The Jewish view of cats

While checking the traffic sources for this blog today, I noticed that somebody got here by searching  for "Jewish view of cats."  That's interesting, I thought to myself.  Is there a "Jewish view" of cats?  Are cats even "Jewish" at all?

Well, as Rabbi Ben Bag Bag said of the Torah 2000 years ago:  "Turn it over and over, for everything is in it" (Pirkei Avot 5:22)  So I decided to do just that -- not just in the literal Torah (Five Books of Moses) but "Torah" in the broader sense, as all of Jewish learning.  Here are a few of the interesting things I found.


Lions and Tigers and Leopards -- Oh My!

The Torah itself does not mention house cats, although it does mention big cats like lions, tigers, and leopards. The Lion is the symbol of the tribe of Judah, lineage of King David.  In Genesis 49:9, Jacob blessed his son Judah with:

Judah is a young lion,  

on prey, my son, have you grown. 

He crounches, lies down like a lion, 

like the King of Beasts -- who dares arouse him?

the Lion of Judah
on the symbol of  Jerusalem

This verse, by the way, is how the idea of the lion as "King of Beasts" entered the English language.  Not only Jews but many other ancient peoples as well associated lions with royalty -- and many still do.

Lions also appear in Ezekiel’s vision of the heavenly beings attending God’s Presence.  To this day, lions are used in Jewish art and heraldry to represent the Jewish people.  The Hebrew for lion is Aryeh, which is also a common given name for Jewish men.

Leopards are mentioned in six places in Scripture: Song of Songs 4:8; Isaiah 11:6; Jeremiah 5:6; 13:23; Daniel 7:6; Hosea 13:7.  Tigers are mentioned only once -- in  Job 4:11.

No house cats in the Hebrew Scriptures

Sand Cat

But what about those cuddly purrballs we keep as pets nowadays?  My guess is that Jews first encountered small cats in Egypt, perhaps during the time of Joseph or Moses.  It is known that cats were already domesticated in the Middle East at that time.  When I was in Berlin in 1997 I visited the zoo there and saw Egyptian Sand Cats, an endangered species that look pretty much like ordinary tabbies.  I can easily imagine them as the ancestors of my own feline companions.

Then why are no cats mentioned in the Bible?  One theory is that, because cats were worshiped as gods by the Egyptians, they were purposely left out by Jewish writers because they were seen as idols.  But that doesn't make any sense, because the Egyptians worshiped a lot of other animals and birds that are mentioned.  So this remains a mystery.

But in the Talmud -- yes!

By the time we get to the Talmud (Greco-Roman period) there is mention of house cats who are honored as teachers of virtue.  We are told that if God had not given us the Torah, then we would have learned modesty from the cat.  (Eruvin 100b)  This is probably the most-often-quoted Jewish reference to cats -- and it is very positive.  Rashi, a major 9th-century commentator, interprets the cat's "modesty" as referring to her habit of burying her feces.  But other interpretations also exist, so feel free to develop your own.  For myself, I think her "modesty" is the reserved habit cats have of sitting back and observing things first.  They certainly don't come pouncing on strangers like some dogs do!

On the other hand, cats were believed to have bad memories because they ate mice!   In Tractate Horiot we read:

"The disciples of Rabbi Elazar ben Zadok asked: Why does the dog know his master, and the cat does not? and his answer was:  It is certain that he who eats from what is left by a mouse is apt to have a poor memory, so much the more so the cat that himself consumes the mouse."

Frankly, this is not all that "certain" nowadays, when we have a much better understanding of brain function.  It's just a silly superstition.  The same tractate also says you can lose your memory by eating the leftovers of the cats' food.  (Yuck!  Was it even kosher?  Not the mice, certainly.  Maybe it means kosher food nibbled by a cat?)  And yet, I did once hear a Jewish boy tell his younger brother not to pet the cat before he went to school or he would flunk his math test.  So it lives on as a superstition among children.

At any rate, we are not required to believe this.  In the 12th century, Maimonides, a major Jewish scholar who was also a physician, stated that when it came to science and medicine, the sages of old were limited in their knowledge to what was commonly known, and did not speak with "prophetic voice."  (Guide for the Perplexed.  See also my previous article, Voting for Darwin, Evolution, and Modern Science)

As for a cat "knowing her master," they certainly do recognize their human companions.  But unlike dogs, cats don't obey commands very well -- as any cat owner can tell you.  So there is some truth in the idea that they do not know or obey a "master" -- but eating mice doesn't cause it.  A cat is simply made differently than a dog.  (Note: Some older translations rendered it as a cat "not knowing God" instead of "master" -- probably because God is "master of the universe"  (Ribbono shel Olam) but that makes no sense.  Why would a dog obey God but a cat not?  Both are God's creations.)

Black cats, witches, and Jews

This is Nightshade, a black cat who lived with us
until she passed away in 2013.  She crossed my path
every day with no ill effects LOL!

Many cultures have superstitions about cats, such as, "If a black cat crosses your path, it brings bad luck." Judaism forbids such beliefs because it violates the prohibition against looking for omens (Leviticus 19:26).  As Jewish comedian Groucho Marx once said, "If a black cat crosses your path, it means the animal is going somewhere."

During the Middle Ages, when Christians were seeing cats as the familar spirits of witches, Jews were much more practical.  I remember reading somewhere that the reason Europeans were so superstitious about cats was because cats were not native to that part of the world, so they were seen as something strange and threatening.  Well, if Jews had already encountered cats in ancient Egypt, maybe that is why we were not superstitious about them.  Cats were sometimes reviled for eating baby chicks, but they were not seen as anything but cats.  (Even today I keep my mother hens with new chicks in big cages until the chicks are older.  A cat is a cat is a cat...)

