Dear R’ Heshy,
I know we’re friends on Facebook, but I’m not sure if you saw the tumult on HaRav HaGaon Eliyahu Finks Facebook beis medrish today. He asked his chassidim, whether or not Heimishe Vegans were a possibility. Naturally, being classifying as heimishe myself, I instantly became incensed that anyone would even have the hava mina that one could be a frum vegan. Everyone likes to cite the famed Rav Kook as being a vegetarian, but most people forget to mention that he ate a small piece of chicken on shabbos to fulfiill the seudas mitzvah.
Unfortunately Reb Fink didn’t actually answer the question and his readers didn’t provide much insight, they are all mindless chassidim who listen to his every word after all. OTD posek Rachmuna Litzlon did mention that humane is a liberal idea and hence anyone who calls themselves a heimishe vegan/vegetarian would have to prove that they don’t hold of their lifestyle due to moral reasons. Still, I noticed that you didn’t take part in the conversation and was wondering what Reb Heshy would have to say on the subject.
Sincerely,
Heimishe Carnivore
Dear HC,
I was probably hugging trees or walking around a farmers market when this was going on, I’m sorry I missed such an important discussion. So important that poskim and chassidim decided that it wasn’t bittul z’man to discuss something that is hard to discuss because no one actually knows what Heimishe means. It one were to look at the classic texts of mussar, they would see concepts that urge man (heimishe women don’t know from such things) to refrain from physical things in order to learn self control. Meat is one such item, however, meat is a necessity on shabbos and as you stated above with your example of Rav Kook, I’m fairly certian that one would be hard pressed to find a gadol of any dor who was a vegan.
The only reason that the heimishe community (my father was shocked when he learned of the practice) knows about vegans is because of the influx of Baalei Teshuva in the last 30 years. Vegans can only exist in times of plenty, because without meat in the shtetl, our ancestors would have surely starved (they starved anyway, but all the shochtim would have gone out of business and potatoes are not a source of protein) I also know that being a vegan for moral reasons is just another chance to denounce the Torah, does that mean that karbanos are all inhumane? Then again, we’re supposedly going to all be vegans once moshiach comes – this may explain the high numbers of vegans within Chabad.
I would argue that vegans are going against halacha if they do it for moral reasons. If they do it for health reasons, they are actually doing a mitzvah. If they do because it’s cool, than they probably aren’t that heimishe.
Find vegan halacha on 4torah.com
I actually paskened in the comments:
“Once you go Vegan, you lose Heimeshe status in my books.”
It’s true, I agree, but I think it’s valuable for the velt to see how we came to such a conclusion.
Even considering becoming a vegan should make you lose the heimishe status as well, in fact, I think a discussion about the halachos of heimishe status changers may be in store for other sugya’s.
Maskim.
By definition, heimeshers over-value everything their bubby did in the alter heim. There were no vegan bubbies in the alter heim.
So what if someone is a pescatarian for health reasons, but you lie and say a chicken salad is tuna salad to make sure he fulfills his obligation of seudas mitzvah? Is that being extra heimeshe or is it sinning?
Next year’s final answer to win the Spelling Bee: Heimishe.
You mean haimishe.
Because they’d spell that wrong, too.
Technically, Jews can’t have a VEGAN lifestyle (wearing tefilin made from cows, wool tzitzis and much more…). As of being VEGETARIAN, it all depends of the circumstances.
Being vegan has about zero to do with wearing leather or using animal products outside the body, it’s only the food one ingests that defines a vegan.
Learn how to read “vegan lifestyle” and then use google before making assumptions
Asher is right. All the vegans I met are careful about eating AND wearing animal products.
Sorry, you’re wrong. A vegan avoids all animal products. I’m an ethical vegan & Orthodox conversion candidate. It’s not a position without halakhic trickiness, though.
Tell me: If you are an ethical vegan, doesn’t that mean you consider it unethical to eat meat? And since the Torah does in fact consider it ethical to eat meat, doesn’t that mean you consider the Torah unethical?
So why in the world would you want to convert to Judaism? I mean, forget the halachic trickiness–what about the fact that you simply do not agree with the Torah’s morality?
Can vegans do facials and swallow?
On the one hand, I don’t think you can be vegan for ideological reasons, but if you don’t like meat, that’s a different story. I’ve seen a psak about a wedding. The question was whether you can have a dairy wedding if everyone prefers dairy over meat, and the answer was yes. When it says you are supposed to have meat and wine at the wedding, what it’s really saying is that since everyone likes meat and wine best, you should serve that at the wedding, but if something is preferred, you should certainly have that instead. I don’t know if this applies to Shabbos.
