There is a third concern in kashrut--shechita, the process by which animals consumed for meat are slaughtered and the meat is prepared; this is hinted at in the following passages from Leviticus and Deuteronomy which forbid eating anything that has died a natural death.
As we have seen in the discussion of meat and milk, a great deal of commentary revolves around very detailed, practical questions regarding how to carry out instructions given in Torah, and shechita is no exception; this means that the literature on shechita involves very detailed descriptions of animal slaughter, which many people find distressing. Examples of debates over acceptable slaughter techniques may be found in Mishnah Chullin 2; for the purposes of this class, we can proceed with texts that treat the issue in more general terms, although a certain amount of anatomical detail is unavoidable.
(א) כָּל טַבָּח שֶׁאֵינוֹ יוֹדֵעַ הִלְכוֹת שְׁחִיטָה אָסוּר לֶאֱכֹל מִשְּׁחִיטָתוֹ; וְאֵלּוּ הֵן: שְׁהִיָּה, דְּרָסָה, חֲלָדָה, הַגְרָמָה וְעִקּוּר.
(1) Any butcher which does not know the laws of shechita it is not permissible to eat from his shechita. And these are the laws: pausing(shehiya), chopping (drasa), covering (halada), missing (cutting outside the permitted area - hagrama), and tearing (ikour).
יכול אדם לקבוע סכין בגלגל של אבן או של עץ ומסבב הגלגל בידו או ברגלו. ומשים שם צואר הבהמה או העוף עד שישחט בסביבת הגלגל. ואם המים הם המסבבים את הגלגל ושם הצואר כנגדו בשעה שסבב ונשחט הרי זו פסולה (ל' הרמב"ם שם דין י"ג) ואם פטר אדם את המים עד שבאו וסבבו את הגלגל ושחט בסביבתו הרי זה כשרה בדיעבד שהרי מכח אדם בא במה דברים אמורים בסביבה ראשונה שהיא מכח האדם אבל מסביבה שנייה ולאחריה פסולה שהרי אינה מכח האדם אלא מכח המים בהילוכן:
A person may set a knife on a wheel of stone or wood that rotates by one's hand or foot, and proceed (with the contraption) to the neck of the animal or fowl until it is slaughtered by turning the wheel. (and it is acceptable). And if water rotates the wheel and he places the neck of [the animal] opposite it while it was turning causing it to be slaughtered, it is unacceptable. An exemption is made if a person caused the water to flow until they turned the wheel and caused it to slaughter by turning it, [if so the slaughter] is acceptable after the fact because the act came as a result of man's actions. However (a slaughtering that results) from a second rotation is unacceptable because the force did not come from man's power, but from the power of the flowing water.
What relationship can you perceive between these two passages and the Torah passages quoted above? What practical concerns in the Torah passages is the Shulchan Aruch is responding to? What practical actions is it proposing?
Blu Greenberg, How To Run a Traditional Jewish Household.
Judaism is an earthy religion and not an ascetic one. But great care is taken to prevent this earthiness from spilling over into torpor, butchery, brutality. Ritual slaughter is a superb example of this process of restraint.
First and foremost, meat must be slaughtered by a shochet, one who is an expert at shechitta (ritual slaughter), who understands the laws of kashrut in fine detail, one who is personally a pious Jew.
A shochet knows his knife must be razor-sharp and absolutely free of nicks or dents. It must be twice as long as the throat of the animal, so that it can be drawn through only once. He must examine the knife both before and after each shechitta, and if it fails inspection, the shechitta is not kosher. Before each act of shechitta, he must recite a benediction which “reminds him that his act is both sanctioned and sanctified in a special way.
The shochet knows how to sever the carotid artery and jugular vein in the neck with one deft stroke so that the chicken or calf loses consciousness instantaneously and dies a swift and painless death. I wonder whether the requirement that the animal be conscious before shechitta is to prevent the shochet—and by extension the community he serves—from losing sight of the fact that animal life is also life.
Here we can see that "slaughter", or shechita, is a very specific set of actions; what other methods of killing animals are being excluded by the commandment to slaughter?