So, in contrast to medieval Christians who were killing all the cats as demons, Jews kept them around to hunt rodents and protect the holy books from mice.  To this day, Torah scrolls are made of parchment, and books back then were all bound in leather with glues made from animal hides, which made them very tempting for rodents to chew.  So it was common to have a shul katze (synagogue cat) to protect the congregation's library.

The Shulchan Arukh (Code of Jewish Law) does say that one may kill an "evil cat" if it harms children.  This is not about cats-as-demons, though.  An "evil cat" (khatul ra) would presumably be a vicious feral cat, or maybe a rabid one.  In general, Jewish Law forbids keeping any animal that is dangerous, and Talmudic references to "evil dogs" are all about dogs that bite or attack.  So there is no injunction to get rid of cats in general as "evil."  Among the medieval Jews, they flourished.

The ancient Jewish text, Perek Shirah  (The Song of the Universe), in which everything in Creation is singing a song to God, includes both lions and house cats. The cat is portrayed as singing, "I pursued my foes and overtook them, and did not return until they were destroyed" (Psalm 18:38.)  Which is a pretty good description of a stalking cat.   Perek Shirah fell out of use in modern times, but has recently been re-discovered by Jewish environmentalists and ecology groups.  It is also popular among Breslover Hasidim, because it was a favorite of Rabbi Nachman of Breslov.

Keeping cats helped control the rats that carried the Black Plague, so the Jewish communities of Europe were not as badly devastated as the Christian communities.  (In addition, Jews do not eat rats, but in medieval times the gentiles often did.)  Unfortunately, since nobody back then knew how the Plague was spread, this difference just reinforced the idea that Jews were witches with demon cats who had brought the Plague as a curse on the Christians -- resulting in a lot of innocent Jews and cats being cruelly put to death.

Jews and cats in modern times

A lot of Jews nowadays have cats.  Generally speaking, Jewish attitudes toward cats are more positive than toward dogs.    Among Orthodox Jews, cats are more common than dogs because there is a cultural phobia about dogs, based on bad experiences in past history, when dogs were used to track down and attack Jews.  I have been told by elderly Jews from Eastern Europe that the first thing they heard before a pogrom (attack on the Jewish community) was the dogs howling in the distance before the peasants with pitchforks showed up to sack the town.  So dogs barking is a scary sound to a lot of Jews.  Nazis also used dogs to track and attack Jews.  So although non-Orthodox Jews often have dogs, they are not very common among more traditional communities. (However, I do have three of them along with my eight cats.)

Unfortunately, Israel is overrun with feral cats.  Legend has it that the British introduced cats into Palestine to control rats.  I do wonder about this story -- why would the British have had to introduce them, since cats are mentioned in the Talmud, indicating they were around already in ancient times?  Were they later killed off as demons by the Christian Crusaders?  Who knows?   At any rate, they did their job of rat control but the cat population has now exploded.  There is a Jewish  organization, Concern for Helping Animals in Israel (C.H.A.I.) that offers spay-neuter services and education.  It was founded by an American Jew, Nina Natelson, who was appalled by all the hungry stray cats she saw in Jerusalem and wanted to do something about it.

The Lubavitcher Rebbe and animal toys

Yes, the giraffe is kosher, but Jews don't
eats giraffe meat, because it is not known
where on the neck to make the cut
to slaughter it. Which is just as well.

The Seventh Lubavitcher Rebbe, Menachem M. Schneerson (d. 1994), leader of Chabad Hasidism, was opposed to Jewish children playing with toys or pictures in the shape of non-kosher species of animals.  (A cat is not kosher.)  He wrote: "Because what one sees leaves lasting impressions, especially on young children, the toys that a child plays with, and the pictures that he looks at, should not be of impure animals."

"Impure" (tameh) meaning animals that could not be eaten in a kosher home and/or offered as sacrifices in the Jerusalem Temple.  He believed that playing with such toys would somehow damage the child's innocent soul, or lead him/her to idolatry.  (By worshiping animals?)

The objection was triggered originally by a cartoon mouse named Mendel (in a popular Jewish children's magazine called Olomeinu, "Our World") that the Rebbe found offensive because it personified a mouse  -- an animal he saw as "unclean" -- as a Jew (read more...)   In general, he objected to cartoons and books that personified animals in human roles.

Mendel the Mouse

The Rebbe expanded his ruling to include all non-kosher species (unless directly connected to illustrating Torah texts) and it became a general prohibition among his followers that continues to this day.  Unfortunately, this includes cartoon cats like Garfield and Daniel Tiger, as well as stuffed animals like teddy bears and other animal-shaped toys,  Some people take this idea about "seeing" non-kosher animals to extremes and won't even visit the zoo. 

This is an unfortunately narrow view of nature, but it is not mainstream Judaism!  It is not even typical Orthodox Judaism.  Breslover Hasidim, who are more in tune with God's creation than Lubavitchers, have no such prohibition.  Neither do other branches of Judaism. (See In defense of unkosher animal toys, San Diego Jewish Press, January 8, 2012.)  Personally, I think it has produced a whole generation of Chabad Jews with a serious case of "nature deficit disorder" (read my blog post on that.)  If you can't learn about the different kinds of animals in our world, how can you appreciate God's creation?

