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DEUTERONOMY — 12:20 meat

Torah Book & Portion, Book of Deuteronomy, Re'eh (Deuteronomy 11:26–16:17), Source Book Keys, OXFORD
Page(s): 426
DEUT573 Jewish traditions tend to view the act of killing animals as acceptable but morally fraught. Thus the Talmud dictates that one should not eat meat unless one craves it and kills the animal on one's own (B. Hullin 84a), has wealth (B. Hullin 84a) [See also Rashi commentary on this verse], and is educated (B. Pesahim 49b). Some intellectual streams go further and view meat-eating as a divine compromise, understanding kashrut (Jewish dietary law) as a vehicle intended to limit meat eating or even encourage us toward vegetarianism. The most influential modern exponent of this idea was almost certainly Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook (1865-1935), the first Ashkenazic Chief Rabbi of pre-State Israel. Meat is an ethical problem both because it ends an animal's life, and God "did not create His creatures to die" (Midrash Aggadah to Genesis 1:29), and because killing posits a threat to human moral development. This is perhaps the logic behind the Mishnah's assertion that "the best of the butchers is a partner of Amalek [the arch-enemy of Israel]" [M. Kiddushin 4:14; This saying is cited with this meaning in Sefer haHinnukh (Mitzvah 545)] In this way, the first ethical obligation in relation to eating animals is restraint. At the same time, another strain in the Jewish tradition mandates eating meat (often "meat and wine") on the Sabbath, and, in some versions, on other celebratory holidays as well, as part of the way the holiday is made special. Thus Rabbi J. David Bleich, a contemporary Orthodox authority, maintains that vegetarianism is, at most, permissible--and there are rabbinic authorities whom he quotes who deny that – – – and certainly not mandatory. (By Aaron S. Gross, "Jewish Animal Ethics")

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