The requirement, mentioned by Greenberg, that an animal be conscious before shechita is the source of objections to kosher slaughter (and also halal slaughter, which follows roughly the same rules) on grounds of animal cruelty. A 2020 European Court of Justice ruling upheld a Belgian law which requires stunning animals before slaughter (which is the common practice in non-kosher meat production) with no exception given for religious slaughter; a similar law was passed in Greece in 2021, and the issue is a matter of public debate--to varying extents--in most EU Member States. For reference, the ruling can be viewed here: https://curia.europa.eu/juris/document/document.jsf?text=&docid=235717&pageIndex=0&doclang=en&mode=req&dir=&occ=first&part=1(it is long and technical and reading it is not the best use of your time).
This debate is on the one hand highly political and on the other hand highly technical, but it is worth highlighting that according to the ECJ ruling, the Belgian law suggests that the purpose of the requirement that the animal be conscious before shechita is to facilitate complete draining of blood, and that, as scientific research has demonstrated that stunning does not actually present an impediment to this, there is no reason to offer a religious exemption from the requirement for stunning. In light of this, pay attention both in the Greenberg passage above, and the passages following, to the rationales given for the requirements of shechita. Is it correct to conclude that there is a single religious obligation addressed by the processes of shechita?
Blu Greenberg, How to Run a Traditional Jewish Household.
Following shechitta, the animal is hung upside down so that the arterial blood can drain out. The shochet then searches the body for “signs.” Any sign of possible disease or discoloration of the lungs will render the animal trefeh, unfit for kosher use. Obviously, if the animal is truly diseased, then U.S. Food and Drug Administration regulations and business practice would prohibit its use by everyone. But there are borderline situations where possible faults or ritual disqualification rule out use for kosher but not for non-kosher consumption. This is why many people who don’t keep kosher have come to associate kashrut with purity and quality control.
I have already written at the end of the Order of Tsav about the prohibition of blood (Sefer HaChinukh 148) and at the beginning of Achrei Mot [about] the commandment of covering the blood (Sefer HaChinukh 187) all that I have known about the matter of distancing that the Torah distanced us from the blood of all flesh. And I say from the angle of the simple understanding that the commandment of slaughter is also from the same reason. Since it is well-known that the body's blood comes out of the neck more than from other places of the body, hence we were commanded to slaughter from there before we eat it. As [in this way] all of its blood will come out from there, and we will 'not eat the soul with the flesh.' And we can also say as a reason for slaughter from the neck with a knife that has been checked [for sharpness], [is that it is] in order that we not cause too much pain to living beings. As the Torah [only] permitted man - due to his status - to derive nourishment from them for all of his needs, but not to cause them pain for no reason. And the Sages have already spoken much about the prohibition of pain to living beings in Bava Metzia 32a and in Shabbat 128b, [as to] whether it is a Torah prohibition. And it appears to come out that it is a Torah prohibition (See Mishneh Torah, Laws of Murderer and the Preservation of Life 13:13).
ואמנם טעם 'אבר מן החי' הוא היותו מקנה ומלמד אכזריות.
It is prohibited to cut off a limb of a living animal and eat it, because such act would produce cruelty, and develop it.
Ben Freed, The Blood Is The Life
https://www.929.org.il/lang/en/page/107/post/45344
“Meat comes from the grocery store, where it is cut and packaged to look as little like parts of animals as possible. The disappearance of animals from our lives has opened a space in which there’s no reality check, either on the sentiment or the brutality.” Food author Michael Pollan’s observation in the New York Times is also true for many modern Jews who keep kosher. “Checking” food to ensure it meets our kashrut standards primarily involves letters, circles and stars we find on packaging, rather than checking lungs, blood or sinews.
Leviticus 17 is filled with rules legislating aspects of the meat production process that are—for many of us—unfamiliar and uncomfortable. Who has the right to kill animals intended for consumption? What is done with the blood?
This past year I had the privilege of studying shechita—the rules and practice of kosher slaughter—under Rabbi Shlomo Zacharov at the Conservative Yeshiva in Jerusalem. One of the practices we studied comes from verse 13: anyone who kills a bird for food “shall pour out its blood and cover it with earth.” This mitzvah of kisui dam (covering the blood) is one we still observe to this day for chickens and other fowl.