Cats in Jewish children's books

Cats do appear in Jewish children's literature, such as the award-winning book, Mrs. Katz and Tush by Patricia Polacco, featured on "Reading Rainbow."  It's about an elderly Jewish woman who is given a kitten by an African American boy named Larnel who lives in her building.  The cat has no tail, so she names her Tush ("bottom").  Caring for the cat together, the woman and boy become good friends, and find common themes in their two cultures.  When Tush gets out of the house one day, the whole neighborhood helps look for her.  She is found and returned -- and eventually has kittens, making Mrs. Katz a happy "Bubbe" (grandmother in Yiddish.).

My all-time favorite Jewish cat book is Appleblossom by Shulamith Levey Oppenheim.  In this delightful tale, an eight-year-old boy named Naftali and  his mother want a cat but his father does not -- and Papa's decision rules.  Well, not really.  The boy meets a stray female cat and names her Appleblossom.  The cat talks to the boy (and who is to say not?  After all, King Solomon is said to have understood the language of animals), and she wants very much to be his cat.  So together they plan, and Appleblossom comes up with a clever way to wins the heart of Papa on the eve of Passover.  A great classic that should be in every cat lover's library.

*  *  *

ADDENDA:

How did I miss this one?  A well-known Mishnah exhorts us to "be bold as a leopard, light as an eagle, swift as a deer, and strong as a lion to do the will of your Father in Heaven." (Pirkei Avot 5:23).  That is certainly a positive use of big cat metaphors for how to serve God! 

*  *  *

Regarding the name Aryeh (Lion) the diminutive is Ari.  There was a great Torah scholar and mystic known as the "Holy Ari"  (Holy Lion) -- Rabbi Isaac Luria (16th century.)  His philosophical system is the basis for Lurianic kabbalah, a major form of Jewish mysticism that strongly influenced Hasidism.

*  *  *

Regarding Mendel the Mouse (discussed above), I suppose the Lubavitcher Rebbe would also have objected to the award-winning graphic novel, Maus by Art Spiegelman, where Jews during the Holocaust are portrayed as mice and the Nazis are cats.  I have never read anywhere that the Rebbe was familiar with this book, and since it appeared only shortly before the Rebbe had a debilitating stroke in March of 1992, I rather doubt he read it.  But it does seem to fall into the parameters of the Chabad prohibition.

Still, it is another example of cats used as metaphors in a Jewish context -- this time negatively -- so it deserves a mention here.  However, this is not really a commentary on the nature of cats per se.   Spiegelman used these animal metaphors to emphasize the predator-prey relationship between  Germans and Jews during the Nazi regime.  This is a common technique in political cartooning.  Maus has proven to be an excellent educational tool about the Holocaust for young people, and is often used in schools, both Jewish and not.

*  *  *

"Der Furrer" -- a kitler
owned by Sandy Weinberg

And speaking of Nazis, Adolf Hitler absolutely hated cats.  I'm pretty sure the feeling was mutual; cats have better taste when it comes to trusting humans.  

On the other hand, there is a weird website called Cats that look like Hitler with pictures of, well, cats that supposedly look like Hitler -- called "kitlers."  Perhaps the greatest irony of all:  a hated dictator is now being parodied by the very animals he would have hated in real life.  And parody, as we all know, is a very Jewish form of humor!

So nu -- are these cats reincarnations of  Jewish comedians?  Even in his lifetime, Hitler was lampooned and ridiculed on stage.  So much so, that one of the first things he did when he came to power was to shut down all the cabarets.  What a sourpuss.  So maybe the cats are finally getting the last laugh.

I care for a cat colony on my hobby farm.  People keep dumping them in the woods, and when they show up, I spay/neuter and vaccinate them.  This gets expensive on my limited income, so of you would like to help, go to: 

http://gofundme.com/rooster613-cats

The graphic I used for years on eBay.  These kittens are,
of course, long ago adopted out to forever homes,
after which their mother, Chayah Cat, was spayed. 

Vegetarianism leads to terrorism, says Rabbi Eliezer Melamed

Refuting this absurd claim...

On June 8, 2014, the Israel National News published a follow-up article by Rabbi Eliezer Melamed entitled The Significance of Eating Meat, in answer to criticisms of his previous article on May 26, Vegetarianism for Moral Reasons.  As I pointed out in my rebuttal on this blog, the first article was actually an attack on the entire vegetarian movement.   As is the second article.   Rabbi Melamed believes it is morally wrong to teach vegetarianism.  In his latest article, he goes even further, linking the vegetarian movement with supporting terrorism.  In his mind, being kind to animals leads to cruelty to people.  In order to understand his basis for this bizarre claim, we must first take a foray into Jewish mysticism.

"Raising holy sparks" and eating meat

Rabbi Eliezer Melamed,
head of the Har Bracha
yeshiva in Israel

In The Significance of Eating Meat, he opens with a long kabbalistic explanation of the concept of "raising holy sparks" through eating meat  to effect a tikkun, or cosmic repair of the universe.  This is pretty standard Jewish mystical thought, so I won't go into it here, except to say that he misses two crucial points:  1) the process is cumulative, not self-perpetuating, and 2) it is individualized, that is, each person is born to raise particular "sparks" and not others.

This implies that, as more and more sparks are raised and the process nears completion,  there will be fewer and fewer people assigned by "heaven" to raised sparks in meat.  This may well account for the rise in vegetarianism in recent years.  It may also account for the rampant cruelty in the meat industry.  Could it be that there are no longer any holy sparks in meat, and what is left is only negative energy (klippot)?

