveals that they do contain a number of commandments.

The first commandment is: Be fruitful and multiply, fill the earth...(1:28).

The second commandment received by Adam in the Garden of Eden is as for the tree of knowledge of good and evil, you must not eat of it (2: 17). This prohibition is prefaced with a positive commandment: You shall eat of every tree in the garden (loc cit).

The Sages learned the Seven Noahide Commandments from the phrase, and the Lord God commanded (2:16), but do not treat You shall eat of every tree in the garden as a commandment, but rather as a grant of permission to eat fruits. It may be inferred - without entering into the details of he Talmudic discussion - that Adam was given laws that related to his biological existence as a living organism. Biological life, with all of its facets and components, stands at the center of the commandments, be they the commandments received by Adam or the commandments received by Israel. Their principle goal is to bring people to sanctify precisely those aspects of human life that resemble animal life.

Without a doubt, of the commandments received by Adam, the prohibition to eat of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil had the greatest impact on his future. It is perhaps significant that Adam, the "vegetarian," had only one prohibition imposed upon him. It was not a matter of happenstance that that prohibition dealt with eating, a legal area of ever-widening scope to which additional commandments would be added via Noah and the Israelites.

I suggest that we chronicle the laws of forbidden foods, starting with the laws received by Adam:

To Adam/humanity

a) Not to eat from the tree of knowledge

b) Not to eat meat severed from a living animal.

To Israelites

a) Not to eat gid hanasheh (a particular sinew)

b) Not to eat the fat specified for sacrifice on the altar.

c) Not to eat unclean creatures, be they birds, domesticated animals, wild beasts, fish, or crawling creatures.

d) To cover the blood of slaughtered birds and wild beasts.

e) Not to eat an animal's flesh before it is brought as a sacrifice upon the altar.

It should be noted that the final prohibition (e) was cancelled by the "permission to eat desired meat" granted because the prohibition made the regular eating of meat a practical impossibility. Out of consideration for the reality that Jews might live some distance from "the place" of sacrifice, the halakhah limited itself to the laws requiring that the slaughtered animal's blood be poured on the ground and not eaten.

And so we find that the Torah is quite concerned with the proper nutrition of people in general of the Jews in particular.

By and large, these prohibitions tie the consumption of meat with sacrifice. The Sages were serious when they stated that "a person's table is like an altar which atones." One might say that, in a way, the laws of kashrut serve as a substitute for the laws of sacrifice.

It is not my intention to belittle the importance of the laws of kashrut. However, the growing concern with this aspect of Judaism, which has come to monopolize Jewish life, (sometimes out of commercial interests), can serve to marginalize other fundamental Jewish values, such as commandments pertaining to societal concerns. Narrow-minded concentration on kashrut can damage the deepest spiritual strata of religious life.

Meaningful Jewish life can only be possible when we realize that all categories of commandments must receive their proper attention. Only then will every stratum of Jewish values make its own contribution to the development of a balanced and harmonious life for Jews.

Rabbi Dr. Shalom Bahbout sits on the Rabbinical Court of Rome, and directs the Tifferet Yisrael Beit Midrash in Jerusalem.

 

 

Forbidden Foods: Feelings, Reasons and Commandments

Rabbi Elazar ben Azaryah says: From whence do we know that a person should not say, "I could not possibly wear sha'atnez, I could not possibly eat pork, I could not possibly indulge in forbidden sexual relations" - but rather [one should say] - "I could but what can I do? My Father in Heaven has forbidden them to me." This is learned from the verse and I have set you apart from the other peoples to be Mine (VaYikra 20:26). One takes upon himself the yoke of he Kingdom of Heaven by avoiding transgression.

(Sifra Kedoshim 10)

 

Philosophers maintain that though the man of self-restraint performs moral and praiseworthy deeds, yet he does them desiring and craving all the while for immoral deeds, but, subdues his passions... The saintly man, however, is guided in his actions by that to which his inclination and disposition prompt him, in consequence of which he acts morally from innate longing and desire. Philosophers unanimously agree that the latter is superior to, and more perfect than, the one who has to curb his passions...