Before “shechting” (ritually slaughtering), we make sure earth is placed on the ground and once the process has been completed, we “cover” the blood with more earth. We read three times in Chapter 17 that the “soul” of a creature is in its blood. This “burial” practice forces us to pause after we have taken a life to honor the animal whose flesh will find its way onto our plate. It’s important to remember that true kashrut intended we build in time to pause, reflect and appreciate what had to happen for us to enjoy the schnitzel we’re having for dinner.
Blu Greenberg, How to Run a Traditional Jewish Household.
It is ironic that, over the course of history, anti-Semites invented the “blood libel,” claiming that religious Jews have used blood of Christian children to bake their matzot. It is a classic case of lying—or should I say, projection. Kashrut stringently prohibits blood in any form. Even a blood spot on a raw egg is forbidden, so we buy eggs that are candled, and we crack them one by one into a clear glass to make sure they have no blood spot in them. Blood is a symbol of life and it seems inhuman to partake of it in any form or fashion. For the same reason, traditional Jews tend to cook or broil meat to the point where people think of kosher meat as automatically well done or overcooked. (In actual fact, kosher meat can be prepared rarer than most people realize, but the tradition of removing blood is so well established that even many observant people don’t know this.) It only proves that the humane aspects of kashrut are not well known.
מדברי שניהם נלמד צער בעלי חיים דאורייתא
From the statements of both of these tanna’im it can be learned that the requirement to prevent suffering to animals is by Torah law.
והיה זה מפני שבעלי נפש התנועה יש להם קצת מעלה בנפשם, נדמו בה לבעלי הנפש המשכלת, ויש להם בחירה בטובתם ומזוניהם ויברחו מן הצער והמיתה, והכתוב אומר "מִי יוֹדֵעַ רוּחַ בְּנֵי הָאָדָם הָעֹלָה הִיא לְמָעְלָה וְרוּחַ הַבְּהֵמָה הַיֹּרֶדֶת הִיא לְמַטָּה לָאָרֶץ" (קהלת ג כא). וכאשר חטאו והשחית כל בשר את דרכו על הארץ, ונגזר שימותו במבול ובעבור נח הציל מהם לקיום המין נתן להם רשות לשחוט ולאכול כי קיומם בעבורו. ועם כל זה לא נתן להם הרשות בנפש ואסר להם אבר מן החי. והוסיף לנו במצות לאסור כל דם מפני שהוא מעמד לנפש כדכתיב (ויקרא יז יד) "כִּי נֶפֶשׁ כָּל בָּשָׂר דָּמוֹ בְנַפְשׁוֹ הוּא, וָאֹמַר לִבְנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל: דַּם כָּל בָּשָׂר לֹא תֹאכֵלוּ כִּי נֶפֶשׁ כָּל בָּשָׂר דָּמוֹ הִוא", כי התיר הגוף בחי שאינו מדבר אחר המיתה, לא הנפש עצמה. וזה טעם השחיטה. ומה שאמרו (ב"מ לב) "צער בעלי חיים דאורייתא", וזו ברכתנו שמברך "אשר קדשנו במצותיו וצונו על השחיטה"
And [the original prohibition to kill animals to eat their meat] is because moving souls have a bit of stature to their souls: they resemble intelligent souls and seek their [own] benefit and their food and run away from pain and death; and the verse states (Ecclesiastes 3:23), "Who knows the spirit of man whether it goes upward, and the spirit of the beast whether it goes downward to the earth?" And when they sinned and all flesh corrupted its way upon the earth and it was decreed that they would die in the flood, and because of Noach, He saved some of them for the preservation of the species, He gave them permission to slaughter and eat [animals] since their existence was for [man's] sake. And in spite of all this, He did not give them permission with regards to the soul and forbade them a limb from a living animal. And He added commandments for us to forbid all blood since it is the support of the soul, as it is written (Leviticus 17:14), "Since the soul of all flesh, its blood is in its soul; and say to the Children of Israel, 'the blood of all flesh do not eat, since the soul of all flesh, it is the blood.'" [This is all] because He permitted the body of an animal that does not speak but not the soul itself. And this is [also] the reason for ritual slaughter (shechita) - and for what they said (Bava Metzia 32:), "[the prohibition of causing] pain to living animals is from the Torah" - and this is our blessing for it: "who has sanctified us with His commandments and commanded us on ritual slaughter."
