MTC parsha shiur: Vegeterianism and Judaism, a match made in heaven?

. (4) The riffraff in their midst felt a gluttonous craving; and then the Israelites wept and said, “If only we had meat to eat! (5) We remember the fish that we used to eat free in Egypt, the cucumbers, the melons, the leeks, the onions, and the garlic.

(10) Moses heard the people weeping, every clan apart, each person at the entrance of his tent. The LORD was very angry, and Moses was distressed. (11) And Moses said to the LORD, “Why have You dealt ill with Your servant, and why have I not enjoyed Your favor, that You have laid the burden of all this people upon me? (12) Did I conceive all this people, did I bear them, that You should say to me, ‘Carry them in your bosom as a nurse carries an infant,’ to the land that You have promised on oath to their fathers? (13) Where am I to get meat to give to all this people, when they whine before me and say, ‘Give us meat to eat!’ (14) I cannot carry all this people by myself, for it is too much for me. (15) If You would deal thus with me, kill me rather, I beg You, and let me see no more of my wretchedness!”

​​​​​​​ (16) Then the LORD said to Moses, “Gather for Me seventy of Israel’s elders of whom you have experience as elders and officers of the people, and bring them to the Tent of Meeting and let them take their place there with you. (17) I will come down and speak with you there, and I will draw upon the spirit that is on you and put it upon them; they shall share the burden of the people with you, and you shall not bear it alone.

(18) And say to the people: Purify yourselves for tomorrow and you shall eat meat, for you have kept whining before the LORD and saying, ‘If only we had meat to eat! Indeed, we were better off in Egypt!’ The LORD will give you meat and you shall eat. (19) You shall eat not one day, not two, not even five days or ten or twenty, (20) but a whole month, until it comes out of your nostrils and becomes loathsome to you. For you have rejected the LORD who is among you, by whining before Him and saying, ‘Oh, why did we ever leave Egypt!’” (21) But Moses said, “The people who are with me number six hundred thousand men; yet You say, ‘I will give them enough meat to eat for a whole month.’ (22) Could enough flocks and herds be slaughtered to suffice them? Or could all the fish of the sea be gathered for them to suffice them?”

33) The meat was still between their teeth, nor yet chewed, when the anger of the LORD blazed forth against the people and the LORD struck the people with a very severe plague. (34) That place was named Kibroth-hattaavah, because the people who had the craving were buried there. (35) Then the people set out from Kibroth-hattaavah for Hazeroth.

(18) If a man has a wayward and defiant son, who does not heed his father or mother and does not obey them even after they discipline him, (19) his father and mother shall take hold of him and bring him out to the elders of his town at the public place of his community. (20) They shall say to the elders of his town, “This son of ours is disloyal and defiant; he does not heed us. He is a glutton and a drunkard.”

...he does not become a stubborn and rebellious son, unless he actually eats meat and actually drinks wine, as it is stated: “This son of ours is stubborn and rebellious; he does not listen to our voice; he…is a glutton [zolel] and a drunkard [vesovei]” (Deuteronomy 21:20). One is not called a glutton and a drunkard unless he eats meat and drinks wine....as it is stated: “Be not among wine drunkards, nor among meat gluttons” (Proverbs 23:20).

There was a certain calf that was being led to slaughter. The calf went and hung its head on the corner of Rabbi Yehuda HaNasi’s garment and was weeping. Rabbi Yehuda said to it: Go, as you were created for this purpose. It was said in Heaven: Since he was not compassionate toward the calf, let afflictions come upon him...

The sages instructed us that the proper path is that one should not eat meat save when craving it, even as it is said: "Because thy soul desires to eat flesh" (Deut. 12.20). It is enough for a healthy person to eat meat from Friday night to Friday night.

[...On Yom tov] people should eat meat and drink wine, for there is no real rejoicing without the use of meat and wine. While eating and drinking, one must feed the stranger, the orphan, the widow, and other poor unfortunates. Anyone, however, who locks the doors of his courtyard and eats and drinks along with his wife and children, without giving anything to eat and drink to the poor and the desperate, does not observe a religious celebration but indulges in the celebration of his stomach.

It is taught in a baraita (Tosefta, Sota 15:10) that Rabbi Yishmael ben Elisha said: From the day that the Temple was destroyed, by right, we should decree upon ourselves not to eat meat and not to drink wine, but the Sages do not issue a decree upon the public unless a majority of the public is able to abide by it.

(3) The explanation of all this is, I think, as follows: In the killing of animals there is cruelty, rage, and the accustoming oneself to the bad habit of shedding innocent blood, but the eating of the flesh of some animals produces besides, coarseness, ugliness and stupidity... this is why he forbade Adam the eating of animal food....

When they were all destroyed and only Noah and those with him in the ark remained, God wanted to eradicate this opinion (that men and animals were equal). Hence when Noah, after leaving the ark, brought an animal offering to God because he knew that man is superior by virtue of his reason and can know his Creator and serve Him better than the animals and can be thankful to God for this privilege, his offering was accepted with favor, as is said, “And the Lord smelled the sweet savour.” But He feared that unless this opinion was made firm, the Noahites might deviate in the direction of Abel’s idea (that man could kill an animal only to serve G-d who is obviously above animals, unlike humans who are not) and assume that God accepted their father’s offering as he accepted Abel’s offering, thus going back to the former errors and wrongdoing. Hence immediately after the offering, He hastened to permit the killing of animals and the eating of their flesh, “As the green herb have I given you all.” The meaning is that as even Cain admitted that man is superior to the plants, since they are created for man, so all the animals are also for the sake of man, who is superior to them, and there is not the same spirit in all. For this reason He prohibited the shedding of human blood, giving as a reason that the spirit of man is not like the spirit of the animal, for in the image of God made He man, i. e. man has a rational form which is nobler than the spirit of the animal. For this reason it was necessary to permit all animals without distinction, which He did, in order to eradicate the former opinion and wipe off its memory.

Any action needed for healing or any other [substantial] reason, there is no prohibition of "causing pain to animals." And therefore it is permitted to pluck the feathers of wild geese [to use for writing utensils], and there is no potential problem of "causing pain to animals." Nevertheless, the world withholds from it because of its cruelty.

Rabbi Aḥa bar Ya’akov said: At the beginning, the Jewish people were like chickens pecking at the garbage; any time there was food they grabbed it and ate it, until Moses came and set specific times to eat, as the verse implies. He set mealtimes for them in the morning and in the evening.

§ The mishna states that from the time when the Second Temple was destroyed men of faith ceased. Rabbi Yitzḥak says: These are people who believe in the Holy One, Blessed be He, and place their trust in Him in all their ways. As it is taught in a baraita: Rabbi Eliezer the Great says that whoever has bread in his basket to eat today and says: What shall I eat tomorrow, meaning he does not know how he will acquire bread for tomorrow, he is nothing other than from those of little faith. One must trust in God to provide him with his sustenance.

(18) Speak unto the children of Israel, and say unto them: When ye come into the land whither I bring you, (19) then it shall be, that, when ye eat of the bread of the land, ye shall set apart a portion for a gift unto the LORD. (20) Of the first of your dough ye shall set apart a cake for a gift; as that which is set apart of the threshing-floor, so shall ye set it apart. (21) Of the first of your dough ye shall give unto the LORD a portion for a gift throughout your generations.