August 27, 2011 | 27 Av 5771 | Deuteronomy 11:26-16:17

As I write these words we are getting ready (more correctly, Susan is getting ready) to welcome guests for a barbecue at our home.  We’ll be eating the standard barbecue fare-hot dogs, hamburgers and chicken.  I like barbecues.  The ambiance – the smells, the tastes… But the truth is that, at some point, I will actually think about what I am eating, and I won’t feel very good about it.  Then, like most people, the thought will pass, and I will complete my meal.  

When you eat meal or fowl do you ever think about what you are eating or how that portion of your meal reached your table?  It’s not a very pleasant thought, but it is a thought that the Torah in several places, including today’s portion, encourages us to consider.

Remember the Garden of Eden?  It represented the ideal.  In the Creation account, God says to Adam and Eve, “See I give you every seed-bearing plant that is upon all the earth, and every tree that has seed-bearing fruit; they shall be yours for food” (Genesis 1:29).  In Eden, in what represents the ideal world that humanity was to inhabit, human beings are vegetarians.  But soon thereafter (in Torah terms) human beings are eating meat.  In the Books of Genesis and Leviticus God provides specific rules about such consumption.  Those laws serve as the foundation of the laws of kashrut we know today.  The Book of Deuteronomy also contributes to our understanding of a biblical view of meat consumption.  Pay attention to these words in this week’s Torah Reading:

"When the Lord enlarges your territory, as God has promised you, and you say, 'I shall eat some meat,' for you have the urge to eat meat, you may eat meat whenever you wish." (Dt. 12:20)

What do the words “for you have the urge to eat meat” add to our understanding?  Do they really add anything?  Could they possibly reflect some discomfort with the act of eating meat itself?  Rabbi Avraham Yitzhak Kook, the first Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi of Palestine, shared the following interpretation of this portion of the verse:

Scripture is suggesting that this is not the ideal; that the consumption of meat is God's concession until such time as we develop a higher standard.  Meanwhile, we work up to that standard through the laws of Kashrut.

Rabbi Kook’s understanding sounds a bit apologetic, doesn’t it?  I’m not really certain that the laws of kashrut help us meat-eaters to “work up” to becoming vegetarians.  To call, kashrut laws that enable us to eat meat “God’s concession” to our urge and action is, in my opinion, a poor reflection on the Holy One.

No, the laws of kashrut, while surely seeking to sanctify the act of eating, are a somewhat poor reflection on us.  Yes, they teach us to strive to eat in a particular, holy manner and within certain parameters that help us to respect life.  But they do not reflect what our tradition projects as the ideal manner of consumption.  

What do you think?