השגות הרמב"ן לספר המצות שורש א
וכן נטילת הידים אין מצותה בחיוב כלל ולא הטילו חכמים על האדם שיטול ידיו כלל ולאכול והנוטל ידיו עשרה פעמים ביום ואוכל אין לזה מצוה יותר מזה. אבל אלו היתר האיסור הן. דומה למצות השחיטה שתקנו בה נמי (פס' ז ב) וצונו על השחיטה ודקדקו בה לימא לשחוט לא סגיא דלא שחיט.
Ramban, Comments on Sefer HaMitzvot, Shoresh 1
And so too the need to wash hands before eating bread, there is no requirement [to eat bread, and thereby] the rabbis never required one to wash their hands and eat. And if someone washes and eats ten times a day there is no Mitzvah involved. But rather, it is a permit for a prohibition. Similar to shechitah (ritual slaughter) which the rabbis decreed we should say a blessing of "...and commanded us on shechitah." And they were precise with their language that they didn't say "...commanded us to shecht" [implying that it is an activity we are all required to perform, instead of a permit we are allowed to do.]
The Ramban is making a very nuanced argument here, which centres on the exact phrasing of the bracha (blessing) said during shechitah; he is relying on the fact that the bracha is in common use to strengthen its value as evidence for his position. What distinction is he drawing, and why is it significant?
Shechita is often translated as “ritual slaughter”. This is correct insofar as shechita follows a set format—there are certain steps which must be carried out in a prescribed order. However, in ordinary language the word “ritual” also carries particular inferences of not just a religious activity, but a religiously required activity. To what extent is the translation of shechita as “ritual slaughter” accurate?
הגה… כל דבר הצריך לרפואה או לשאר דברים לית ביה משום איסור צער בעלי חיים (א"ו הארוך סימן נ"ט) ולכן מותר למרוט נוצות מאוזות חיות וליכא למיחש משום צער בעלי חיים (מהרא"י סי' ק"ה) ומ"מ העולם נמנעים דהוי אכזריות:
Any [action] needed for healing or other reasons, there is no prohibition of "causing pain to animals" (Issur V'Heter Extended 59). And therefore it is permitted to pluck the feathers of wild geese, and there is no potential problem of "causing pain to animals" (Mahar"i 105). Nevertheless, the world withholds from it because of its cruelty.
ספר העקרים, מאמר ג, פרק טו
ובאור כל זה לפי מה שאחשוב הוא על זה הדרך, כי מלבד מה שיש בהריגת הבעלי חיים אכזריות חמה ושטף אף ולמוד תכונה רעה אל האדם לשפוך דם חנם, עוד יוליד אכילת בשר קצת הבעלי חיים עובי ועכירות ואטימות בנפש, כמו שבאר הכתוב זה כשאסר לישראל קצת בעלי חיים
R. Yosef Albo, Ikkarim, 3:15
And the explanation of all of this according to what I think is that, besides the fact that killing a living thing involves cruelty, anger, capriciousness, and a generally bad educational message to learn, in that he freely spills blood, eating meat also causes a dimming and dirtying of the soul, as the Torah explains when it forbids certain animals to the Jewish people.
Acknowledging that using animals for meat causes suffering raises a question for a number of commentators about whether such suffering is necessary--whether Jews should eat meat. Are the following commentaries arguing that vegetarianism should be normative in Judaism? How do they reconcile that position with the practice of shechita?
R. Saadiah Gaon (9th. c.), Commentary on BeReishit 1:29-30
Two questions can be raised here, and both have the same answer. The first: He said to Adam, "Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed," which implies that He did not permit him to eat meat. And the second: How could he say, "And to every beast of the earth"? Surely we see that the lion and other animals devour flesh and not herbs!
And for the two questions there are two possible answers. The first, the Torah speaks about the majority and ignores the minority… And since most of what man eats is vegetable, and without them he could not exist, and since for him eating meat is less common and it is not necessary, and animals too eat mostly vegetables and only a minority eat meat, the verse mentions what is more common and omits what is less common…
And the second answer is that He prohibited man to eat the meat of animals, and He also prohibited animals to eat one another, only at the beginning, for there were then only a small number of each species, and had they eaten each other, they would all have been destroyed and disappeared. Therefore, He pushed off [the allowance to eat meat] until they increased in number, and then He permitted them.
