Judaism
Should Jews be Vegetarians ?
Adam and Eve were the ancestors of what some we would call early Jewish Vegetarians though they were created to live at peace with man and beast they gradually descended into violence, its interesting to note that once they had conducted the first murder and sacrifice of an animal to their God as recorded in Genesis chapter 4:2-16 their then followed the first murder of humans, when Cain killed his brother Abel.
Mount Sinai site of the law given to Moses and Israel, "Though shalt not kill"
During the time that the Jewish nation camped in the shadow of this holy mountain, anything living, either man or domestic beast that touched the holy mountain were to be put to death without fail. While up in the mountain Moses later records that he had a supernatural meeting with the Most High. After receiving the tablets of stone on which the law ( The Ten Commandments ) had been written "by the finger of God", Moses then made his way down toward the base of this mountain, and as he descended he found the people worshiping other gods, this was viewed as a profanity and the account states that the Almighty instructed him to tell the Israelites to kill their fellow countrymen who had a part in worshiping the false god. Then Moses goes on to record that at his instigation twenty five thousand people were consequently murdered by their fellow tribesmen for their part in this. Interestingly the god that they had fashioned, and that caused all this trouble was made in the form of a ( Golden Calf ). From this we can deduce that worship of animals, "which was prevalant in other nations" was not at all acceptable to their God. Exodus chapter 32.
While holding other creatures with deep respect it was seen that sacrifices of animals and birds were then sanctioned as part of the divine law that Moses received, and then revealed to the Israelites.
From a diet of slaughter to one of compassion and back again.
The Image below is of a species of Tamarisk tree in the Sinai desert. These trees exude a white sweet substance that is the result of the activity of scale insects on branches & trunk. Bedouin tradition says that the Hebrew manna ( The Bread from Heaven) came from these trees.
After an act of unfaithfulness to the Hebrew God the Israelites, were told that they would be punished by wandering in the wilderness for forty years before they would be allowed to enter into their promised land. The eating of animals was then temporarily suspended, and the biblical account states that God then rained down Manna from the heavens to sustain them for all these years. This Manna seems to have been a complete food, and could be eaten raw, or baked into rounded cakes. After the long period of divine punishment had ended, the Bible states that God stopped the provision of Manna, and the Israelites were then permitted to resume their journey to their promised land of milk and honey, returning also unfortunately to killing other creatures and eating there flesh.
Further on in the Hebrew Scriptures, in the book of (Daniel chapter 2 ) is a testimony to the healthfulness of the vegetarian diet as highlighted when three young Hebrews were captured and were brought into Babylon to be trained for the government following the Babylonian invasion of Israel. These young Israelites would not eat the meat they were given, as they firmly believed that it had initialy been used in a sacrifice to a false god. The young Israelites ( Hebrews) pleaded to be allowed to eat vegetables instead, and when they were given the chance to follow this diet, it resulted in their becoming both the healthiest, and wisest, of all the young students, in fact they were found to be ten times better than the wise men of Babylon. Again this is yet another result of people benefiting for deciding to follow the compassionate vegetarian path, which is certainly one that any spiritual person Jew or otherwise that is seeking God would want to take to heart.
Animal Sacrifices at theTemple of Solomon
A huge number of animals were sacrificed at the inauguration of the Temple, , which consisted of 22,000 cattle and 120,000 sheep, and all these animals had one thing in common, they were all to be of perfect health, form, and condition. The concept that such animals are sentient has already been established so one can only imagine the terror they must have experienced as they heard the forlorn cries of there own kind, as they were shoved along to face the priests knife. Following this wholesale ritual slaughter, the scriptures state that the Temple was then filled with the "Glory of God.( Read All 1st Kings Chapter 8)
The Bible says these things happened in times long gone, this was when man could not put his trust in plants only, and live on what he could grow, for him there loomed the ever present danger of plagues of locusts, crop failure due to disease or adverse growing conditions. Life back then all those thousands of years ago must have been both a harsh and bitter existence, which could ultimately bring about famine and death quickly upon them, and their little ones.
