The short answer is yes. Actually, that is only one of the behaviors we are to restrain ourselves from doing. Hashem wants us to conquer all desires of the body.
When Hashem (G-d) made humanity (odom or Adam), He stated that mankind would have a specific power over the creatures of the earth. The verb "ridu" is in the plural, so it refers to all humankind, not to some man called Adam who is going to be put in charge of the animal kingdom. This principle of ridu means to make the animal kingdom subservient to man. That does not mean that we use animals as slaves or force them to serve us. Rather, the principle refers to the animal kingdom within a man that man would be able to keep under his control.
Like the fish, we love the water and like to swim in it. Like the birds, we love to fly. Even lions and horses have inspired people. Humanity throughout history in various places has even made these creatures into their gods, just the opposite of making the animals subservient to humanity. One of the reasons we sacrificed animals in The Temple was to make clear to ourselves and to other peoples that animals were not gods but were subservient to us. If they were gods, they would not be dying by our swords just as Abraham’s father’s idols could not resist his hammer that broke them.
Hashem's plan for Adam is to overcome the animal kingdom within himself, within every human being. In part, this was why Hashem did not want the Hebrew people to have a human king. No man should make another man subservient to himself or to others. This is in part the problem with what we call homosexual behavior between men. A man is not allowed to put another man by force into the position of a woman, women being subservient to men in a patriarchy. That includes men of his own position in the community, slaves and children. The Torah never said that homosexuals were evil or bad news or different in the sight of Hashem. The Torah did not even discuss them. The principle was all about power and subservience. This is also why a man should only have one wife and a woman only one husband. No man should treat his wife like anything but his mate. She is not his pet or his servant that he should allow himself to dominate her. Women also must not dominate their husbands.
This is our challenge to become divine-like by having power over all our animal compulsions. That includes resisting eating meat, having power over others, selling our children into slavery (just one way to sacrifice them to our lusts for power or money) treating slaves and debtors badly, and practicing any form of incest that is forbidden in the Torah. It also includes not stealing, murdering or doing any of the other do-not commandments that come later.
To place someone above oneself is to demean oneself and descend spiritually—to become like a beast. That is why someone who wanted to be a slave was to be marked like a beast with a tag attached to his ear. His behavior would not be seen as befitting a human station. This should remind us that free will involves only two choices. We can aspire to divinity or we can descend to the level of the animal kingdom within us, a realm of behavior which is far lower spiritually and behaviorally for humanity than even the animals demonstrate in their behavior.
How bad can we humans be? Consider the flood that Hashem caused in the time of Noach. Whatever men wanted, they took and did, and they thought of everything. There was no restraint at all. Rashi says that the behavior of humanity was rebellious against Hashem's laws and that the heroes of the time, the giborim, gained fame for the scope of their degeneracy. It was not a matter of one law or two but of whatever men could imagine doing. The broadness of their behavior did not exclude any one behavior. They were so bad that it was a mercy to the earth to destroy them. Consider how we behave in the world today, polluting the earth the way we do and hurting each other, committing genocide the way we do. What we eat is the least of our evil, although eating meat is a behavior that increases pollution of the air and water. We humans still do not restrain ourselves as Hashem wants us to do.
Showing posts with label Jewish Diet. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Jewish Diet. Show all posts
Tuesday, August 4, 2009
Monday, August 3, 2009
My friends tell me it is against the Torah to be a vegetarian? Is it?
While Hashem gave us permission to eat certain animals, He never said or implied that we must eat them. Because Adam and Chava (Eve) ate a forbidden food, they were ousted from Gan Eden. The food they ate was forbidden and therefore not kosher. Why it was forbidden is answered in part after they ate it. But that still does not say that the tree was safe to eat. It might have been poisonous—poisonous enough to overcome their immortality.
I once mistook a plant for an onion, and I vomited almost immediately after eating it. That was a good lesson, but I would have to say that I still have not learned that lesson. Many delicious looking plants are poisonous, either known to cause diseases like cancer or known to be fatal. While I know that, I still have to fight myself when it comes to tasting fruits. I was walking in the neighborhood just in the past few weeks, and I noticed a lovely fruiting plant growing in a neighbor's yard by the sidewalk. The fruits were about the size of cherries and just as red. I was enchanted, and I had to try one. It was delicious. It tasted like an apple. It could also have been poisonous. Curiosity could have killed the cat—me! While I do not have to eat everything, I like to taste everything. Therein lies my own struggle with restraint, and I do not fight against it hard enough when it comes to fruits.
When parents tell their children not to eat or do something, it is often for their own good and even for their protection. The proverbial cookie jar isn't going to kill them or give them cancer, but a belly full is not going to contribute to good health and could give them a belly ache.
As soon as we are told "no," we have to make a choice to restrain ourselves or to let our curiosity or desire get the better of us. Since mankind could not refrain from eating animals, Hashem, being as merciful as He is, gave them other prohibitions. Noah was given the law not to cut off the limb of a living animal. The Chinese do not obey this law. You can go to a Chinese market in China, and you can buy a piece of a living (and miserably dying) animal.
Read Bereshis (Genesis) 1:29. A person who is a vegetarian is keeping the first dietary law given to mankind. He is conquering his desire for meat. How can the Torah have a problem with that?