Rabbi JB Soloveitchik, The Emergence of Ethical Man
“There is a distinct reluctance, almost an unwillingness, on the part of the Torah to grant man the privilege to consume meat. Man as an animal-eater is looked on askance by the Torah. There are definitive vegetarian tendencies in the Bible.”
Kli Yakar on Chulin 84a
A person should only eat meat on rare appointed occasions, and the reason is that a person should not become accustomed to eating meat, as it is written, ‘You shall eat meat with all your desire. Eat it, however, as you eat the gazelle and the deer…’ (Deut. 12:21-22) This means that you should eat meat by circumstance rather than in a set way. For the gazelle and the deer are not easily found around human dwellings... Consequently, since one eats them rarely, he will not come to habituate himself to eating ordinary meat since it gives birth to cruelty and other bad qualities in the body of a the person. For it is the birds of prey that kill and eat meat, and the lion that kills prey and eats. Therefore it says that in the future, ‘The lion like the ox will eat straw. For there will be peace between all living creatures.’ (Isaiah 11:7)
"...trapped [animals] which are trapped" (Leviticus 17:13), the Torah teachers proper manners that one should not eat meat regularly. "When God expands your boarders [you will eat meat]" (Deut. 12:20), the Torah teaches proper manners that a person should only eat meat when he craves it. I would have thought one could [preemptively] buy meat from the market and eat it, the Torah says "You shall slaughter from your cattle and livestock" (Deut. 12:21) [meaning only your own animals, in the moment of craving]. I would have thought I could eat all of my livestock and cattle, the Torah says "from your cattle" and not all of your cattle, "from your livestock" and not all of your livestock.
(ב) ירבה בבשר ויין ומגדנות כפי יכלתו:
(2) A person should have more meat, wine and treats, to the best of his ability.
ר׳ ירוחם פישל פערלא על רס“ג, צה
וזהו שמסיים הכתוב בכל אות נפשך תאכל בשר. שהוא לשון ציווי ככל המצות שבתורה. ולאו דוקא בשר אלא כל דבר כיו"ב בכלל המצוה. ומדנקט קרא בשר ס"ל לר"י שבא הכתוב להתיר להם בשר תאוה. שמתחילה נאסר להם. אבל פשטי' דקרא הוא מצות עשה גמורה כדכתיבנא. והיינו דאמרינן בירושלמי (סוף קידושין) רבי חזקי' רבי כהן בשם רב עתיד אדם ליתן דין וחשבון על כל שראתה עינו ולא אכל.
R. Yeruchem Fishel Perla on Rasag, 95
And this is the conclusion of the verse "...in all the desires of your soul you shall eat meat," for this formulation is that of a command like all the mitzvot in the Torah. And not only meat, rather anything you desire to eat is within this commandment. But, since the Torah used the example of meat, Rabbi Yishmael [in the Gemara in Chullin] concluded that meat must have been previously forbidden and this verse is coming to permit it. But the simple meaning of the verse is that this is a complete positive commandment. And it is like that which is written in the Yerushalmi (in the end of Kiddushin), Rabbi Chizkiyah said in the name of Rabbi Kohen in the name of Rav, in the future, man will have to give an accounting before God on everything his eye saw and desired but he did not eat.
Rabbi Nathan Lopes Cardozo (Times of Israel, http://tinyurl.com/z6h8va3)
There is little doubt that one of the functions of the kashrut laws is to protect the animal from pain even during the slaughtering. ... Still, we cannot deny that in our own slaughterhouses, where proper shechita is done, there have been serious violations of another law –- tza’ar baalei chayim (the Torah’s prohibition against inflicting unnecessary pain on animals). How are these animals handled just before the shechita takes place? Are they treated with mercy when they are put on their backs so as to make the shechita easier? (This can easily be accomplished with the known Weinberg Pen, or by other methods.) What if chickens or other fowl are kept under the most unacceptable conditions, such as in overcrowded containers? Are these animals and chickens still kosher, even if the shechita was 100% accurate? Since when is the actual shechita more important than the laws of tza’ar baalei chayim? ... Since the massive growth of the meat industry, in which thousands and thousands of animals are slaughtered daily, it has become more and more difficult, if not impossible, to treat animals humanely, as Jewish law requires. The laws of shechita and tzaar ba’alei chayim were meant for Jewish communities who would eat meat occasionally, not for the huge industry we have today where these laws can no longer be properly applied. That being the case, wouldn’t it be appropriate and advisable for religious Jews to become vegetarians? In all honesty, how many of our “glatt kosher” kitchens, including my own, are still truthfully kosher? A haunting question, from which we cannot hide!