(image left, model of Solomons Temple in Jerusalem, place of sacrifice)
All that they really had at there disposal to to fight such threats to their existence was the avenue of approach to God through their religion, which had been passed on to them over thousands of years by the ancestors and through the medium of animal sacrifice, grain and wine offerings and prayer in appeasement of their God.
The Bible states that in the times of human ignorance long past, that God permitted the inclusion of meat in the human diet at that point in history, yet over the last hundred years things have changed dramatically, and as the Jewish peoples growth in enlightenment pinnacled they now know a good deal about the scientific laws underpinning plant breeding, having discovered the fundamental principles of agricultural success that can now ensure a good crop. Can they still be guided by instructions that were meant for existence 4000 years ago?.
Many have pondered this very question and there has now emerged a surprising amount of faithful Jews, who now discern this point in history to be a time of enlightenment spoken of long ago, and in keeping with a growth in understanding that they have made they have now adopted a compassionate vegetarian lifestyle. Such enlightened worshipers are growing considerably in number and are in the full conviction that the slaughter and suffering of an animal is not nowadays necessary for our nutritional survival and have recognized that there is a noble, compassionate, and holy choice (Path ) set before this generation, one that was extremely difficult (or nigh impossible) for their ancestors to take.
To live more at peace and harmony with creation is vitaly important to such spiritual individuals, and having this in mind they are now able to desist from every form of violence ( which includes killing or eating animals ) and as such they have been blessed with enjoying a more peacefull, healthy, and fulfilling lifestyle.
Casting fishing nets from a boat on Galilee
Link below, belongs to a commendable Jewish doctor who advocates the change toVeganism.
http://www.jewishveg.com/schwartz/dietlaws.html
Learning Respect and Compassion From Atrocity
Dachau
Edgar Kupfer was imprisoned in Dachau concentration camp in 1940. His last 3 years in Dachau he obtained a clerical job in the concentration camp storeroom. This position allowed him to keep a secret diary on stolen scraps of papers and pieces of pencil. He would bury his writings and when Dachau was liberated on April 29, 1945 he collected them again. The "Dachau Diaries" were published in 1956. From his Dachau notes he wrote an essay on vegetarianism which was translated into "immigrant" English. A carbon copy of this 38 page essay is preserved with the original Dachau Diaries in the Special Collection of the Library of the University of Chicago. The following are the excerpts from this essay that were reprinted in the postscript of the book "Radical Vegetarianism" by Mark Mathew Braunstein (1981 Panjandrum Books, Los Angeles, CA). The book is subtitled "A Dialectic of Diet and Ethic" and is recommended to all vegetarians especially those interested in natural hygiene.
Animals, My Brethren by Edgar Kupfer-Koberwitz
The following pages were written in the Concentration Camp Dachau, in the midst of all kinds of cruelties. They were furtively scrawled in a hospital barrack where I stayed during my illness, in a time when Death grasped day by day after us, when we lost twelve thousand within four and a half months. Dear Friend: You asked me why I do not eat meat and you are wondering at the reasons of my behavior. Perhaps you think I took a vow -- some kind of penitence -- denying me all the glorious pleasures of eating meat. You remember juicy steaks, succulent fishes, wonderfully tasted sauces, deliciously smoked ham and thousand wonders prepared out of meat, charming thousands of human palates; certainly you will remember the delicacy of roasted chicken. Now, you see, I am refusing all these pleasures and you think that only penitence, or a solemn vow, a great sacrifice could deny me that manner of enjoying life, induce me to endure a great resignment.
You look astonished, you ask the question: "But why and what for?" And you are wondering that you nearly guessed the very reason. But if I am, now, trying to explain you the very reason in one concise sentence, you will be astonished once more how far your guessing had been from my real motive. Listen to what I have to tell you: I refuse to eat animals because I cannot nourish myself by the sufferings and by the death of other creatures.
I refuse to do so, because I suffered so painfully myself that I can feel the pains of others by recalling my own sufferings.
