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The most elaborate, comprehensive and effective system for the
prevention of animal cruelty was not invented by the FDA or even PETA; it was
devised by the Book of Leviticus. This may seem a strange idea. Without
question, it swims rather roughly against that trusty river of intuition.
Pigeon slaughter is rarely good for pigeons. Bull offerings are not something
cows easily stomach. As far as “becoming a sacrificial lamb,” I have it on good
authority that this is not what
most sheep dream about when they are kids.
To an untrained imagination, a “bustling Tabernacle” is a strange
cross between an abattoir and a synagogue. A PETA activist might describe its
practices as “murder in the name of God, differing from the Crusades only by
the choice of its victims.” Well, my friends, I believe this is wrong on many
counts.
There is a peculiar phrase that accompanies nearly every mention
of sheep, goat and cattle offerings throughout the Bible. In the Torah, where
no word is out-of-place and no letter believed superfluous, repetition is a
cause of interest, and should never be dismissed as careless writing. The word
I refer to is “tamim,” and
it means “whole, complete, unharmed, pure, without blemish.” At the start of
Leviticus, we read: “A person who brings an elevation offering ... shall bring
an offering withoutblemish [tamim]”
(Leviticus 1:2-3). Concerning peace offerings, they, too, are brought “without
blemish” (Leviticus 3:1). Similarly, the paschal lamb had to be tamim, just as
the red heifer (parahaduma
temima) had to perfect in every way. To bring a blemished animal to
the Lord was sinful, and Leviticus states this repeatedly.
What this meant for any animal potentially destined for the altar
is that it could not be harmed, injured or mistreated. Remarkably, if we
compare the rules of blemishes to the sort of miseries and maladies routinely
inflicted upon factory-farmed animals, something astonishing comes to light.
Factory-farmed meat, served in our homes, would never be offered in the House
of the Lord.
Animals that are surgically mutilated or castrated, a regular
practice among meat growers wanting more malleable livestock, would be grounds
alone for disqualification (Kiddushin 25b). Animals pinioned in cages of their
own muck could be disqualified on account of their disgusting odor (Temurah
28b). Most birds and cattle pumped with near lethal amounts of antibiotics to
prevent their succumbing to illness would be disqualified for their being
sickly (ibid).
One often reads of meat growers stimulating rapid growth through
steroids, genetic chicanery, artificial lighting, hormone-enhanced feed, all in
an attempt to get meat faster to market. Such practices would be eliminated by
the routine biblical requirement that offerings of sheep, goats or calves be
minimally 1 or 2 years old (Leviticus 9:3; Rosh Hashana 10a). A 3-month-old
calf the size of an elephant would be barred from the Temple gates.
This week’s Torah Portion, Shemini, shifts away — from sacrifices
to general food prohibitions: kashrut.
Numerous beasts are prohibited from the hog to the hare, to kites, crocodiles
and chameleons. The many (often confounding) dietary laws are often believed to
be beyond the pale of rationale explanation, yet that has not stopped
commentators from trying to explain them. Historically, there are two
well-known schools of thought. One is based on ethics. Laws such as, “Do not
stew a kid in its mother’s milk,” and “shooing away the mother-bird,” teach us
to be merciful. If we eschew animal cruelty, all the more so, we should eschew
cruelty to our fellow human beings (R. Bachaya ben Asher; Ibn-Ezra). Another
approach explains kosher laws as a means to teach people “temperance and
self-control” (Philo, Maimonides).
In the sacrificial system, each view is valid. To raise an animal
fit for sacrifice required both constant discipline and tenderness toward the
animal in one’s keep. Farmers sacrificed time and resources to raise fowl, herd
and flock. In approaching the altar, both animal and owner had to be tamim.
Today, we live without the Temple, and therefore without the
mitigating requirement that meat not only be fit for eating but fit for
sacrifice. It happens that in our day, thank God, modern Jewry has ready access
to kosher products. Meat, rinsed and salted, is easily obtained. In Los
Angeles, with little ado, we order cooked lamb, chicken, beef, bison in
restaurants and supermarkets. Yet with so much available, lessons of temperance
and ethics fall away.
“Kosher” means “fit” or “proper,” but how “fit” is an animal when
the finest moment of its life was the day its life of misery was ended in a
slaughterhouse? Moreover, how tamim are we who celebrate our faith, and
sanctify the Lord, by consuming endless plates of chicken and beef in our
homes? With several meanings in mind, one might ask: “Can there be kosher
without sacrifice?”
Rabbi Yehuda Hausman is a Modern Orthodox rabbi who teaches
at Ziegler Rabbinic School, The Academy of Jewish Religion, and runs an
independent Modern Orthodox minyan in Beverlywood. He writes about the weekly
parasha on his blog, rabbihausman.com.
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