Rabbi Melamed would strongly disagree with this stance.  He feels that  it is still necessary for humans to eat meat ("extremely vital for man" in his words), in order to complete the tikkun.   By preaching vegetarianism, he says, the activists are impeding the whole process of repairing the universe -- which puts them on the side of wickedness in his eyes.  "Accordingly," he states, "at the present stage of time, individuals can conduct themselves with an additional measure of piety and not eat meat, but they must refrain from preaching vegetarianism, so as not to harm the primary effort of tikkun olam (repairing the universe.)"  

This is an argument I have heard before.  So much so, that I posted a video on this topic  on YouTube.  (There is also a dialogue with me on "raising sparks" and vegetarianism in Professor Richard Schwartz's 2010 book, Who Stole My Religion?  The entire interview can be downloaded for free at this link.)   Ironically, this argument has the same sort of apocalyptic energy as the Christian fundamentalists who claim the Jews are impeding the "Second Coming" by refusing to convert to Christianity.  It's pretty hard to reason with somebody who thinks you are out to destroy the universe.

 Who is qualified to say what is cruel?

Rabbi Melamed then goes on to discuss what he calls "allegations of cruelty in the meat industry."  He does acknowledge the possibility of such cruelties, but severely limits who can determine what is or is not cruel:

"Indeed, if it becomes clear that in a certain place, animals are treated with immense cruelty, it is proper to instruct people not to purchase the meat. However, this matter must be clarified by Torah scholars who are knowledgeable and familiar with raising animals and the laws of shechita (ritual slaughtering), [to be sure he is not referring to a mistaken understanding of the shechita itself, ed.]. But someone who is not familiar with raising animals lacks the criterion required to determine what exactly excessive cruelty is."

OK, I can go along with that -- in any type of decision-making, it is important to consult with experts.  And it is true that some people define kosher slaughter itself as cruelty.  (We should note here that even PETA has affirmed that, when done properly, it is humane.)  But what about the conditions on the farm before slaughter?  Or the conditions under which animals are transported to the slaughterhouse?  Who, in his opinion, are the experts to determine whether these things are cruel?

He defines them as "Torah scholars who are knowledgeable with raising animals and the laws of shechita [kosher slaughtering.]"  That narrows it down to his own circle of colleagues.  Given this definition, he apparently puts no trust whatsoever in secular animal scientists who might have valid opinions about what does or does not constitute cruelty, since they are not Torah scholars.  Forget about consulting animal behavioral scientists like Temple Grandin (who, by the way, has upheld kosher slaughter -- but not the often inhumane conditions prior to it.)   And since experts in shechita are most likely meat eaters who are connected to the kosher meat industry in one way or another, this becomes a case of the fox guarding the henhouse.

But don't consult any animal rights people...

In the Haredi [rigidly Orthodox] world that this rabbi lives in, science is not well-regarded anyway, so it comes as no surprise that he writes off secular researchers with a few taps of the keyboard.  That's bad enough.  But he goes even further about whom he would disqualify as an "expert":

"And certainly, animal rights activists should not be relied on in this matter, seeing as they are exactly the ones to whom the argument of morality is addressed, for they have confused and obscured the boundaries of morality, turning an act of divrei chassidut (an additional measure of piety i.e. vegetarianism) into an absolute requirement, and in consequence, come to despise the foundations of morality, and offend their friends who do eat meat. And thus, their practice of vegetarianism has no sensitivity to it whatsoever, but rather, arrogance and wickedness."

So now we know that this really is an attack on the vegetarian movement and not just my own paranoia.  He repeats his allegations from his first article, namely, his belief that  teaching vegetarianism leads people to "despise the foundations of morality."   What he apparently means by that is that it is "moral" to be doing tikkun olam by eating meat, and "immoral" to refuse to eat meat.  Nowhere does he discuss other ways that one might help with repairing the universe.

Nor does he say how he would react to a vegetarian activist who is also  a Torah scholar and who knows about raising animals.  Presumably the supposed "arrogance and wickedness" of such a person would, in Rabbi Melamed's mind, overrule any expertise he might have.   Or he would probably rely on the principle of going with the majority -- who, in his circles, would be meat-eaters.  Either way, vegetarians have no voice, period.

Be a vegetarian -- but shut up about it?

It comes as no surprise to me that a Haredi rabbi would discount the opinions of anyone who is not also a Haredi rabbi.  This happens all the time.  But what really sticks out here is how he feels vegetarian activists "offend their friends who do eat meat" and therefore, in his eyes, their vegetarianism "has no sensitivity whatsoever" but rather is full of "arrogance, wickedness."  I find myself wondering if this whole diatribe might have been triggered by some vegetarian guest who came out of the closet and "offended" Rabbi Melamed at the Sabbath table by not eating the meat.  He certainly does seem to have a lot of emotional energy invested in the issue.

It may well be true that standing up for a cause -- any cause -- might "offend" your friends and neighbors.  That is the nature of protest.   Segregationists in the American South were so "offended" by the Civil Rights movement in the 1950s and 60s that they beat up, jailed, and sometimes even lynched the protesters.  But in the long run, the Civil Rights activists were proven right, even if they were at first in the minority.  Being in the majority does not always mean you are on the right side.

Yes, it is true that some segments of the vegetarian movement do act in self-righteous and arrogant ways.  In fact, I myself have sometimes been offended by the more extreme elements in the movement, as well as blatant ignorance about Jews and Judaism.  (Read more...)  A great deal of my activist energy lately has gone into educating gentiles about Jews -- and not just the vegetarians, either.  But this does not invalidate the movement itself.   As they say, ignorance is curable.

