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GENESIS — 9:4 life-blood

GEN673 … does an animal’s death fulfill a purpose?  The Torah seems to say—whether you agree with its reasoning or not—that the animal’s purpose is to nurture bigger animals and human beings.  Human beings, after all, also nurture the earth when we die and are buried.  Although God seems to see nurturing other creatures as one of the purposes for the existence of animals, God clearly wants human beings go think about the lives they are taking. Consider the long lists of creatures permitted and forbidden, the near-death struggle in Parashat Vayishlach from which Jacob emerges wounded in his loins, the source of the prohibition against sirloin and tender loin and porterhouse.  Consider the statement in [this verse] that blood represents the life that belongs to God and not to us, and the Rabbis’ tortured extensions of the simple command to avoid boiling a kid in its mother’s milk.  Talking an animal’s life may be permitted, but we are to empathize with the animal’s pain, with tzaar baalei chayim.  If the ideal is the reinstatement of the Edenic condition, then to confront the realities of consuming animals with every meal we buy, prepare, and consume not only builds our Jewish identities, but also makes us aware many times each day of God’s mitzvot—and reminds us of our failure to create societies free from violence and lustful appetite.  (By Richard N. Levy, "Kashrut: A New Freedom for Reform Jews") SACTAB 70

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GENESIS — 24:19 camels

GEN1181 (Continued from [[GEN33]] Genesis 2:7 living SACTAB 216). As we continue forward in the Torah, we note the important role of animals in the lives of our biblical ancestors. The search for a wife for Isaac is one example of such a story. When Abraham’s servant is sent to find a wife for Isaac, he prays that the right woman will extend an offer of drink to his camels. And so we read, (this first). Rebecca's compassionate act toward the animals helps identify her as suitable to be the next matriarch of the Jewish people. (By Rayna Ellen Gevurtz, "Kindness to Animals: Tzaar Baalei Chayim") (Continued at [[DEUT1166]] Deuteronomy 22:10 together SACTAB 217).

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GENESIS — 43:32 abhorrent

GEN1543 Historically the dietary laws (kashrut) have been a way of encouraging Jewish social intercourse and limiting interaction with non-Jews. Dietary rules create boundaries.  This is well illustrated when Joseph eats with his brothers before he reveals his true identify to them [this verse].   Kashrut has played a significant role in connecting Jews to one another and achieving a sense of common identity.  However, disputes about kashrut have created divisions within the Jewish community regarding the creation of boundary lines distinguishing one stream from another or one school of interpretation from the other.   Decisions about dietary restrictions are often grounded in the philosophy of a particular steam.  The best and clearest example comes from classical Reform Judaism and its 1885 Pittsburgh Platform with its thoroughgoing universalism and its rejection of bodily mitzvot.  In rejecting peoplehood, the rejection of kashrut makes complete sense.   Classical Reformers understood how important the dietary laws had been to the past formulations of Judaism and that the new Judaism they were creating required a radical change to symbolize the new philosophy: We hold that all such Mosaic and rabbinical laws as regulate diet, priestly purity, and dress originated in ages and under the influence of ideas entirely foreign to our present mental and spiritual state.   They fail to impress the modern Jew with a spirit of priestly holiness; their observance in our days is apt rather to obstruct than to further modern spiritual elevation.  If the goal was integration into society, kashrut was a barrier.   Meals played an important role in nineteenth-century social and business relationships, as they do today.   If the essence of religion is ethical behavior, then what goes into the mouth is not as important as what comes out of the mouth.   This Enlightenment-inspired Reform community wanted to assimilate into educated society and to emphasize ethical behavior.   That legacy shaped Reform Judaism.   Personally, I remember participating in youth group events where the food was deliberately not kasher as a way of emphasizing the ethical dimension of Judaism. (By Peter Knobel, “WHAT I EAT IS WHO I AM: Kashrut and Identity”) SACTAB 439-440 (Continued at [[LEV118]] Leviticus 11:44 holy SACTAB 440-2)

