I was sitting at a seder once with my family at a hotel, not knowing my father was how he is, this young girl at the table expressed that she was a vegetarian because she felt it was morally wrong not to be. My father basically tore her new one with a talmudic discourse why she was basically a kofer for saying that anyone who partook in the beis hamikdash was morally wrong. He went on and on about the crazy liberals and Jews who didn’t know a blatt gemera from a hole in the wall, she cried, my brother and I left the table and my father continued to yell about the farshtunkanah liberals – classic! Even Rav Kook who people cite as their source that you can be frum and a vegetarian, ate chicken on shabbos. So that begs the discussion of whether you can really be a frum vegan – vegetarians eat fish – vegans won’t even wear a sterimel and everyone knows you can’t be a frum yungerman without a streimel.
Stuff Jewish Vegans Like:
Golus: We don’t make sacrifices for the sake of purifications, lots of animals are saved.
Adam and Chava: They ate grass and apples – vegans love em.
Moshiach: When moshiach comes we will all be vegetarians. Wait, I thought that when moshiach comes we will all be Lubavitchers.
Yom Kippur: We don’t wear leather and we don’t eat, must be good for Vegans – they always seem so skinny anyway.
The Nine Days: Imagine a world where the Jewish vegan doesn’t have to explain to everyone why they don’t eat flesh? Now imagine that every kosher restaurant started serving tofu – even some of the frum ones.
Tzar Belly Chaim: You can’t torture animals is in the torah! Sign me up. I am sure they talked about this one a lot at the Hazon Food Conference.
Aver Min Hachai: At least those Jewish meat eaters can’t rip off a limb from a live one. I wonder if Jewish Vegans ever have signs saying this at red lobsters.
Rav Kook: He may have eaten a small piece of chicken on Shabbos, but to have such a great rabbi as ammunition for your “frum and vegan” arguments is a pretty big deal.
Stuff Jewish Vegans Hate:
Torah scrolls: Can you imagine how many cows it takes to make one sefer torah? Then again, can you imagine how many trees we are saving by making it out of cows. Now factor in the amount of water and land it takes produce one cow and you may be able to argue that it’s better to use cows – but Vegans probably won’t listen to any argument to kill a cow.
Beis Hamikdash: I think this would be my worst nightmare if I were a vegan, sacrificing living creatures to purify us for our sins and to thank God for providing those creatures that we eat. Seems pretty much antithetical to veganism.
Tefillin: I wonder if any vegans have tried to make tefillin out of pleather or faux leather? Do frum vegans wear tefillin?
Techeles: Sounds like tzar belly chaim to me.
Mezuzah: Just another excuse for parchment
Megillah: More parchment usage
Parah Adumah: So let me get this straight, you take an endangered species and burn it for its ashes to purify you. Sounds like a waste of a perfectly happy cow.
Streimels: At least a mink coat keeps you warm, but streimels don’t even have ear flaps, they are a useless way to use a perfectly innocent animal – besides beavers aren’t even kosher (for a two weeks a month) I couldn’t control myself.
LIKE
Only one set of dishes!
+1 :^)
Technically, one can’t be a vegetarian and eat fish. Vegetarianism has, in a few cases, come to include people who eat fish. But that’s really a misuse of the term.
I’ve never met a religious vegan or vegetarian. Once had one sign up to come for a meal via SYOS but after sending her dietary needs and my trying very hard to accommodate (not easy!) she never showed up. Never was able to meet her.
Anyway- cute post Heshy.
My vegetarian wife and vegan self are both frum — and I do wear tefillin.
Tirtzah, where are you located? We are always up for meals via SYOS and we will show up if you are ok with us not eating meat! 🙂
then you’re no vegan
Tefillin are not optional. Moreover, most vegans will continue using items of clothing or other items that use animal product for the life of that product. Some of the most hardcore vegan books out there will tell you this is the case, guy in la.
I’ve never met a religious vegan or vegetarian.
You must be very sheltered.
Matisyahu is pretty religious and he is now a vegan
Speaking of vegans and religion, I tend to think of them as the Charedim of the animal rights world.
LOL!
And PETA is Neturei Karta
Hesh you rock as usual
you forgot to mention kaparot (holiday season anyone?).
Kapores – you missed it.