Unfortunately, it is the extremists who always get the media coverage.  Then the whole movement is judged by the actions of a few.  But this is the case with just about any movement you can name.  Every group has its extremists.  [One of whom is Rabbi Melamed himself for his own political cause -- more on that below.]  But does that mean we should never speak out against animal cruelty because it might offend somebody?  Does that mean we should all just shut up and sit on our hands and say nothing?  Isn't that what people did during the Holocaust?   Remember all those "good Germans" who did not speak out against cruelty toward Jews for fear of offending their neighbors -- or worse?

Apparently Rabbi Melamed does think exactly that way, because earlier in the article, in a section called "The Place of Vegetarians," he does acknowledge that "there are individuals whose delicate, moral sensitivities touch their hearts deeply and thus refrain from eating meat, and most certainly they avoid offending others who do eat meat."  (I am not sure how he determines this.  Does he personally know any of these inoffensive vegetarians?  How would he meet them if, as he says, they should not talk about vegetarianism?)  Thus he presents vegetarianism as a mystical stance that one might adopt for onesself, but not one that a person should try to teach to others.  So it would seem that as long as we keep quiet and "know our place" he has no objections to individuals being a vegetarians -- just don't talk about it with anybody, lest you offend your meat-eating listeners.  (On the other hand, he has no problem offending vegetarians with accusations of arrogance and -- get this -- terrorism!  Read on...)

Linking vegetarianism with terrorism -- OY VEY!

However, "offending" people is not the real agenda for Rabbi Melamed's vehemence against vegetarians.  His attack is based in Israeli politics, because in the next paragraph he goes on to say:

"Here in Israel, quite a few vegetarian activists support the terrorist organizations of the P.L.O. and Hamas, while at the same time, claiming that the settlers are the biggest culprits, hindering peace of the world.  Incidentally, this type of evil is the most serious and dangerous, because it wraps itself in the guise of righteousness.  In the same way that some of the greatest villains in history took pride in their compassion for animals."

Here he takes of the velvet gloves and swings with both fists.  Read that paragraph again.  Rabbi  Melamed is claiming that teaching vegetarianism will lead to people to support terrorism!  He really believes this!  A patently absurd assumption that turns psychology on its head.   Kindness to animals does not lead to violence towards humans.  The opposite is true: cruelty to animals leads to cruelty toward humans.

One of the first signs of a developing psychopath is a tendency toward torturing animals.  Part of the initiation into Hitler's Death's Head SS squads was to be given a dog to raise and train, then be ordered to shoot it.  The purpose being, to teach the young soldiers to follow orders and have no compassion whatsoever, nor even for their friends.    It was not kindness to the dogs that hardened their hearts; it was the act of betraying those dogs in order to be accepted into the group.   The same kind of callous behavior can be seen in gang initiations today.

Hitler was NOT a vegetarian!

No doubt Rabbi Melamed would counter with the claim that Adolf Hitler was a vegetarian.  Hitler is most likely one of those "greatest villains in history" that his article refers to.   The rabbi apparently believes in the classical example of false logic (I actually saw this in a math book once):  "Hitler was evil.  Hitler was a vegetarian.  Therefore all vegetarians are evil."

But, false logic aside,  Hitler was neither a vegetarian nor an animal rights activist.  Although he sometimes refrained from eating meat because of problems with flatulence, he was also fond of liver dumplings, sausage, and roast pigeon.  When he came to power, he outlawed all the vegetarian organizations in the Reich.  Film footage of Hitler and his dog show the dog cowering in fear.  And Hitler absolutely hated cats -- probably because you can't bully them around the way you can a dog.  When deciding how he would commit suicide if captured, he tested the cyanide on his own dog first.   So he was hardly a man who had compassion for animals, not even his own pets.  Yet this urban legend about Hitler's supposed vegetarianism  continues to circulate, sucking in gullible people like Rabbi Melamed.

Vegetarianism does NOT cause terrorism

In fact, I'm willing to bet that the vast majority of terrorists eat meat.  I certainly have not heard of any Al Qaeda videos advocating vegetarianism!   True, there are some vegetarians -- as well as many, many avid meat-eaters -- who advocate negotiating with the Palestinians for a two-state solution to the conflict.  And since Hamas and the PLO are now the elected governments in the West Bank and Gaza, any treaty signed would have to include them, whether you consider them terrorists or not.  As Moshe Dayan said decades ago, you do not make peace by talking to your friends.  You have to talk with your enemies.  And you have to be willing to hear both sides.  There are many cases in history where the bitterest of enemies  sat down and made peace.  And most of them were carnivores.

This I believe, is the rabbi's true reason for attacking the vegetarian movement: he hates the very idea a Palestinian state, and by extension he opposes anybody -- vegetarian or not -- who advocates a two-state solution.  As I explained in my previous article, Rabbi Melamed is a disciple of the late Rabbi Zvi Yehuda Kook, founder of the Gush Emunim settlement movement in Israel.   Although Gush Emunim as a political party is now defunct, their philosophy lives on in the settler movement itself.  They believe that the Jews have a God-given right to "greater Israel," that all Arabs are evil and out to kill the Jews, and that Israel should not give back one single inch of the land captured in the 1967 war.  Anybody who disagrees with this extreme stance is labeled a heretic and a traitor.  Or worse.

Rabbi Melamed is certainly entitled to his political opinions.  But scapegoating the vegetarian movement makes no logical sense.  In his mind, cause and effect have become strangely warped.  He seems to think that people become vegetarians, then go off and join "terrorist" groups.  But this rarely happens in the real world.  Most of the time, people first become involved in various political and peace movements (whether they are "terrorists" is beyond the scope of this article) and only later do they begin to develop any sensitivity to animals -- if at all.   To claim that vegetarianism leads to terrorism is simply not true. 

