by
Richard H. Schwartz, Ph.D.
Rabbi Avi Shafran is correct
in stating that Ingrid Newkirk, president
of PETA, does not get it when it comes to
understanding why many in the the Jewish community
were upset and outraged by PETA’s insensitive
"Holocaust on Your Plate" exhibit
and now feel that her recent apology is inadequate.
However, this does not negate the fact that
Jews should be actively involved in ending
the widespread abuses of animals on factory
farms and in other places and reducing the
threat to public health and sustainability
posed by animal-based diets. This is not because
of anything PETA says or does. It's because
Judaism mandates it.
While properly challenging PETA
to get it, we should also consider issues
that many in the Jewish community do not seem
to get:
The mass production and consumption
of animal products is causing an epidemic
of human degenerative disease and is contributing
significantly to global warming, rapid species
extinction, the destruction of tropical rainforests
and other habitats, a global fresh water crisis
and many additional threats to humanity.
Animal-based diets and agriculture
violate basic Jewish mandates to take care
of our health, treat animals with compassion,
protect the environment, conserve natural
resources, help the hungry, and pursue a more
peaceful world.
Rabbi Shafran properly points
out that Judaism stresses the uniqueness,
sanctity and dignity of every human life.
Once again, this raises moral issues that
the Jewish community does not seem to be getting:
What about the dignity of the
over one million Americans stricken annually
with heart disease, stroke, various types
of cancer and other chronic degenerative diseases
strongly connected to the consumption of animal
products?
What about the sanctity of the
lives of an estimated 20 million people who
die annually from hunger and its effects and
of the hundreds of millions of people who
are chronically malnourished, while 70 percent
of the grain produced in the United States
and almost 40 percent of the grain produced
worldwide is used inefficiently to fatten
confined animals for affluent people’s
tables?
What about the unique value
of every human being who is, or soon will
be, threatened by global warming, severe water
shortages and environmental destruction secondary
to the mass global production of 50 billion
food animals every year – over ten billion
in the United States alone?
Rabbi Shafran is also correct
in pointing out that Judaism has very powerful
teachings on compassion to animals. However,
like many other Jewish leaders, he fails to
relate these teachings to the many ways that
animals are currently mistreated on factory
farms and in other settings.
In view of the Jewish teaching
of tsa’ar ba’alei chaim (the
Torah mandate against causing unnecessary
pain to animals), can we justify such routine
and legal horrors of factory farming as:
• The force-feeding of
ducks and geese to create the delicacy of
foie gras (banned in Israel, but not the United
States).
• The separation of calves from their
mothers within one or two days of birth to
be crated in darkness for sixteen weeks, then
slaughtered for veal.
• The infanticide of 250 million newborn
male chicks in American egg-laying hatcheries
every year because layer chickens are genetically
incapable of being converted into chicken
meat in six to eight weeks.
• The confinement of egg-laying hens
inside filthy rows of wire cages so small
and crowded they can’t raise a wing
and must be painfully “debeaked”
(without the costly benefit of painkillers)
to keep them from pecking each other to death.
Since we Jews are called to
be rachamanim b'nei rachamanim (compassionate
children of compassionate ancestors) and to
worship a compassionate God, Whose mercies
are over all of His creatures, can we continue
in good conscience to follow diets that involve
so much cruelty to animals?
Clearly, Jewish values and the
consumption of animal foods are in serious
conflict. If Judaism is to remain relevant
to many of the great problems of today, I
believe that all Jews must seriously consider
adopting a more humane and sustainable plant-based
diet. In my view, it is a moral, social and
ecological imperative.
Jews comprise only a small percentage
of the world’s people. We are
responsible for only a small portion of the
problems resulting from modern intensive livestock
agriculture. However, it is essential that
we Jews strive to fulfil our challenge to
be a light unto the nations and to work for
tikkun olam – the healing and
repair of our imperfect and unjust world.
This mission must include the lightening of
the immense burden of our diets on animals,
the environment and the world’s poor
and hungry. To do so is to demonstrate the
relevance of Judaism’s eternal teachings
to the problems of the world today. I hope
we and the rest of the world get it before
it’s too late.