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Meat-Eating and Jewish Identity: Ritualization of the Priestly Meat-Eating and Jewish Identity: Ritualization of the Priestly "Torah of Beast and Fowl" (Lev 11:46) in Rabbinic Judaism and Medieval Kabbalah Author(s): Jonathan Brumberg-Kraus Source: AJS Review, Vol. 24, No. 2 (1999), pp. 227-262 Published by: Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Association for Jewish Studies Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1486754 . Accessed: 11/02/2015 16:03 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp . JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. Cambridge University Press and Association for Jewish Studies are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to AJS Review. http://www.jstor.org This content downloaded from 131.128.70.28 on Wed, 11 Feb 2015 16:03:53 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions MEAT-EATINGAND JEWISHIDENTITY: RITUALIZATIONOF THE PRIESTLY"TORAH OF BEAST AND FOWL"(LEV 11:46) IN RABBINICJUDAISM AND MEDIEVALKABBALAH by JONATHANBRUMBERG-KRAUS In a fascinatingchapter dealing with the "natureof eating"in Shulhan shel Arba, a short thirteenth-centurymanual on rabbiniceating rituals,R. Bahyab. Asher suggests that Torahscholars alone are fit to eat meat,based on the followingpassage from the Talmud:"it is forbiddenfor an ignoramus [am ha-aretz]to eat meat, as it is written, 'This is the torahof beast and fowl' (Lev 11:46); for all who engage in Torah,it is permittedto eat the flesh of beast and fowl. But for all who do not engage in Torah,it is not permittedto eat beast and fowl."' This passage raises many questions, especiallyfor a vegetarian!First, why would an intellectualor spiritualelite use meat-eatingas a way to distinguishitself from the masses? The field of comparativereligions offers manycounter-examples to this tendency:the vegetariandiet of the HinduBrahmin caste, of Buddhistpriests and nuns, the ancientPythagoreans, the Neoplatonistregimen advocated by Porphyryin On Abstinence,or even contemporaryeco-theologians, animal rights activists, and feminist vegetarianslike Carol Adams.2Moreover, the mind/bodydualism 1. b.Pesah 49b, quoted by Bahya, Shulhanshel Arba, from Kitve RabenuBahya (Kad ha-kemah,Shulhan shel Arba,Pirke Avot), ed. CharlesB. Chavel(Jerusalem: Mossad Harav Kook, 1969), p. 496. 2. See Colin Spencer,The Heretics Feast: A Historyof Vegetarianism(Hanover, N.H.: UniversityPress of New England, 1995); Carol J. Adams, The Sexual Politics of Meat: A FeministVegetarian Critical Theory (New York:Continuum, 1990). AJSReview 24/2 (1999):227-262 227 This content downloaded from 131.128.70.28 on Wed, 11 Feb 2015 16:03:53 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 228 JONATHANBRUMBERG-KRAUS of Westernphilosophical and religious traditionsof asceticism tends to reinforce the idea that vegetarianismand fasting are closer to the ideal of intellectualperfection than slavery to our so-called animal cravingsto eat flesh. Giving up meat for Lent or sustainingoneself miraculouslyon the breadand wine of the eucharisticelements, as is reportedabout some medieval female mystics, reflects this tendency in the Christiantradition, though vegetariantraditions are relativelyrare in Judaism.3On the other hand,the medievalsources composed by the circle of late-thirteenth-century Spanishkabbalists that we are about to discuss acknowledgethat at first view the Torah'scommandments to eat meat are problematic,and demand an explanation.Joseph Gikatilla, Bahya's contemporary, suggests that killing animalsfor food seems to contradictGod's justice.4 Bahya himself points out 3. On attitudestoward vegetarianismin the early Christianchurch, see Diane Bazell, "StrifeAmong the Table-Fellows:Conflicting Attitudes of Early and Medieval Christians TowardEating Meat," Journal of theAmerican Academy of Religion65 (1997): 73-99. Bazell pointsout a basic tensionin earlyChristianity between the pro-vegetarianinfluences of Greek philosophicalasceticism and the nonvegetarianimpulse to be indiscriminateabout one's diet, i.e., have no qualms about eating nonkoshermeat, or meat sacrificedto idols, in orderto distinguishChristianity from Judaism(p. 85). See also VeronikaGrimm, From Feasting to Fasting, the Evolutionof a Sin: Attitudesto Food in Late Antiquity(New York:Routledge, 1996), pp. 103-105. On the medievalaccounts of miraculoussustenance on the elementsof communion,see CarolWalker Bynum, Holy Feast andHoly Fast: TheReligious Significance of Food to MedievalWomen (Berkeley: University of CaliforniaPress, 1987), esp. pp. 130-135. On Judaism'spredominately pro-meat-eating, anti-vegetarian tendency, see