2005 cartoon lampooning "Homeland Security"

"The Soul of Every Living Thing" -- vegetarian video with Yonassan Gershom

I just finished editing this video for the Shamayim'v'Aretz ("Heaven and Earth") Institute, a new Jewish organzation promoting veganism as the ideal Jewish diet, as well as Jewish ethics and spirituality in general. They asked for a short video of me as a vegetarian, so here it is.

As I have said before on this blog, I'm not a vegan (although I am a vegetarian) and I'm not even sure it is practical to be vegan outside of big urban centers, because the ingredients are so hard to find in rural areas. Biblically veganism is the ideal diet (Eden was vegan) but I'm just not there yet, and not likely to be in the future. I do eat eggs but, as you will see in the video, I also take full responsibility for my own flock of chickens, which is where my eggs come from.

What I do have to offer my fellow Jews (and others) is some practical experience actually living with nature. So, watch this 5-minute video and tell me what you think. At the very least, you'll get to see some nice footage of my land and animals.

I love animals, but I'm not a vegan - and here's why

Recently I received a review copy of  Vegan Cooking For Dummies, a new book in that series.   As I have discussed in previous blog posts, I am an ovo-lacto vegetarian, which means that I eat vegetables, eggs and dairy,  but not meat, poultry, or fish. Over the years, various people have tried to convince me to go all the way and become a vegan -- which means not eating or using any animal products, period.    But the more I read about veganism, the more I have become convinced that it is an upper middle class urban phenomenon that just won't work for low income people like me who live in places like northern Minnesota.

This book is a case in point.  Written by a gourmet vegan chef, it assumes you can find all those exotic ingredients and afford to use them.  But that just isn't so if you are on a tight budget.  For example, a lot of these recipes call for pure maple syrup instead of sugar.  But  the only reason we have pure maple syrup in my house is because I make it myself from our own trees every spring (See my previous blog post on that at http://rooster613.blogspot.com/2011/03/warmd-days-cold-nights-maple-syrup-time.html.)   At $10 or more per pint in the store, we could never afford to cook with it as often as this cookbook calls for.  As it is, most of the time we still use sugar.

As for a lot of the other ingredients in this book, you are simply not going to find them in rural America.  It's hard enough being an ovo-lacto vegetarian out here, let alone vegan. I am lucky enough to live near a small health food store, but even then, I have to special order certain vegetarian "meat" products because, the shopkeeper says, they do not sell well enough for her to carry them on the shelf. Special orders must go by the case and that can really kill a limited budget. Not to mention the cost of the necessary freezer space.

But beyond the question of ingredients, there is a much bigger question:  Do I really believe in vegan philosophy?  Do I believe that it is wrong under all circumstances to never, ever use animals or their products for any reason?   The answer is no.  Although I do not wear leather or fur, I have no problems with feathers that are naturally-shed,  nor do I have a problem with riding horses or training service dogs.  (My old sheep dog, Grett, enjoyed patrolling the yard and guarding the geese and chickens.  He got depressed when he didn't have some kind of work to do.  The same is true of a lot of other working dog breeds, as well as many horses who enjoy being with their riders.)

Over the years, I've had many debates about this with hardcore vegans who believe that ahimsa  (the Jain philosophy of total harmlessness) is the only way to go, or else you are a total hypocrite with no compassion for anything.  Maybe for people in a tropical climate like India, where Jainism originated, this philosophy would work, although even there the Jains are a small minority.  But not everyone lives in a warm climate where veggies and fruits are available year-round.  I believe this is why God permitted Jews to eat meat.  God knew that we would end up in harsh climates where a totally plant-based diet would have been impossible.  Meat was not the ideal (the Garden of Eden was vegetarian) but neither was it forbidden, as long as one stayed within the limits of permitted species.   For this reason, I consider my own vegetarianism to be a personal chumra (extra strictness) that I voluntarily take upon myself, but not a comandment per se.



My land in winter -- no veggies growing here!

I have often looked out the window at my Minnesota landscape in mid-winter and asked myself:  What would I be eating if there was no modern food storage or transportation?  To answer that question, all I have to do is look at the traditional diet of the Native tribes who lived around here before  my ancestors arrived.  Yes, they grew corn and squash, harvested berries and wild rice.  But meat and fish were also a big part of their diet, especially in late winter.  As much as the animal rights people idealize the spiritual relationship between Indians and animals, I have never yet met a vegetarian Indian, let alone a vegan.  The only vegetarianism reference I've seen is a T-shirt that read: "Vegetarian: Old Indian word for Lousy Hunter."

The American Indian philosophy about animals is not that different from the Jewish/biblical one, namely,  that the Creator permits us to use animals, but we must not abuse them in the process.  We must remember that animals are living beings, and be respectful of their feelings and well-being.  If we find it necessary to kill them, it must be done humanly and with respect.  (The word "sacrifice" comes from the same root as "sacred.")   If we do not treat them with respect, the Indians say, the souls of the animals will not reincarnate, and the people will starve.  This is not unlike Deuteronomy 11:13-17:

If, then, you truly heed My (God's) commandments which I enjoin on you today, loving and serving the Lord your God, with all your heart and all your soul,  I will give the seasonal rain to your land, the early rain and the late rain, that you may have your grain, wine and oil to gather in; and I will bring forth grass in your fields for your animals. Thus you may eat your fill. But be careful lest your heart be so lured away that you serve other gods and worship them.  For then the wrath of the Lord will flare up against you and he will close up the heavens, so that no rain will fall, and the soil will not yield its crops, and you will soon perish from the good land he is giving you.