Very funny. I guess it’s good you didn’t mention egla arufa, or the seir l’azazel, not to mention if you fail to redeem the firstborn donkey…
(I had to write that in english ’cause the alternative was “if you fail to do peter chamor”)
Heshy,
Amusing post.
FYI, the label “vegetarian” is used in different ways, but most self-proclaimed vegetarians I know (including myself, for 19 years) do NOT eat fish. As opposed to vegans, we do eat dairy & eggs, however.
I am frum from birth and vegetarian from birth. Never tried fish, chicken, or meat. Although it is my family’s lifestyle choice, I try not to actively dislike the choices others make as, disagree though I may, it is their decision at the end of the day. The only thing I will come out strongly against is creature mistreatment.
I do have to wonder what demographic you speak of when you make fun of the frum Jews who cannot go without their meat practically every day. Most of the Jews I know can’t afford chicken/meat during the week and save it for Shabbos, which I do not think is too extravagant.
I understand if someone wont eat meat because they just dont feel right about it. But to say its actually part of Judaism is to reveal an gaping ignorance of basic Jewish theology. The gemara and kabbalah both explain the value of eating animals before doing holy things. (An example is letter 20 in iggeres hakodesh in Tanya).
>implying Tanya is accepted everywhere
First of all, it’s befeirush in shulchan aruch. Secondly, Tanya is highly respected by all mainstream Baalei Kabbala today that I know of, litfish, chassidish, and sephardic. I don’t know where you got your opinion from, but even the Leshem borrows a lot from Tanya. (Not to mention that kiruv today would be nowhere without it. Listen to a few leib kelemen tapes and you’ll see where he’s pulling his theology from.)
lol- thats too funny. The Sefardic mekubalim mostly reject Tanya and Hakham Yitzchak Kaduri rejected it and said to not read it. The Tanya is treif to many authentic mekubalim of which there are none in Lubavitch.
according to Torah we are able to eat meat, except pork ,but not to mix it with milk. but to be vegetarian is not a sin untill it has not religious base (buddism, for example or things like that)
Animals must chew their cud and have split hooves. They must also be slaughtered properly (shechita), which on-0ne-foot entails using a straight knife and completely dismembering the head in one clean swipe. The pig is singled out by the Torah as an animal that has split hooves but does not chew its cud and therefore is not kosher. But I assure you, the list of non-kosher animals is a lot more extensive!
As for milk and meat, the Torah does not say straight out you’re not allowed to. The Torah says in 3 different locations that you can’t cook “a kid in its mother’s milk”. It is from this verse that the Rabbis learn that we can’t mix milk and meat. Even if it’s not a kid (goat), the law has been expected. So technically, I don’t think that poultry or fish are a problem with milk, but I’ve never seen any kosher poultry with milk…
I am not a vegetarian exclusively I have a little meat here and there but my wife is, because meat has grossed her out since she was a little girl.
we keep a strictly Milchig house. all meat is cooked outside and ate using disposable utensils plates cups. I minimize my meat intake to every once in a great great while when i get a strong craving, because
1 its easier on kashrus issues.
2. meat is expensive.
3. the west eats way too much meat
4. the meat industry is the largest souce of pollution in the world
5. the way that shecitta is performed these days in a mass production line- has in my opinion nothing to do with what shecitta is supposed to be all about. its kosher from a Halachic standpoint but the animals get treated little better than at the goyishe slaughterhouses. we do not show animals the respect by giving them nice lives before they die and treating them respecfully when we put them down. undercover tapes have shown shochets acting like goyim with no respect and total apathy for the animal. I think that is a little unkosher in spirit in my opinion.
I eat a little meat, I wear leather shoes,etc. but. my eggs are cage free my milk is from small farm of free graze cows, and only eat meat to fulfill my craving.
I do not think its wrong to kill an animal, I want the Beis hamikdash to be rebuilt and korbanos to start back up. but I would like to see people treat animals- who we are superior to- with a little compassion and respect- to me that goes from ants to dolphins. the way i look at it even a ants is just trying to live his life, make babies, do his work and just be. not so different form me, I can relate to that.
So I dont give much money to the meat industry for that reason.
Totally agree!
