I have had a strange relationship with eating meat over the course of my life. At some points I have cut out red meat, then all meat, and now “some meat depending on what it looks like.” My aversion to meat has a lot to do with its appearance, its preparation, and how it is consumed. For example, a hamburger might be fine (because it is hidden by condiments) but a steak is too much to bear. Fish never felt or tasted like meat, so I’ve always continued to eat it. My mother has an ethical issue with lamb and veal that my sister and I have inherited. Because she was so averse to it, I cannot even stomach the idea of eating it. The whole thing is complicated. But simply put, I have a strange relationship to consuming meat.
Vayikra does very little to settle my pseudo-vegetarian stomach. The animals in the parshah are (ritually) slaughtered and their blood is dashed on the sacred sacrificial altar. They are skinned, cut into, and cut up into pieces for distribution, burning, and consumption. Are you squirming yet? I sure am.
We are not alone. In Guide for the Perplexed, Maimonides is critical of the animal sacrifice in Torah and Temple times. He goes so far as to claim that it was God’s way of weaning the Jewish people off of pagan animal worship. According to Maimonides, God was more concerned with conditioning us for “service to God” than the sacrifices themselves. Indeed, long after animal sacrifice ended, we still find ways to pray and to dedicate ourselves to acts of love and thanksgiving.
It is clear that Maimonides also had questions regarding compassionate treatment of animals, though. In Guide for the Perplexed, part three, chapter 48, he maintains that animal cruelty is a mark of idolatry. Yet before we call Maimonides the model vegetarian, he does concede that from a medical point of view, the consumption of meat is necessary for the human diet. Thus, he advocates a moral approach to animal slaughter and ingestion.
So what is that moral approach? Some would say keeping kosher. Many Jews support the laws of kashrut as a means to avoiding such cruelty (strict slaughter laws apply here). But given the politics behind different hekhshers and the availability of non-kosher but organic, free-range, grass-fed (and on and on) meat, kashrut is not the only way to eat meat in an “ethical” way.
When it comes to meat-eating, the plethora of options makes for a very gray “moral” landscape. What intrigues me most is how judgmental we get about one another’s food choices. For everyone who thinks their choice to go vegan is moral and healthy, there is someone ready to call them crazy. Meat-eaters can be called heartless.
Maimonides’ lesson therefore rings out as a guide: the way we treat animals and the way we eat should be humane. The definition of what this means can shift and change as our world, and we, change. New technologies, research, and sensibilities cause a shifting terrain, but change is not a bad thing. Even God was capable of tolerating it!
Rabbi Mara Young is the Director of Congregational Learning at Woodlands Community Temple in Greenburgh, NY.