"Glatt" means smooth; in its narrow technical sense it refers to animals whose lungs are examined post-shechita and found to be free of adhesions, which some communities consider to be a defect which would render the animal unfit for consumption. Because this is a particularly stringent approach, "glatt kosher" is used in a looser sense to mean "strictly kosher".
Rabbi David Rosen:
The current treatment of animals in the livestock trade definitely renders the consumption of meat as halachically unacceptable as the product of illegitimate means.
(Vegetarianism: An Orthodox Jewish Perspective,” in Rabbis and Vegetarianism: An Evolving Tradition, ed. Roberta Kalechofsky (1995, p. 53.)
Rabbi David Wolpe (Jewish Journal, 03/05/2010, tinyurl.com/yd4qok5)
I have not eaten chicken or meat for decades. I readily acknowledge that Judaism does not ask this of me. Kashrut is not vegetarianism. But kashrut is a reminder of Judaism’s concern with animal suffering.... Many biblical heroes are shepherds; animals too must rest on the Sabbath (Ex. 20:20) and the bible legislates many other protections for animals. We are the custodians of creation. Our first responsibility is to be kind.
Increasingly, debates over the perceived purpose of kashrut--be it health, obedience to Torah, avoiding cruelty, spiritual development, etc.--have led to debates regarding the core practices of kashrut, especially as industrialised food production has given rise to concerns about environmental damage, food waste, and unfair labour practices in the manufacturing of kosher food. A number of recent commentators have made arguments to expand understandings of kashrut to encompass these concerns. What are the core concerns each of these commentators identifies? How do they use the language of kashrut, and references to Torah, to present their arguments?
Rabbi Arthur Waskow
For different Jews do maintain different answers to the question, "Is this food kosher?" For example, some will only accept certain types of Rabbinical certification on packaged goods, while others are satisfied with reading labels to verify ingredients as kosher.
Some people will drink only kosher wine, while others believe this category is no longer relevant.
Some keep "Biblical kashrut," only abstaining from Biblically forbidden foods.
Some are willing to eat non-kosher foods in restaurants and in other people's homes, others are willing only to eat intrinsically kosher foods such as fish and vegetables on non-kosher utensils when they are away from home, while still others do not eat any cooked foods away from home.
A new kashrut that drew on the ethical strands of Torah would also demand that people make choices about how to observe. For example: Some might treat the principle of oshek (not oppressing workers) as paramount, and choose to use only products that are grown or made without any oppression of food workers (food, for example, from one's own backyard or neighborhood garden, or from a kibbutz where all workers are also co-owners and co-managers).
Others might make the principle of bal tashchit (protection of the environment) paramount, and put oshek in a secondary place -- perhaps applying it only when specifically asked to do so by workers who are protesting their plight.
But there might also be some important differences in the way choices will work in an ethical kashrut, from the way choices work in traditional kashrut. In the new approach, there might be so many ethical values to weigh that it would be rare to face a black-and-white choice in a particular product.
This one is grown by union workers, that one with special care for the earth and water, another . . . .
So choices would depend more on a balancing and synthesizing of the underlying values than on an absolute sense of Good and Bad. More on a sense of Both/And than of Either/Or.
Rabbi Melanie Aron
When Rabbi Waskow began his campaign for a broadened definition of kashrut, his was a voice from the periphery of the Jewish community. Today, his call has been embraced by all of the major non-Haredi movements of Judaism.