For me, the problem is that although kosher meat is “technically kosher” there are serious tzaar baale haym issues with most of it. Plus the pollution, unsustainability, etc. OfftheDwannaB, read J. Safran-Foer’s Eating Animals. By the end, the meat I could eat (kosher, from a small producer, free-range, grass-fed, antibiotic-free, etc.) was so expensive that I just decided to become vegetarian. Although if someone invites me over I eat what they’ve cooked, I wouldn’t want to be a bad guest.
We only eat free range and local … even that is expensive. If you threw kosher into the mix too, I can only imagine how much the meat would cost! There is halal meat here, but I honestly have not seen any kosher meat ….
I’m probably going to continue to eat meat bought from the supermarket, but my more ideal self would only buy meat from a Shochet with a small free range farm that I’ve personally met.
I actually became a vegetarian temporarily for 5 years davka because I moved to a place where getting kosher meat was nearly impossible. Now that I’m in J’lem B”H this is not a problem anymore so I started eating meat again. Unfortunately, during my 5 years without meat I developed an allergy to chicken and turkey which means my meat choices are pretty limited. Oh well, I guess it just proves that you have to be careful if you want to become a vegetarian…. I totally agree though that if you are going to spend money on animal products they should be free range (we only buy free range eggs for example) and organic if you can possibly spring for the outrageous cost of that these days. The way the egg, dairy, and meat industry is run thse days is totally outrageous, and I think would probably be considered not kosher if the sages of the past could see what is going on now.
“I think would probably be considered not kosher if the sages of the past could see what is going on now.”
Outrageous – maybe. But saying Chazal would consider it “not kosher” is going too far. They gave us VERY specific guidelines about what defines a kosher egg, and as long as we keep to those guidelines – we’re in good hands. At least religion-wise.
Healthwise – yeah, you have a pretty good point. At this point there are more chemicals in an egg than in a battery.
The hormone and vaccinaton injections in the chickens/cows are also affecting consumers in a sick way.
I have a link to a great documentary on it somewhere…
FrumGer,
I also only buy cage-free eggs, ever since I read about what conditions egg laying hens are kept in (8 hens crowded into a tiny cage barely able to move. Read here: http://www.farmsanctuary.org/issues/factoryfarming/eggs/)
I try getting pastured eggs whever I can, and the eggs are delicious. Hens eating what they were supposed to (bugs, etc) being able to move around outside and be healthy. Which makes the eggs healthier for the consumer as well.
I watched an undercover video in a hen house, and a certain portion of the eggs they fertilize, to produce more hens to lay more eggs. but the chicks that are hatched they go to a sorter, someone that check if its male or female, if its female they keep it, and it will go on to live a life of hormone injections, never moving from one spot, being fed corn syrup and never seeing the light of day just laying eggs all the time like a machine. if its born a male, then they throw it into a garbage bag with all the other male chicks, and then just tie up the bag when its full and suffocate them. the sad humor is, I think the males actually have it better.
after seeing that and other undercover videos from agriprocessors , I just said F*&ck You to the meat/ egg/ diary/ industry, i truly LOATH them with utmost disdain and passion. and now I pay about 3 times more for my stuff but at least not one dollar of mine goes to those A-hole profit mongers
I look at it as tzedakah to people/ companies that are doing whats right by animals..
Kosher halachah is to me about the total package, kashrus is all about holiness or separation form how the baser world does things. to Me in Judaism the means don’t justify the end if not done with integrity. it matters how you do things.
Frumger,
I know people that won’t eat veal for the same reason. I guess much of today’s kosher meat isn’t raised “in the spirit” of kashrut, but it seems that they can get away with it halachically, otherwise they would lose their kosher certification.
I might very well be that the rabbis in charge of these organizations realize that the industry would collapse if they enforced organic standards on to all kosher meat processors. Kosher meat jumping to 7 or 8 times the prices of non kosher instead of 2 or 3, would surely make keeping kashrut a lot tougher for frummies with big families, and make the decision to keep kosher a lot tougher for BT’s and converts.