Part of those commandments includes the proper treatment of animals, and the prohibition against cruelty to animals (tsaar baalei chaim.)  This respect issue was the main reason that I gave up eating meat, because, in the modern meat industry, there is no longer any respect for the animals.  Kosher meat comes from the same cruel factory farms as non-kosher meat, the only difference is in the processing.  So I choose not to eat it.  I believe that, in this modern age, vegetarianism is the best diet for Jews (and others should they so choose.)  

But as for "using" animals, I do not believe it is "animal slavery" to ride a horse, shear a sheep (who, in hot weather, really appreciates it!), or collect honey from bees.   I sometimes wonder if the purist vegans ever really have personal relationships with animals.  If you do not keep dogs, cats, horses, birds or chickens in your home or your immediate environment, can you really connect with them?  Or do they just become subjects of politcal theory?

On bird migration, modern science, and Jewish theology

The Canada geese are coming back now -- I've seen several flocks heading north.  With all the flooding going on here in Minnesota, there's plenty of open water for them to swim in.  (Luckily we are not in a flood zone, but my domestic geese are having a good time wading in puddles and honking at their migrating brothers.)

Speaking of migration, did you know that until the late 1700s, it was commonly thought that birds hibernated in the mud in rivers and lakes during the winter?  The British doctor Edward Jenner, who is best known for discovering the smallpox vaccine, was also interested in hibernation, and conducted extensive studies on hedgehogs and other hibernating mammals.  He was among the first to remark that birds were not dirty or muddy when they reappeared in the spring.  Nor were they thin and hungry like other hibernating animals when they emerge in spring.  So where did the birds go? 

Jenner dissected spring-returning birds and examined the contents of their stomachs, to see what, if anything they had been eating.  He found seeds of plants not native to Britain. He also noted that these species of birds had been seen flying far out across the oceans. So he hypothesized that the birds were leaving Britain to go someplace else in winter. Unfortunately, Jenner died before he was able to write up his studies on bird migration, but his family published them after his death. Modern research has confirmed his theory:  birds do not hibernate in mud, they migrate.

That such a basic scientific fact was not discovered until the late 18th century raises the question of various "scientific" statements made by the early Jewish sages.  When I was growing up in the 1950s and 60s, it was taken for granted among Jews that when it came to science and medicine, the modern discoveries take precedence over any folklore that might be in the Talmud or other earlier writings.   We went by the opinion of Maimonides, one of the greatest Jewish philosophers and a medical doctor, wrote in the 12th century: "Do not ask of me to reconcile everything that they (the Sages of old) stated from science with the actual reality, for the science of those days was deficient, and they did not speak out of traditions from the prophets regarding these matters... " (Guide for the Perplexed, 3:14)  In other words, when it comes to science, the Sages were not divinely-inspired prophets nor were they infallible.

Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch, a major 19th-century German Jewish theologian, later wrote: "...We find that the Sages themselves considered the wisdom of the gentile scholars equal to their own in the natural sciences. To determine who was right in areas where the gentile sages disagreed with their own knowledge, they did not rely on their tradition but on reason. Moreover they even respected the opinion of the gentile scholars, admitting when the opinion of the latter seemed more correct than their own." (From a letter written in 1876  to Rabbi Pinchas M.E. Wechsler.)

That was the attitude I grew up with: science was science, no matter who discovered it.  But more recently, with the rise of the Haredi (post-WWII fundamentalist Orthodox Jewish) movement, there are those among my Jewish brethren who expect us to take absolutely everything the Talmudic rabbis said as literal scientific fact, trumping anything the secular scientists might since have discovered.  I find this impossible to do without having to turn my brain off -- an option I doubt God would want.  After all, God gave us brains to learn with.  The rabbis of the Talmudic era were very wise, but when it came to science, they were limited to what was commonly known around them. 

Thus, you find  things like the curious statement that "lice come from sweat" and  it is therefore permissible to kill them on the Sabbath  (Shabbat 107b)  when we normally do not kill living things.  At the time of this ruling, "spontaneous generation" of insects and other creatures was taken for granted by the whole known world, not just the rabbis.  Aristotle wrote that certain lower animals “are not produced from animals at all, but arise spontaneously: some are produced out of the dew which falls on foliage... others are produced in putrefying mud and dung, others in wood, green or dry, others in residues, whether voided residues or residues still within the living animal.”   Eels and fishes were commonly believed to come from the foam of the sea and flies from rotten meat. 

But today we know that lice come from the eggs of other lice, and are indeed living things.  The same goes for the Talmudic mice that are "half dirt and half flesh" (Chullin 9:10, Sanhedrin 91a), another biological impossibility.   For that matter, DNA wasn't even discovered until 1962 -- when I was still in high school.   Yet look how much  -- in my own lifetime! --  that discovery has fundamentally changed our entire perspective on the natural world!  All the "ancient wisdom" about passing down characteristics through "blood" is now rendered obsolete.

These may seem like trivial issues to some people, but for many Orthodox Jews, they are serious challenges to our faith.  If the Sages were wrong about lice and mice, are they also wrong about other things, too?   Can we trust anything the Talmud says in the face of these absurdities?

