Jerusalem – Whoever avoids eating meat or has chosen a vegetarian lifestyle for the sake of having mercy on animals is wrong, according to Rabbi Dov Lior, a prominent Religious Zionism halachic authority.
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“We still are not compassionate towards people in our times, so having mercy on animals is irrelevant,” explained the rabbi. “Only when the world ascends spiritually and we have mercy on people will we be able to be vegetarians.”
Lior is serving as Kiryat Arba’s rabbi and is considered a prominent leader in the National Haredi movement.
Rabbi Lior addressed the issue in a scholarly article published on Saturday in the “Gilui Da’at” pamphlets distributed at synagogues. “There is no objecting to making sacrifices (in the Temple) on claims of cruelty to animals,” opened the author in reference to a central topic in the weekly Torah portion.
According to him, “When the Torah allowed the slaughter of animals for human consumption, it thus permitted slaughter for higher needs (for mitzvot).”
Regarding the Torah’s permission to kill animals in order to eat them, the rabbi wrote that Jews can “raise up the mundane.”
“When a person from Israel eats, if he does so for a holy purpose, he sanctifies the material, something that does not exist among the nations of the world, for whom eating has no connection to holiness,” Rabbi Lior explained.
As an example, the rabbi mentioned the Hasidic custom of tasting the rabbi’s leftovers after he “discovers sparks (of wisdom) within the food.”
I am afraid we have a long wait .
I am a meat-eater and always will be, but this is the dumbest argument ever made. To suggest that because some people lack compassion for others, it is perfectly acceptable to kill animals and eat them is absurd. One has nothing to do with the other. If we are supposed to aspire to be compassionate towards each other, and by extension towards animals, it is irrelevant as to how we actually behave. It would be like arguing that it is acceptable to abuse animals because some people abuse human beings. This is a non-sequitur if I ever saw one.
Yes but it can be done on the grounds of a particular type of shechita being cruel. In other words if the cow is being shechted without anxiety that is fine and is maaleh the ruchniyus of the animal. However, when we inject an anxiety in that the cow knows its going to die and is scared, then vegetarianism would be okay.
A Rav
Hitler y”sh was compassionate toward animals. In fact the nazis passed the first nation-wide animal protection laws. Having compassion for animals is, clearly, no predictor of compassion toward people.
To all the above comments, and particular to this so called rabbi who wrote this article, you al have no clue ,
Because the biggest favor one can do to these animals is to eat them so they have an aliyah from a chai to a medaber , as it is written in all seforim , it has nothing to do with pity, aderabah these animals wait for a yid to come and be it maaleh.
For a deeper and more significant explaination in this matter , you can hear the shiur of this past tuesday from Hagaon Reb Binyamin Eisenberger Rav Dkhal Heichal Hatfillah in Boro Park.
i
It is sold only in The Heichal Hatfillah shul
The topic is Soif odom Lmisah , Soif Behiemah Lmisah (Brachos Perek 2)
The way these cows live in metal cages their entire life without having a glimpse of sunlight is tzar baalei chayim. Especially the veal calves, which are tied up and locked in a tight space where they can’t move so their muscles should stay soft to give soft meat. In that sense I agree that buying meat supports a cruel industry and I can understand being vegetarian for that reason.
Maybe this rabbi should read up on the meat industry as it is today, not how most people imagine (most meat cows do NOT walk around in fields eating grass, but suffer from birth to death in inhumane conditions). There’s a very educational video called “Meet your Meat.” The nuts over at PETA made it, but it’s still worth watching.
Thus argument does not make sense – Should I say: I am not perfect in shmirat mitzvot so I will skip all of them. Huh?
Be kind to yourselves, eat more vegetables. I agree, being a vegetarian or a vegan for some “moral” reason is not the Torah way. Eating lightly, not wasting food or polluting the environment to overindulge on meat make one more susceptible to illness (and yes we all know someone who overeats, smokes and drinks and remains healthy). Just be aware that you are what you eat, you are how you eat, and you are to give thanks that you have something to eat.
There’s a reason we’re supposed to eat meat on Shabbos and Yom Tov – because until about 50 years ago in the U.S., meat was something really special. Now, it’s relatively cheap and we eat too much of it. I’m not a vegetarian at all, but I only eat chicken or meat on Shabbos and Yom Tov, but not even every Shabbos, plus maybe in a restaurant once a month or so. If people just ate chicken or meat 3-4 times a month instead of 5-6 times a week or more, so many of the problems with the industry and environmental problems (and maybe financial and health problems, too) would lessen dramatically. So, nobody has to be a vegetarian, but we could all appreciate our food a little bit more. We all talk about our bubbes, so let’s remember that our bubbes never ate as much chicken and meat as we do! For them it really was something more special.
Rabbi Shlomo Goren z’tz’l and Rabbi David Cohen z’tz’l were vegetarians. Rabbi Cohen’s son, Rabbi Shear Yashuv Cohen, may he live to be 120, still is.
#15 and #16 :
Don’t flaunt your ignorance. Do you really think cows that end up in kosher slaughterhouses received special treatment growing up? Do you think that THEY got to walk around a field while the soon-to-be non-kosher cows suffer? Do Jews own cattle ranches? No, the same factories raise cows for BOTH markets. My complaint is not against shechting, but against the treatment of these animals before they end up in a kosher slaughterhouse.
Harav miller Z”L said, that hashem made animals for the puspose of serving humanity, as everything in this world is. By saying ‘animal rights’ you are lowering our status, making it closer to animals.
Our torah permits eating animals, and there is no mention in the talmud otherwise. So by saying that we shouldn’t eat animals, is clearly not in sync with the torah.
Unless if you believe that these animals might once talk.. And evolve into humans, I do not see any reason not eating them.
Can’t wait for the Chulent with meat..
Rav Kook was not a strict vegetarian, which we know from testimony from his family members. He ate only a small amount of meat, on shabbos. Of course, many people in the poverty-stricken old yishuv ate only a small amount of meat as well.
Although Rav Kook felt that vegetarianism was the ideal situation, he wrote very specifically that to advocate vegetarianism for the masses at the present time would be very bad public policy. His objections centered mainly around the misconception it would give the general public that there is no moral difference between people and animals (in other words, he foresaw PETA).
I am protesting for the Bizui talmid chacham that some of you do by saying that what he said is “silly”, this is the generation of ikvoso demeshicho chutzpa yasge, people disrespect talmidei chachamim because they don’t agree and/or don’t understand their rulings. What in the world have we come to?!!!
Whom does it bother if I choose not to eat meat, whether for health or ethical reasons? What aveirah am I committing? If you want to kill animals so you can eat them when there are perfectly kosher alternatives to obtain one’s nutrition – and especially after we have seen the sorry state of what passes for kosher shechita in this country – that’s your choice. Anyone who thinks that the way animals are schechted in this country is not inflicting pain on the animals is living in denial. Plus the kashrus of the resulting meat is highly questionable. It is a very big business and businesses will always find ways to cut corners with bought heteirim, etc. I would like someone to explain to me why we are so careful to not chas v’sholom be oiver a lav or even a minhag involving kashrus when it comes to bosor b’cholov, bishul akum, pas akum, cholov yisroel, chodosh, bugs in vegetables and water, mixing meat and fish and stam yeinom while when it comes to eating meat we are very cavalier. Does anyone believe that when one is eating a nice, juicy rare steak he is not ingesting any blood which is punishable by koreis and which the Torah repeatedly warns against?