Phil,
Dont get me wrong I still eat some meat every once in a while. I am glad Kosher slaughterhouses exist. If Yidden eat meat I would much rather him/her have the option of Kosher meat the way it is now as opposed to non kosher meat. I fully believe that from a halachic stand point the meat that has a reliable hectsher on it is Kosher 100%. iwouldnt eat it if I thought otherwise. i just think we could and should go beyond just making sure we go through the motions correctly. Its kind of like davening with out kavanah, if you can understand what i mean.. not on the same level of course but I think you might get my point. jews never really had this problem with in the little shtietls in europe. Really the Massive production has cause these oversights to occur. time is money in mass production.
In a perfect world every jewish community would just supply its own meat, small scale… but we dont live one, so pah, what can you do but kvetch…
Frumger,
Both my parents grew up in different parts of the world not too long ago, both ate what you would consider organic and free range today.
My dad’s family had free range chickens in their orange grove in Tunisia, my mom’s family grew chestnuts and fattened geese in their country home near Budapest.
Can’t picture myself trying the same here, though they have small movement of people trying to farm their own eggs near downtown Montreal, they’ve run into some problems with their neighbors recently.
Fattening geese that’s real humane. Talk about blissful ignorance
Anon,
Fattening geese IS humane, it makes them a lot tastier too.
Not to mention that the salmonella outbreak was with factory farm eggs.
I only eat meat, no vegetarian stuff. Basically a carnivore.
Come get sooome.
Where is the like button??? 🙂
You CANNOT be a Hot Chani if you don’t have leather shoes and belts and handbags. PVC is so gauche!
A human hair sheitel, however, is sustainable, since hair grows back. And there are probably chemicals doing nasty things to the environment used in the manufacture of (uch) synthetic wigs.
I wonder though since most human hair wigs are made from the hair tonsuring in India to Vishnu, a false god and idol, I wonder if no one has ever made the connection that the sheitls worn for religious puposes by frumkeit are made from hair cut in dedication to Vishnu. I wonder should you then Toyvel it first?… i wonder why the Ravs havent banned that yet.
I believe (I could be wrong) what what was found out was that before serving the idol they shaved off/cut their hair, they didnt exactly bring their hair as an offering. That is why it is permitted.
Ha! They banned Indian hair way back in 2004.
The human hair sheitels from Paula Young use China hair now, after the ban on Indian hair.
In case you don’t know, there was an Indian Hair Crisis a few years back.
In regards to them worshiping idols, some Israeli Ba’aley Tshuva who had been to India said that the shaving wasn’t offered to any “god” but rather to symbolize detachment from material things.
LMFAO…tears streamin’ down
awesome post!!
A traditional Jewish diet includes meat. If you are a vegetarian (or vegan), then you do not eat meat. It is not an enormous logical leap to then conclude that vegetarians do not have traditional Jewish diets. Implications aside, I am still not sure how discarding such an important minhog can be classified as part of being frum.
… more important a minhag than it was not to use fridges or freezers?
I wonder how old the “traditional Jewish [=Ashkenazi] diet” is, and how often would the average Jew eat meat before the 20th century.
You must be trolling.
I disagree with this entirely. Recipes, as traditional and comforting as they are, are definitely not Minhagim. A minhag involves a certain ‘clan’s’ (for lack of a better word) take on a halachic question. Many small things actually are minhagim even if we are ignorant of their halachic origins (like answering ‘aleichem shalom’ or waiting 1/3/6 hrs.) so people logically assume that evwrything their families did is a minhag.
However, as far as I know, there is no recipe that is a minhag. There is a halachic basis for eating fish and meat and having two loaves of bread on shabbos. There is no halachic basis for chicken soup or lukshen kugel. Two partia exceptions I know of are:
-Cholent has a basis only because it’s showing the Tzeddukim that its mutar to eat something kept hot on shabbos.
-I’ve heard Gefilte fish is mashed up and boneless because of borer
Our bodies need vitamin B12. B12 is made in the guts of animals. Vegans who do not supplement their diets with vitamin B12 are at risk for dementia and permanent nerve damage.
Our bodies are not the same ones that Adam and Chava had.
one word ….supplements
One word: hubris.
Funny post, Hesh, but a really big one that you left out (in addition to shlagging kapores) that is also very timely, is HONEY!. Apples dipped in what? Maple syrup, maybe? Vegans don’t eat honey.