Unfortunately, there are people who will have a problem with that. People do not like when someone in a group acts differently. Look, that's one of the reasons Jewish people are so often disliked. We do things differently. Jewish people are as human as others, so if one person acts differently, it may make others at the table feel nervous. It is as if they are confronted with their own lack of restraint and feel guilty about it. No one likes to feel guilty, and if someone is of the opinion, even subconsciously that his guilt is a result of someone else’s behavior, he will fight back to protect his ego and justify his behavior.
The Torah is in great measure about the problem of restraint. Consider any number of people who could not restrain themselves from abominable behaviors: Cain who murdered his brother, the people who taunted Noah and had not restrained themselves from taking whichever women they wanted, Lot’s wife, Lot with his daughters, Kimchi, Bilaam, and thousands more. Adam and Chava were the first examples and the role model for all their children all the way to us. We have not learned yet to restrain ourselves and obey Hashem.
We are all of us humans, and we each have our own challenges, and the issue of restraint is often at the bottom of our behavior, and it is always about that free will—choice! Adam and Chava were curious and they liked their fruit. Lot’s wife could not restrain herself from looking back for her daughters, Lot could not restrain himself from committing incest, Kimchi had to bed Kosbi, Bilaam could not resist the wealth that Balak promised him, even when he had multiple divine warnings. Like so many others throughout the Torah and throughout history, Bilaam is an example of those who are more afraid of evil men than they are of Hashem.
You do not have to let other people get on your nerves. You are on this earth to serve Hashem, not other people. I applaud you for your sticking to your vegetarian diet, and I also encourage you to continue what you are able to do and which so many other people are incapable of doing because they must have their meat.
Links:
http://www.jewishveg.com/jv.html
http://jewishvegetarianism.com/
http://www.jewishveg.com/schwartz/dietgod.html
I once mistook a plant for an onion, and I vomited almost immediately after eating it. That was a good lesson, but I would have to say that I still have not learned that lesson. Many delicious looking plants are poisonous, either known to cause diseases like cancer or known to be fatal. While I know that, I still have to fight myself when it comes to tasting fruits. I was walking in the neighborhood just in the past few weeks, and I noticed a lovely fruiting plant growing in a neighbor's yard by the sidewalk. The fruits were about the size of cherries and just as red. I was enchanted, and I had to try one. It was delicious. It tasted like an apple. It could also have been poisonous. Curiosity could have killed the cat—me! While I do not have to eat everything, I like to taste everything. Therein lies my own struggle with restraint, and I do not fight against it hard enough when it comes to fruits.
When parents tell their children not to eat or do something, it is often for their own good and even for their protection. The proverbial cookie jar isn't going to kill them or give them cancer, but a belly full is not going to contribute to good health and could give them a belly ache.
As soon as we are told "no," we have to make a choice to restrain ourselves or to let our curiosity or desire get the better of us. Since mankind could not refrain from eating animals, Hashem, being as merciful as He is, gave them other prohibitions. Noah was given the law not to cut off the limb of a living animal. The Chinese do not obey this law. You can go to a Chinese market in China, and you can buy a piece of a living (and miserably dying) animal.
Read Bereshis (Genesis) 1:29. A person who is a vegetarian is keeping the first dietary law given to mankind. He is conquering his desire for meat. How can the Torah have a problem with that?
Unfortunately, there are people who will have a problem with that. People do not like when someone in a group acts differently. Look, that's one of the reasons Jewish people are so often disliked. We do things differently. Jewish people are as human as others, so if one person acts differently, it may make others at the table feel nervous. It is as if they are confronted with their own lack of restraint and feel guilty about it. No one likes to feel guilty, and if someone is of the opinion, even subconsciously that his guilt is a result of someone else’s behavior, he will fight back to protect his ego and justify his behavior.
The Torah is in great measure about the problem of restraint. Consider any number of people who could not restrain themselves from abominable behaviors: Cain who murdered his brother, the people who taunted Noah and had not restrained themselves from taking whichever women they wanted, Lot’s wife, Lot with his daughters, Kimchi, Bilaam, and thousands more. Adam and Chava were the first examples and the role model for all their children all the way to us. We have not learned yet to restrain ourselves and obey Hashem.
We are all of us humans, and we each have our own challenges, and the issue of restraint is often at the bottom of our behavior, and it is always about that free will—choice! Adam and Chava were curious and they liked their fruit. Lot’s wife could not restrain herself from looking back for her daughters, Lot could not restrain himself from committing incest, Kimchi had to bed Kosbi, Bilaam could not resist the wealth that Balak promised him, even when he had multiple divine warnings. Like so many others throughout the Torah and throughout history, Bilaam is an example of those who are more afraid of evil men than they are of Hashem.
You do not have to let other people get on your nerves. You are on this earth to serve Hashem, not other people. I applaud you for your sticking to your vegetarian diet, and I also encourage you to continue what you are able to do and which so many other people are incapable of doing because they must have their meat.
Links:
http://www.jewishveg.com/jv.html
http://jewishvegetarianism.com/
http://www.jewishveg.com/schwartz/dietgod.html
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