I feel happy, nobody persecutes me; why should I persecute other beings or cause them to be persecuted?
I feel happy, I am no prisoner, I am free; why should I cause other creatures to be made prisoners and thrown into jail?
I feel happy, nobody harms me; why should I harm other creatures or have them harmed?
I feel happy, nobody wounds me; nobody kills me; why should I wound or kill other creatures or cause them to be wounded or killed for my pleasure and convenience?
Is it not only too natural that I do not inflict on other creatures the same thing which, I hope and fear, will never be inflicted on me? Would it not be most unfair to do such things for no other purpose than for enjoying a trifling physical pleasure at the expense of others' sufferings, others' deaths? These creatures are smaller and more helpless than I am, but can you imagine a reasonable man of noble feelings who would like to base on such a difference a claim or right to abuse the weakness and the smallness of others? Don't you think that it is just the bigger, the stronger, the superior's duty to protect the weaker creatures instead of persecuting them, instead of killing them? "Noblesse oblige." I want to act in a noble way.
I recall the horrible epoch of inquisition and I am sorry to state that the time of tribunals for heretics has not yet passed by, that day by day, men use to cook in boiling water other creatures which are helplessly given in the hands of their torturers. I am horrified by the idea that such men are civilized people, no rough barbarians, no natives. But in spite of all, they are only primitively civilized, primitively adapted to their cultural environment. The average European, flowing over with highbrow ideas and beautiful speeches, commits all kinds of cruelties, smilingly, not because he is compelled to do so, but because he wants to do so. Not because he lacks the faculty to reflect upon and to realize all the dreadful things they are performing. Oh no! Only because they do not want to see the facts. Otherwise they would be troubled and worried in their pleasures.
It is quite natural what people are telling you. How could they do otherwise? I hear them telling about experiences, about utilities, and I know that they consider certain acts related to slaughtering as unavoidable. Perhaps they succeeded to win you over. I guess that from your letter. Still, considering the necessities only, one might, perhaps, agree with such people. But is there really such a necessity? The thesis may be contested. Perhaps there exists still some kind of necessity for such persons who have not yet developed into full conscious personalities. I am not preaching to them. I am writing this letter to you, to an already awakened individual who rationally controls his impulses, who feels responsible -- internally and externally -- of his acts, who knows that our supreme court is sitting in our conscience. There is no appellate jurisdiction against it. Is there any necessity by which a fully self-conscious man can be induced to slaughter? In the affirmative, each individual may have the courage to do it by his own hands. It is, evidently, a miserable kind of cowardice to pay other people to perform the blood-stained job, from which the normal man refrains in horror and dismay. Such servants are given some farthings for their bloody work, and one buys from them the desired parts of the killed animal -- if possible prepared in such a way that it does not any more recall the discomfortable circumstances, nor the animal, nor its being killed, nor the bloodshed.
I think that men will be killed and tortured as long as animals are killed and tortured. So long there will be wars too. Because killing must be trained and perfected on smaller objects, morally and technically. I see no reason to feel outraged by what others are doing, neither by the great nor by the smaller acts of violence and cruelty. But, I think, it is high time to feel outraged by all the small and great acts of violence and cruelty which we perform ourselves. And because it is much easier to win the smaller battles than the big ones, I think we should try to get over first our own trends towards smaller violence and cruelty, to avoid, or better, to overcome them once and for all. Then the day will come when it will be easy for us to fight and to overcome even the great cruelties. But we are still sleeping, all of us, in habitudes and inherited attitudes. They are like a fat, juicy sauce which helps us to swallow our own cruelties without tasting their bitterness. I have not the intention to point out with my finger at this and that, at definite persons and definite situations. I think it is much more my duty to stir up my own conscience in smaller matters, to try to understand other people better, to get better and less selfish. Why should it be impossible then to act accordingly with regard to more important issues? That is the point: I want to grow up into a better world where a higher law grants more happiness, in a new world where God's commandment reigns:
You Shall Love Each Other