The concept of ethical kashrut has become quite mainstream. In recent years we have seen it embraced by the Conservative Movement in their Magen Tzedek Campaign. According to the union organizer, Louis Nayman, Magen Tzedek is:
. . . intended to assure purchasers that a kashrus-compliant product also conforms to Biblical and Talmudic ethical values and standards regarding the treatment of workers, animal welfare, environmental impact and fair business dealings. Criteria for product certification include: living-wage compensation and decent benefits, neutrality in labor organizing drives, documented compliance with EPA and OSHA regulations, adherence to humane animal treatment and farm standards, responsible energy and water consumption, use of sustainable materials and alternative fuels, and fair treatment of immigrant workers.
Uri LeTzedek, an Orthodox organization that led the charge against Agriprocessors, has developed its own standard, the Tav HaYosher, which requires that a kosher restaurant comply with American civil law with regard to minimum wage, overtime pay, breaks, discrimination, and a safe and sanitary work environment.
Of course in our own [Reform] movement, we have seen this extended understanding of kashrut highlighted in Rabbi Eric Yoffie's sermon at the Toronto Biennial, November 7, 2009, and in the recent work of our movement through the Religious Action Center in the area of food justice. Rabbi Yoffie began by reminding us what was at stake morally in the boycotting of grapes in earlier decades: "We do not bless or consume food produced by acts of injustice, by mistreating animals, or by despoiling the environment."
He also urged a decrease in meat consumption, pointing out that one fifth of all human-produced greenhouse emissions come from the meat industry and that a meat meal requires five times the fossil fuel as compared to a vegan meal. The Religious Action Center has a variety of materials available for those interested in sustainability and food justice.
Actually the relationship between ritual standards and social responsibility with regard to foodstuffs is not new. In this week's Torah portion [Deuteronomy 11:26 - 16:17], we move directly from the laws of kashrut into the laws of tithes, concluding with the third tithe, which was to provide for the landless Levite, and the stranger, orphan, and widow. Chapter 14 begins with a reminder that the Israelites are a people consecrated to God. Therefore they should not gash themselves in mourning their dead (Deuteronomy 14:2) nor should they "eat anything abhorrent" (14:3). After listing the permitted and prohibited animals, fish, and birds (14:4-20), the chapter continues with the prohibition on eating "anything that has died a natural death" and on boiling "a kid in its mother's milk" (14:21). Without a pause, the text continues with a discussion of tithes. First we read about the rituals associated with bringing the tithe up to Jerusalem (14:22-26), but then the text continues with social concerns...
Traditional Jewish commentaries would not accept the juxtaposition of two topics as random but saw propinquity in the text as an indication of an inner relationship. True kashrut, one could argue, must have some relationship with our caring for the vulnerable members of our society, otherwise these two topics would not follow, one upon the other, in the Torah text.
http://www.reformjudaism.org/eco-koshers-biblical-roots#sthash.YYETIaDb.dpuf
R. Haskel Lookstein and R. Yitz Greenberg
Rabbi Fred Scherlinder Dobb
Consider the interdependent web of connections in which we live our lives. Take a simple snack, like a chocolate chip cookie made with flour, butter, eggs, cocoa and sugar. The flour is from wheat, raised and harvested by farmers with the help of whole supporting industries. The butter and eggs come from flesh-and-blood animals who likely suffered as part of the process (though not as much as if meat were served). Cocoa, though tasty, is a notoriously devastating crop because rain forests are felled for cocoa plantations. And the human rights abuses of the sugar industry are well known. Then there are the truck drivers, the packagers and producers and advertisers, the manufacturers of hardware, the refiners of oil, the advocates for more sustainable business practices. The list goes on. How can we be more conscious and more respectful of these interconnections in our daily lives?
GLATT KOSHER — GLATT YOSHOR BY RAV YOSEF BREUER, PUBLISHED 1949
A further comment: "kosher" is intimately related to "yoshor [ethics]." God’s Torah not only demands the observance of kashrut and the sanctification of our physical enjoyment; it also insists on the sanctification of our social relationships. This requires the strict application of the tenets of justice and righteousness, which avoid even the slightest trace of dishonesty in our business dealings and personal life.
God’s Torah not only demands of us to love our neighbor in that we concern ourselves with his welfare and property, but it insists further on a conduct of uncompromising straightness ("yoshor") which is inspired not only by the letter of the law but is guided by the ethical principle of honesty which, then, would deserve the honorable title of "yeshurun."