When, however, we consult the Rabbis on this subject, it would seem that they consider him who desires iniquity and craves for it (but does not do it), more praiseworthy and perfect than the one who feels no torment at refraining from evil; and they even go so far as to maintain that the more praiseworthy and perfect a man is, the greater is his desire to commit iniquity and the more irritation does he feel at having to desist from it. This they express by saying, "Whosoever is greater than his neighbor has likewise greater evil inclinations" (Sukkah 52a)... Furthermore, they command that man should conquer his desires, but they forbid one to say, "I, by my nature, do not desire to commit such and such a transgression, even though the Law does not forbid it." Rabbi Simeon ben Gamliel summed up this thought in the words, "Man should not say, 'I do not want to eat meat together with milk...' but he should say, 'I do indeed want to, yet I must not, for my Father in heaven has forbidden it.'"

At first blush, by a superficial comparison of the sayings of the philosophers and the rabbis, one might be inclined to say that they contradict one another. Such, however is not the case. Both are correct and, moreover, are not ion disagreement in the least, as the evils which the philosophers term such - and of which they say that he who has no longing for them is more to be praised than he who desires them but conquers his passion - are things which all people commonly agree are evils, such as the shedding of blood, theft, robbery, fraud, injury to one who has done no harm, ingratitude, contempt for parents, and the like. The prescriptions against these are called commandments, about which the rabbis said, "If they had not already been written in the Law, it would be proper to add them" (Yoma 67b). Some of our later sages, who were infected with the unsound principles of the Mutakallimun, called these rational laws. There is no doubt that a soul which has the desire for and lusts after the above-mentioned misdeeds, is imperfect; that a noble soul has absolutely no desire for any such crimes and experiences no struggle in refraining from them. When, however, the rabbis maintain that he who overcomes his desire has more merit than and a greater reward (than he who has no temptation), they say so only in reference to laws that are ceremonial prohibitions. This is quite true, since, were it not for the Law, they would not be considered transgressions. Therefore, the rabbis say, that man should permit his soul to entertain the natural inclination for these things, but that the Law alone should restrain him from them.

(RaMBaM Shemonah Perakim 7, pp. 376-78 in Isadore Twersky's A Maimonides Reader)

 

A Strange Fire

This is one of the points in which Judaism and Paganism go in diametrically opposite directions. The Pagan brings his offering in an attempt to to make the god subservient to his wishes. The Jew, with his offering, wishes to place himself in the service of God; by his offering he wishes to make himself subservient to the wishes of God. So that all offerings are formulae of the demands of God, which the bringer, by his offering, undertakes to make the normal routine for his future life. So that self-devised offerings would be a killing of just those truths which our offerings are meant to impress and dominate the bringers, would be placing a pedestal on which to glorify one's own ideas, where a throne was meant to be built for obedience, and obedience only.

(Rabbi S.R. Hisch's commentary on VaYikra 10:2, Isaav Levy translation)

 

Was the Holocaust a Preface and Condition for Redemption and Independence?

In the past, grave things were said in connection with the Holocaust: There were those who claimed that the Holocaust was a preparation, a kind of price that the Jewish People had to pay in exchange for the creation of the State of Israel. There were those who clamed that the State of Israel serves as a kind of compensation for the Holocaust. They also claimed that this was the only way to cause the Jews, or rather to force them, to emigrate to the Land of Israel. These are very grave words, which are difficult to hear.

(From Harav Yehudah Amital's "Af al Pi shemeitzar umeimar li", quoted in M. Miyah's Olam Banuy, Hareiv, Uvanuy, pg. 64)

 

There is no accomplishment or blessing in this world that can compensate for the burning of those sinless multitudes of people. All of these words about the creation of the State in the wake of the Holocaust - they are hollow words. Neither the actual State of Israel, which occasionally must bleed to survive, nor the ideal State of Israel described in the prophecy of each man beneath his vine and beneath his fig-tree can begin to justify what the Jewish People went through during the years of the Holocaust.

(Harav Amital's lecture on the Yom Kaddish HaKlali - Ot Ve'Eid, Perek Iyyun Ve'Meida, quoted in Miyah op cit pg. 64)

 

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