Some technical definitions: A true vegetarian eats no meat, fish, fowl, eggs or dairy. An ovo-lacto-vegetarian eats no meat, fish, or fowl, but eats eggs and dairy. A pescetarian (also spelled pescatarian) eats no meat or fowl, but eats fish and anything else. And a vegan neither eats nor USES any product that is obtained from animals. Hence, honey is included, because it’s stolen from bees. All that said, people can call themselves whatever they want, and many, if not most pescetarians call themselves vegetarians. (I was a pescetarian for 29 years, and an ovo-lacto vegetarian for 3 years–never a true vegetarian or vegan, although I usually just identified myself as a vegetarian.) Many true vegetarians also call themselves vegans, even though they may eat honey and wear leather. Even some dictionary definitions of the word, “vegan” confuse this. However there is a significant vegan movement in the world, and they will vehemently deny that you are a vegan if you eat honey and wear leather.
I recently stopped being a pescetarian and started eating fowl (there is no special word for that, sadly, although I could make one up and say that I am an ornitharian!) for a number of reasons. However, I will never eat my fellow mammals. I find it extraordinarily hypocritical when people get grossed out and upset at the notion of people eating dogs, cats, and guinea pigs (and yes, I know they’re not kosher–that’s not what I’m talking about) who have no problem eating cows, sheep and pigs. The former group is not somehow higher than the latter group just because western society has decided that one group of mammals falls under the category of pets while the other falls under the category of food. They are all creatures of roughly equal sensitivity and intelligence. And no, I’m not putting them on a par with humans. Just with each other. If I were dying of starvation, and the only possible food available to me was meat, I would kill the animal (kosher or not, BTW–pikuach nefesh) with my bare hands. However, given that it’s not necessary to eat mammals to survive in this world, why should I? Also, there are all the other environmental reasons already mentioned by other commenters.
Batsheva,
I have to agree that I find weird that people have problems eating dogs or cats, but I think they should be alongside the chicken and pigs in the grocery section. That way, we’d have less shoes ruined with doodoo accidents and no problems with pit bull attacks.
From what I hear, it’s normal in Korea, they fatten the dogs up like geese, then beat them with paddles to tenderize the flesh before killing them. Kind of gives a new meaning to leave an Asian restaurant with a doggie bag.
Not anymore. It’s still possible to get dog meat in Korea, if you know where to look, but it’s not what it used to be. Every Korean I’ve asked has said that their grandparents’ generation considered it a delicacy and heavily imbibed it; this caused a problem in 1986 with the Olympics where the country as a whole decided not to serve dog because they were afraid it would weird out the rest of the world (and those who were dogmeat fans were pissed off). Many Koreans I’ve met admit they have tried it once and did like the taste, but are ashamed of it (but admit that part of it is the stigma, knowing that most outsiders find it weird).
From what I hear, you can find it in the supermarket, but you have to know where to look.
Also, the stereotype of them stealing your neighbor’s dog for dinner is completely false. The dogs they use strictly speaking were raised on farms and (as you said) fattened up like geese. Plenty of them like to joke that the Chinese might steal your pet (most of them don’t like the Chinese, but that’s another old sour-grapes thing that’s somewhat dying out with this generation).
Ghotti,
I guess I’m getting old, can’t believe the Seoul Olympics we’re 24 years ago!
People have been eating their pets for centuries, from sheep and goats to chickens and geese. People should have the equal right to eat their dogs without feeling guilty if they chose to do so.
I wonder if these stupid ass vegans feed their dogs carrots and celery sticks.
I believe that they’re a Chinese border town, with a lot of people escaping from North Korea, in which the most popular dish is dog meat soup.
I believe that there’s. Sorry.
Haha.
I think it’s cruel to eat any life form and am therefore converting my body to run on photosynthesis.
Hesh,
You got to the beaver jokes before I had a chance. I wonder if vegans can lick blond beaver fur 😉
There are Orthodox rabbis who are vegans or vegetarians. One of my rabbis in Toronto is a vegan (though admittedly he went to YCT so kind of the left fringe of orthodoxy).
Shlomo Goren, the former Ashkenazic Chief Rabbi of Israel, was vegetarian (see http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Judaism/rabbinicveg.html)
So is Jonathan Sacks, the Chief Rabbi of Britian (see
http://www.varsitv.co.uk/episode/dcxkjt/Two_Minutes_with_Chief_Rabbi_Jonathan_Sacks/?t=1m43s )