Grimm,From Feasting to Fasting, pp. 16-17, 27. Vegetarianismhas experienceda revivalamong twentieth-century Jews, for example,Rav AbrahamIsaac Kook, the first chief rabbiof Israel,Isaac Bashevis Singer,and Rabbi ArthurGreen; and there is a Jewish VegetarianSociety that publishesa PassoverHaggadah for a meatless seder, TheHaggadah of the LiberatedLamb. While for Rav Kook and I. B. Singer,vegetarianism was a privatediscipline, Green, in SeekMy Face, SpeakMy Name:A ContemporaryJewish Theology(Northvale, N.J.: J. Aronson,1992), pp. 87-89, and the Jewish VegetarianSociety advocatevegetarianism as a normfor otherJews. Thoughinfluenced by contemporaryanimal rights and ecologicalawareness, they root their vegetarianismin some of earliertraditional Jewish sources we aregoing to discussbelow. See also Art Waskow,Down to EarthJudaism: Food, Money,Sex and the Restof Life (New York: WilliamMorrow, 1995), pp. 135-136. 4. Joseph Gikatilla,Shaare Orah, ed. Joseph Ben Shlomo (Jerusalem:Mossad Bialik, 1981),II, 11-12: And now I have a greatkey to openthis matter.What did the Lord(may He be blessed) see to commandin the Torahthe slaughterof animalsfor humanbeings to eat? For is it not written,"The Lord is good to all, and His mercyextends to all His works"[Ps 145:9]?And if He acts mercifully,why did He commandthat beasts be slaughteredfor humanbeings to eat;where is the mercyin that?But the secretis in the beginningof the This content downloaded from 131.128.70.28 on Wed, 11 Feb 2015 16:03:53 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions MEAT-EATINGAND JEWISH IDENTITY 229 thatmeat-eating is God'sconcession to humanity's animal desires in our fallen state;Adam and Eve did not eat meatin Eden.5And in the world-to-come, therighteous will feastonly on "litefood," i.e., light"food"-"fine and pure foodscreated from the supernallight."6 Both introduce the "torahof beast verse, which said, "theLord is good to all," good in fact, and accordingly"His mercy extendsto all his works." Duringthe work of creation,an agreement was reached with the cow to be slaughtered, and she said, "Good."And what was her reason?Since the cow had no highersoul to conceive of the work of HaShemand His powers,the Lord(may He be blessed),when He was creatingthe world,told all the beaststo standbefore Him, andHe said, "Ifyou consentto be slaughtered,and to have humanbeings eat you, thenyou will ascendfrom the statusof a beastthat knows nothing to the statusof a humanbeing who knowsand recognizesthe Lord(may He be blessed)."And the beastsreplied, "Good. His mercies are on us." Whenevera humanbeing eats a portionof the portionsof a beast, it turns into a portionof the humanbeing. Herethe beast is transformedinto a person,and her slaughteris an act of mercy,for she leaves the torahof beastsand entersinto the torah of humanbeings. Death is life for it, in thatit ascendsto the degreeof angels-and this is the secretof "Manand beastthe Lordwill save"[Ps 36:8]. If you really reflecton the secret of slaughteringanimals, then everythingcomes fromthe side of His mercyand love for all His creatures.And thusreflect on the reason why ourrabbis said in tractatePesahim of the Talmud,"It is forbiddenfor an amha-aretz to eat meat."For it was not commandedin the Torahto slaughtera beast unless one knows the "torahof beasts, wild animals,and fowl." And whoeverengages in Torah is permittedto eat meat. Thus an am ha-aretzdoes not eat meat becausehe is like a beastwithout a soul, andhe is not commandedto slaughtera beastonly so thatanother "beast"can eat it, but rather,if so, it [the beast] becomes like carrionand prey [i.e., forbidden,of a lower,"unfit" status]. 5. Bahya, Shulhanshel Arba, p. 496: "Considerwell that humanbeings' food ought to have been only plantsfrom the earth,such as grainproduce and fruit,not animals... but at the time when all flesh ruinedits way and all animalsdeserved annihilation, they were saved only by the merit of Noah, to whom animalswere them permitted[to be eaten]just like the greengrasses" (an allusionto Gen 9:3: "Everyliving creatureshall be yoursfor food, like the greengrasses, I am now giving you everything").Bahya has a very clearlyarticulated sense of a fall of humanityin Eden,even if it soundsalmost like Christianoriginal sin. He refersto the rabbinictraditions of Adam'sloss of stature,and describesthe post-Edenichuman condition thus,"all the childrenof Adam,the childrenof the man of sin, we areall stained,and oursoul sickened [gam benei 'adam gam benei 'ish 'avon kulanu nikhtam ve-nafshenu davah ]," p. 459. 6. Bahya, Shulhan shel Arba, p. 501 (ha-ma 'akhlim ha-dakim ve-ha-zakhim shenivre 'u min
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