When I became the father and father-in-law of vegans, I understood for the first time how non-frum parents feel about their children who keep kosher. I respect it, I honor it, I accommodate them when they come to my house, and I even eat that way once in a while. But I couldn’t possibly maintain such a lifestyle all the time!
Be Vegan, be Green, don’t smoke, don’t drink sugar, don’t drink salt, go to the gym, don’t eat fat, don’t eat carbs, etc. You must be very, very healthy. Why? In order to be able to shtuup anything that moves, 24/7, and pass on the AIDS and STD’s. That’s today’s society.
>> and pass on the AIDS and STD’s.
and be dependent on B.HusseinCare for the pills.
‘
You’re supposed to work out and eat healthy, but conservatives SAID to wait until marriage, liberals laughed, now liberals got de AIDZ. Good job losers. XD
As a troll that only rates 1/10.
Try harder next time.
And it’s the Conservative, Bible Belt States which have the highest teen pregnancy rates. Funny that.
And these young women also should have listened to what conservativism says on this issue. Being a teen/single mother is exceedingly difficult and ruins the life of the young woman and the child.
It’s been studied to death. “Just say No” and “abstinence only” don’t work. Never have. Never will. What they do is increase the rate of STDs and unintended pregnancy while decreasing the age of first intercourse. Education, communication and economic opportunity reverse these. Countries with wide access to contraception, comprehensive education, less religion and strong social welfare do better by all of these measures.
You also don’t know your history. Up until the second decade of the twentieth century the overwhelming majority of men had first intercourse with professional women. Brothels were extremely common. In the 1950s at least a third of first births in marriage were “premature”. Not second births, mind you.
The only advantages your system has are hypocrisy, stigmatization, ignorance and dictatorial social control. Most people consider those disadvantages.
Works fine in my community.
See above. It requires really horrible control and downright sick control over so many aspects of normal human behavior. And all so that a man can be sure that the woman he buys didn’t make ooh-ooh with someone else. (Mind you, it doesn’t matter whom he made ooh-ooh with)
Well, I suppose you can pretend that is why. But it certainly isn’t the reason I think. And I like to think that my reasons for my religious observances are more important than the reasons you ascribe to me.
And there is no gender disparity on this. HTH.
This must explain the huge out-of-wedlock and STD incidence in the Amish community.
Men want virginal wives for the same reason that all male animals do — it increases confidence of paternity, which is the basis for parrental care in all species. Women already have “confidence of maternity” (so to speak).
parental
Catholic bullshit strikes again!!!
It’s interesting that people assume that being “virginal” prevent all the woman’s offspring from being anyone else’s aside from her husband’s.
All praise the “Virgin” Mary and her Holy Hymen!
Being a virgin at marriage prevents a woman from marrying a man when she’s pregnant with another man’s child. I’m speaking here as an evolutionary biologist, not a Catholic. There are additional requirements which vary by culture that ensure she doesn’t get pregnant by another man while married. Aside from the Muslims, I don’t think anybody has more demanding and detailed laws to ensure just that than does Judaism. A religion that doesn’t allow men to listen to a woman singing or shake hands with her or be alone in a room with her or see her elbows (or her hair if she is married) is not one that is really in a position to discuss “Catholic bullshit” re: virginity.
OTD Posek? Haha I love it!!
Remember, a healthy diet and exercise are contrary to the divine will and hepek halakha. Just as my spelling of halakha indicates that I am not suitably halakhic.
It’s a common misconception that one is halachically required to eat meat on Shabbos and Yom Tov. It’s not actually required.
Of course, tefillin and Torah scrolls must be made of cowhide. So one can’t be completely vegan.
There are in fact a fair number of Orthodox Jews who eat a vegan diet. Virtually all will tell you that they would have no problem eating or performing the korbanos once that is actually required. Rav Kook thought only the vegetarian sacrifices would be restored, and naturally vegans may be tempted to adopt that view as well.
While veganism is kosher (there’s even an organization now about kosher veganism, the Shamayim v’Aretz Institute), the ideology isn’t necessarily. If one thinks that no humans are allowed to use animal products no matter what, that conflicts with the Torah. But if you believe we shouldn’t use them unless they’re completely halachically necessary, then there’s not a hashkafic problem.
Still, it might be better to be “near-vegan” rather than vegan, to avoid the temptation to adopt vegan ideologies that are incompatible with Torah Judaism (and which thus might cause people to lose emunah and/or go off the derech.)
Vegans are parve; and delicious with either meat or milk.
Actually, Vegan is Pareve without eggs.
Some people are vegan because of the way the animals are raised and not their actual killings.