This is one section from a resource developed by Big Green Jewish in partnership with UJIA and Tzedek that combines curriculum linked school lessons with hands on gardening as well as text study sessions exploring various themes within Judaism around food and farming. The full resources can be found here.
Thanks go to Rabbi Natan Levy and Nic Abery from Look to Learn who produced much of the material for these resources.
According to the Biblical commentary Or Ha'Chayim, we can only eat what we have raised, suggesting respect for the type of animal husbandry writers such as Michael Pollan and Jonathan Safran Foer lament is disappearing in the face of factory farming. If you had to apply this principle, what would you be able to eat?
Is this type of principled meat eating any better than meat eating generally?
In what other ways might we need to be better connected to the production of the food we eat?
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| We need to explain the reason that meat, which was forbidden to the First Man is then made permissible to Noah and his offspring. The explanation begins with the story of Cain and Abel. We must ask: Why did God not look favorably on Cain’s offering of his field produce? The answer is that Cain had grown up watching his father Adam toil and sweat to farm his land, surviving on vegetables alone as God had forbade him and his family to eat meat. Cain himself became a farmer, because he believed that there could be no distinction between the human and the animal, except in the fact that the human must work for his produce, whereas the animals simply took what was wild. However, because both humans and animals both ate the same foodstuff, Cain reasoned that they where essentially at the same spiritual level. Thus Cain brought an offering from his field, and was appalled at the idea of an animal sacrifice. Cain’s notion of equality between humans and animals eventually led him to murder his brother, for he saw Abel kill an animal for a sacrifice, and reasoned that if a human can kill an animal, than a human can kill another human…Thus God allowed Noah to eat animals to reintroduce the moral distinction between the animal and the human. |
What do you think of the commentator's link between Noah being allowed to eat animals and the story of Cain and Abel?
Do you think we need this distinction between animals and ourselves in order to have a more ethical society?
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| The underlying objective to refrain from tza’ar ba’alei chayim is established with a view to perfecting us that we should not acquire moral habits of cruelty and should not inflict pain gratuitously, but that we should intend to be kind and merciful even with an individual animal except in the case of need. |
What does Maimonides mean by 'except in the case of need'?
Does this imply that we can afflict baboons in medical experiments? Or test our cosmetics in the eyes of rabbits?
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| Anything which is necessary in order to effect a cure or for other matters does not entail a violation of the prohibition against tza’ar ba’alei haim… It is therefore permitted to pluck feathers from live geese [while they are alive] and there is no concern on account of tza’ar ba’alei haim. Nevertheless, people refrain from doing so because it constitutes an act of cruelty. |
Is this text suggesting we can or can not make use of animals for our own ends?
What criteria would you add to that in the text about when we can and can not cause animals some pain?
Why does Rabbi Judah say 'for this you were created'?
Judaism allows us to kill animals for food, so why is Rabbi Judah punished?
Is it possible to be a meat eating society that still has mercy for animals?
Can you think of any examples of standards people have for how animals are raised and killed that seek to lessen the cruelty experienced by the animals involved?
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The ever-increasing cattle population is wreaking havoc on the earth’s ecosystems, destroying habitats on six continents. Cattle raising is a primary factor in the destruction of the world’s remaining tropical rainforests. Millions of acres of ancient forests in Central and South America are being felled and cleared to make room for pastureland to graze cattle. Cattle herding is responsible for much of the spreading desertification in the sub-Sahara of Africa and the western rangeland of the United States and Australia. The overgrazing of semiarid and arid lands has left parched and barren desserts on four continents. Organic runoff from feedlots is now a major source of organic pollution in our nations ground water. Cattle are also a major cause of global warming…The devastating environmental, economic and human toll of maintaining a worldwide cattle complex is little discussed in policy circles… Yet, cattle production and beef consumption now rank among the gravest threat to the future well-being of the earth and its human population.
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Why do you think cattle rearing has become such a damaging industry?
Do you think humans should eat less meat in order to protect the environment?
Do you think that environmental reasons for eating less meat appeal to people in a different way to reasons around animal cruelty?