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GENESIS — 43:32 separately

GEN1544 Eating is a visceral experience. It not only sustains our bodies, but also leaves an imprint on our psyches. Eating is obviously a basic necessity to sustain life, yet eating is also deeply connected to identity. What we eat and what we refrain from eating says a great deal about who we are and how we understand ourselves in relation to other Jews and other human beings. In Torah we have clear regulations about which animals and fish may be consumed and which are prohibited (Leviticus 11, Deuteronomy 14). Historically the dietary laws (kashrut) have been a way of encouraging Jewish social intercourse and limiting interaction with non-Jews. Dietary rules create boundaries. This is well illustrated when Joseph eats with his brothers before he reveals his true identity to them. The text says [this verse]. Kashrut has played a significant role in connecting Jews to one another and achieving a sense of common identity. However, disputes about kashrut have created divisions within the Jewish community regarding the creation of boundary lines distinguishing one stream from another or one school of interpretation from the other. Decisions about dietary restrictions are often grounded in the philosophy of a particular stream. The best and clearest example comes from classical Reform Judaism and its 1885 Pittsburgh Platform with its thoroughgoing universalism and its rejection of bodily mitzvot. In rejecting peoplehood, the rejection of kashrut makes complete sense. Classical Reformers understood how important the dietary laws had been to the past formulations of Judaism and that the new Judaism they were creating required a radical change to symbolize the new philosophy: “We hold that all such Mosaic and Rabbinic laws as regulate diet, priestly purity, and dress originated in ages and under the influence of ideas entirely foreign to our present mental and spiritual state. They fail to impress the modern Jew with a spirit of priestly holiness; their observance in our days is apt rather to obstruct than to further modern spiritual elevation.” [“The Pittsburgh Platform,” 1885, www.ccarnet.org.] (By Peter Knobel, “What I Eat Is Who I Am: Kashrut and Identity”)

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EXODUS — 20:10 cattle

EXOD396 (Continued from [[1166]] Deuteronomy 22:10 together SACTAB 217). Perhaps the most outstanding example of the Torah’s message of compassion for animals is the recognition of an animal’s need to rest. This command is deemed so crucial that it is included within the Ten Commandments (this verse). At a time when our ancestors’ livelihood depended upon the physical work that their animals performed, this was a powerful statement of concern for their animals’ welfare. The laws within the Torah also go beyond the treatment of one's own animals, to the laws regarding those within the public domain. One example of this is the obligation to help lift the pack animal of one's enemy if it has fallen under a heavy load (Exodus 23:5), guiding people to put the needs of creatures above human emotion. The Torah also states that we must demonstrate care to animals in the wild. As we read, (Deuteronomy 22:6-7). Maimonides explains that these verses remind us that animals feel emotional pain too: “There is no difference between the pain that a human feels and the pain that these animals feel when they see their young taken away or slaughtered. Like humans, they instinctively care for their young.” (Moreih N’vuchim 3:48). Finally, it is important to note that the respect and care that humans are to have for the animal world is modeled by God. As we read, “The Eternal is good to all, and God's compassion is over all God’s creatures” (Ps. 145:9). Just as God is praised as having mercy on all the creatures of the world, so too must humans, created in the divine image, behave in a compassionate manner: “A righteous man knows the needs of his animal, but the compassion of the wicked is cruelty” (Prov. 12:10). (By Rayna Ellen Gevurtz, "Kindness to Animals: Tzaar Baalei Chayim")

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EXODUS — 23:5 load

EXOD817 When we envision a farm, our minds fill with pictures from childhood songs of animals blissfully grazing in pastures green. Tragically, the reality of today's farms is a different scene entirely: Egg-laying hens are raised in overcrowded cages and debeaked with hot searing knives. Male chicks are “useless,” and so they are discarded at birth by being thrown into garbage bags to suffocate or into shredding machines to be turned into food for the other chickens. Calves that are raised for veal are taken from their mothers a day or two after birth and placed in tiny dark cages with their heads chained in place. Beef cattle are overfed, castrated, dehorned, and branded without anesthetics and finally shipped in overcrowded trucks to be slaughtered. And this is just scratching the surface of the modern industrial reality of mass-produced animal products that lurks behind the plastic-wrapped morsels we find in the supermarket. Today's farms, often termed “factory farms” for their production-line approach to animal rearing, offer a sharp contrast to the Jewish tradition’s teaching of tzaar baalei chayim, the commandment of preventing suffering to animals. In the Talmud, the Sages conclude that tzaar baalei chayim is a Toraitic obligation. Based on the interpretation of the biblical command to unload a pack animal (this verse), the Rabbis conclude, “We have learned that tzaar baalei chayim [the prevention of suffering to animals] is a biblical obligation” (Babylonian Talmud, Bava M’tzia 32a-b). This majority opinion is later supported in the halachic commentaries and codes. From this point, the Rabbis go on to instruct that tzaar baalei chayim is so important that we are permitted to break other mitzvot in order to prevent any suffering to animals, including the laws of Shabbat and Yom Tov (Babylonian Talmud, Shabbat 128b). That is, the very laws that the Rabbis protected with fences upon fences, must, in certain circumstances, be broken in order to spare an animal from pain. It is from the core of the halachic body of literature concerning the prevention of suffering of animals that the use of the term tzaar baalei chayim has been expanded in recent years to express the more general value placed upon the compassionate treatment of animals scattered throughout our tradition. The Torah and the Rabbinic literature overflow with passages that guide us to be compassionate in our treatment of animals. (By Rayna Ellen Gevurtz, "Kindness to Animals: Tzaar Baalei Chayim")

