Late breaking: Chabadniks say vegetarianism is "unjewish"

Ooooh. I'm really fuming. There are countless ways and reasons to debunk the e-mail I just received from AskMoses.com, a FAQ and 24/6 Jewish support site run by Chabad. I've been on their e-mail list for a while, and usually find the articles they send insightful at best and inapplicable at worst.

But today they sent an article that claims vegetarianism is "supremely unjewish." So cancel your Pesach plans, I guess, because it seems we're not proper Jews. Wouldn't want to eat at our place...

It's not easy to get my goat. At least not enough to make me go public. Especially regarding vegetarianism, where my overall approach is live at let live (or live and let slaughter, heh heh). My husband is, of course, a meat eater, and it doesn't bother me one bit.

But this really got me. In addition to being offensive, it's ridiculous. First you'll see the article, then my response to AskMoses. Really, I could have written an essay on every which way the article went wrong. But I wouldn't want to bore you.

I welcome your response and insight, though, and so, I'm sure, does AskMoses, which can be reached at answerline@askmoses.com

Happy birthday to me. It won't be a real festival, of course, since I won't be enjoying a charred bit of dead animal.

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Carbs by Professor Benjamin Blech

Millions of Americans are embracing the dietary laws.

Okay, maybe not the same dietary laws found in the Bible, but the eating habits of the whole country have changed almost overnight. Forget Pepsi, we’re the No-Carb Generation. Stick to the meat part of meat-and-potatoes, and you’re golden. Have steak every day, even for breakfast if you’re so inclined, and America’s most popular diet promises you’ll live close to the proverbial 120. Dr. Atkins spread the gospel: Thou shalt not eat carbs.

Beef prices have skyrocketed, so that non-Jewish consumers are starting to pay the kind of money for meat that used to distinguish kosher food. This is the Wimpy Age—Popeye’s friend Wimpy, that is—the meat-crazed mooch who famously offered to “pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today.”

Vegetarians, obviously, aren’t very happy with this trend. (A clever ad for one prominent chain of steakhouses used to boast, “Horrifying Vegetarians Since 19__.”) Many vegetarians believe that it is a sin to take an animal’s life in order to lengthen our own. All of G-d’s creatures, they contend, have the same right to live out their years. A noble thought, ethically motivated, and yet—supremely un-Jewish!

Jews do eat meat. In fact, the Talmud teaches, that’s what transforms an ordinary meal into a Sabbath or holiday feast. Simchah , true joy, can be attained only with bassar v’yayin , meat and wine. Animals, says the Midrash, were created before Adam so that they would be available for his table, just as a king prepares food in advance for his most favored guest.

But before you tear into that rib-eye, there’s something else you should know. Judaism agrees with the meat of the vegetarian argument: Life, whether human or animal, shouldn’t be taken lightly; we don’t have the right to kill other life forms simply because we have the power to do so.

Perhaps the most profound dietary law is one that’s relatively unknown. In fact, if it were put into practice it’s quite conceivable that a lot of us would no longer know the delight of devouring a steak or polishing off a couple of burgers. You see, Judaism doesn’t really give us carte blanche to kill animals for food. It allows us to eat meat only on one condition: that the animal whose life is taken serves to feed someone whose life has more meaning than simple bestial existence.
“Am ha’aretz assur le’echol bassar .” A boor, whose life is devoid of Torah, is forbidden to eat meat! That’s the Talmud’s conclusion based on a simple equation: For any life ended to support another, there must be a qualitative difference between the life that is taken and the life that will be sustained. Animals live, as Sigmund Freud put it, to get and to beget. They eat and they procreate. They simply exist. Human beings are meant to strive for more. Our years are supposed to be imbued with a spiritual quest for holiness. Life is not merely getting and begetting, but being and becoming. Created in the image of G-d, we have an obligation to imitate our Divine Maker. It is only our efforts in pursuit of this goal that permit us to turn animal flesh into the food that fuels us.

This adds a whole new dimension to the Atkins Diet. Piling on meat may keep you thin—but it might be a sin. It all depends on whether you deserve the meat.

So here’s the new diet plan that gives equal weight (no pun intended) to both your body’s need to be slim and your soul’s longing for spiritual fulfillment: Live your life with the constant awareness that you are meant to be much more than an animal, and in that way you’ll earn the right to enjoy as many prime cuts of meat as your heart desires.

Republished with permission from www.chabadstanford.org .
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Dear Ask Moses:

I have enjoyed your e-mails for some time now. But I must ask that you remove me from your mailing list immediately.

The below article by Benjamin Blech, sent to me today via Ask Moses, is the first and only negative experience I’ve had with Chabad in an otherwise happy 12 year relationship.

To be told that vegetarianism is supremely “unjewish” and that I am not attaining true joy or properly partaking of Sabbath and festival meals is offensive, and, in my experience, specious.

Although I applaud the ethical argument against eating animals, I have no problem with people who eat meat. I choose not to eat meat for health reasons—something not mentioned in the article—and my lifetime of research has taught me that vegetarians who practice a well-balanced diet enjoy a much healthier overall outlook than meat eaters, particularly heavy meat-eaters. I’d be surprised to hear from a doctor who disagrees. Surely Chabadniks are modern enough to be interested not only in the spiritual health of Jews, but in the physical health, as well. In fact, “traditional” Jewish diets are often lambasted by medical personnel as too high in meat, saturated and trans fats, as any Jew who enjoys such a diet and was recently diagnosed with heart disease will tell you. To me it borders on criminal to give people an excuse to over-indulge in a known health culprit (let’s not kid ourselves: in biblical and Talmudic times meat was harder to come by and consumed in far less quantities). Not only that, but the article’s implication that eating meat will make you slim would certainly not be true for those who enjoy a “traditional” Jewish diet, including weekly Challah and other rich dishes.

For your article not to imply, but to state outright, that I am a lesser Jew for making a choice to be vegetarian does not only not comport with teachings I’ve learned through Torah study and from Rabbis, it makes me feel ill. I try to be a good Jew, I carry Torah in my heart and I observe more and more mitzvot as I continue to learn. I am raising devoted Jewish children who are also vegetarians, but apparently to you they are “unjewish.”

I expect you’ll remove me from this and all Ask Moses lists. Frankly, this e-mail makes me question all of my ties with Chabad, and I shall have to tread carefully from here on out.

Be well,

-Jessica Emerson-Fleming