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EXODUS — 23:19 boil

EXOD892 Kashrut: To Separate Ourselves from Our Pagan Neighbors. Much attention--both positive and negative--has focused on how kashrut still has the potential to separate Jews from their non-Jewish neighbors, even though classical paganism is passe. Some view the issues that arise as fertile ground for exploring the tension between assimilation and segregation, for asserting our particular identity within a universalistic ethic. Others, Jewish and non-Jewish, have been quite critical of the potentially isolating effects of the practice for a Jew in modern life. Most liberal Jews who keep kosher make some accommodation to minimize this effect, at least eating off anyone's dishes. In a society that has been sensitized to the growing number of vegetarians and others with their own dietary restrictions, this is generally sufficient to bridge the gap. The tradition supports an alternative focus, however: to separate ourselves from paganism, rather than from the pagans themselves. Boiling a kid in its mother's milk, for instance, was thought to be a pagan rite. In refusing to do it, the Israelites could reject idolatry by the very way they cooked their food. Maimonides surmises as much in his Guide of the Perplexed [3:48]: Perhaps such food was eaten at one of the ceremonies of their cult or at one of their festivals. The confirmation of this may, in my opinion, be found in the fact that the prohibition against eating meat [boiled] in milk, when it is mentioned for the first two times [Exodus 23:19, 34:26], occurs near the commandment concerning pilgrimage.... It is as if it said: When you go on pilgrimage and enter the house of the Lord your God, do not cook there in the way they used to do. Idolatry today is frequently associated with the materialism that pervades every aspect of our society; in this incarnation, it is a worship of money. There are no magical fertility rites, but this contemporary paganism still makes of ultimate importance that which we create and acquire. It enshrines profit above people; it bows to corporate pressures and stock markets instead of to God. And just as in ancient times, it touches the very food we eat. There are countless examples. Florida farm workers are paid 1.2 cents per pound for picking tomatoes. To earn $25 a day, one worker must pick two thousand pounds of tomatoes! Some growers have been cited for slave conditions: armed guards forced laborers to work ten to twelve hours per day, six days a week. Chocolate, coffee, and other foods are similarly “tainted” by horrendous labor practices pursued in the name of the almighty dollar. [Internet sites such as CorpWatch.org offer up-to-date information on these issues.] Genetically modified crops can be seen as technologically advanced versions of the same temptations. They are more resistant to pests or drought, increasing productivity and profit. Agricultural companies will tout the potential to help subsistence farmers, but these altered foods have also been linked to severe allergic reactions, increased soil erosion, and breeding of resistant pests. Dumping of the products in some markets has led to the invasion of species and a weakening of biodiversity. Several corporations are pursuing “terminator” technology--sterile seeds that would guarantee annual seed purchases, ruining small farmers that cannot afford them, and generally devastating the food production chain. [CorpWatch.org, agresearch.cri.nz, mercola.com]. A Reform kashrut should resist these forms of paganism as well. Torah speaks repeatedly of the significance that God created for living organisms with the seed of creation inside them. In addition, many of these modifications violate even a liberal interpretation of restrictions against kilayim, mixing seeds (Leviticus 19:19). While these concerns are not classical elements of kashrut, the biblical instructions at their core link them to Jewish dietary laws. Reform Jews will rightly insist on continuing to eat with their neighbors, even their pagan ones. Here they can separate themselves from the idolatrous practices that pervade the food industry. (By Rachel S. Mikva, “Adventures in Eating: An Emerging Model for Kashrut”)

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