If you see Judaism (or any other religion) as a house of cards that will tumble with even the slightest question or error, then science can seem very threatening.  But if you can make a distinction between science studying the "how" of the  natural world and theology dealing with the "why" of human existence, there is no conflict between science and religion.   Science tells us how things work, but it is neutral on questions about God, the soul, and religious laws.  Scientifically, there is no reason I should not eat pork or mix meat with milk, because these laws are not about science per se.   I don 't keep kosher because is is more healthy or more natural,  but because it is the will of God for me as a Jew.   And if I had lice (which I thankfully do not!) it would still be permissible to kill them on the Sabbath, even though we now know they do  not spontaneously generate from sweat.  This is also why, when I see birds migrating, it is no challenge to my faith.

(For an in-depth discussion of spontaneous generation and Jewish law, see  The Sweat-Louse, the Dirt-Mouse and the Dong Chong.)

Geese migrating over my land in Minnesota, 2011



Warm days, cold nights -- maple syrup time!

It has been two years since I've been able to make maple syrup -- 2009 we were in a drought and I did not want to stress my trees.  Spring 2010 there was no snow left  (believe it or not) and a burning ban was in effect.   But this year should be perfect!  We had a wet summer in 2010,  plenty of snow cover, and now the sap is running!

This is always one of the most pleasant times for me to be outside.  The weather is mild, and the birds are starting to claim their territories.  On Monday, when I was putting the spiles (taps) in my trees, I heard chickadees and blue jays calling, woodpeckers drumming, and a flock of crows having an argument out in the woods.    No grouse drumming or turkeys gobbling yet, but it won't be long.

Commercial syrup producers would probably die laughing at my primitive backyard setup.   But it gives us enough syrup for our own use, and saves a lot of money.  When I checked in the grocery store recently, pure maple syrup was $7.99 for an 8-ounce bottle -- and that was for a local product.  (The Audubon Center of the North Woods, only a couple miles from my home, makes it every year as a fundraiser.)  I imagine if commercial shipping were also involved, the price would be even higher.  We usually get a gallon or more of syrup a year, which I can in pint Mason jars.  Add that up, and it's a pretty valuable crop!


These are some pictures I took in 2008, which show the process. For "buckets" I use gallon milk jugs, which are free.  For spiles I have the old-fashioned metal kind I got years ago.   I cut the top off the jug to make it more like a bucket, then add a wire loop for a handle.  This works well, and at the end of the season I just remove the wire, wash the jug and recycle it. The spiles I save for next year.

By the way, you don 't have to use sugar maple trees. ALL maples have sugary sap, and many make great syrup.  Mine are boxelders (also known as "split-leaf maple"), which many people consider "trash trees" but I see as a valuable resource. The syrup I get from these trees is excellent.   Plus, the leaves are the food plant for Cecropia moth caterpillars.

My boiling apparatus is simplicity itself: two rows of cinder blocks with some old refrigerator grates on top.  Then I build a trench-style fire between the blocks.  For pans, I use disposable aluminum baking pans.  (The best kind have wire handles, although the ones in the pix don't -- I can't always find them here.)   I suppose this isn't as ecological as using  heavier  kitchen pans and washing them, but if you have ever tried to clean a pan that was used over an open fire, you will know why I prefer this for cleanup.  (Yes, I know about soaping the bottoms of campfire pans, but again, it's a horrible mess to bring into the house.  And don't worry about that dead grass you see near the fire -- it's actually wet straw I stomped into the mud to avoid slipping on the layer of melting mud that forms over the still-frozen soil.  Believe me, it was way too soggy to be a fire hazard.)

 As you can see, syrup in the early boiling stages doesn't look very golden.  There is a sort of whitish stuff that precipitates out -- this has to be filtered out later or the syrup will be bitter.  I use a piece of ordinary felt inside a kitchen strainer.  Timing is very important: If you strain too soon, the white stuff slips though, but if you wait too long, the syrup is too thick  to go through the felt.  Some people use a hygrometer and measure the specific gravity, or a candy thermometer to measure the temperature.  I just go "seat of the pants," having learned from years of doing this.   If it's still too thin after straining, I just boil some more.

It takes a lot of sap to make syrup -- about 30 gallons for one gallon of product, so you have to keep adding sap all day.  During this time, I do a lot of yard cleanup.  The firewood comes from stuff I saved up last year, plus any dead wood that the wind might have brought down, etc.  You need a continuous hot fire for this, so smaller stuff such as lower dead branches work great.     In this next pic, you can see that the pan on the left (pan A) has a higher sugar content than the one on the right (pan B).  That's because  as the sap boils down, I ladle it from   B to A, then fill pan B with more sap.  I also pre-heat the cold sap in big tomato juice cans before adding it to pan A.  This keeps thing boiling constantly.

To keep the syrup from boiling over as the sugar content rises, you need to add some sort of oil to break the tension on the surface.  Native peoples used various animal fats, and the pioneers used to hang a strip of bacon over the pan and let is slowly drip in.  Nowadays a lot of people use butter or margarine (which is why Mrs. Butterworth's syrup advertised itself as being made with real butter - an innovation in its day.)    This is why, if you keep kosher, maple syrup is off-limits unless it has kosher certification.   I use 100% vegetable oil so I can gift the syrup to both my kosher and vegan friends.   So, if you buy syrup and are concerned about animal products in your food, then it is a good idea to ask what kind of oil or grease they are using.  Especially at flea markets and roadside stands!

This pan is just about ready to take inside for finishing.  At this point, I ladle it through a tea strainer to get as much ash out as possible (with a wood fire, that's inevitable) into a stainless steel deep kitchen pot (one with a heavy copper bottom, less likely to scorch).  I then douse the fire and carry the syrup into the kitchen, where I finish boiling and straining it.  I let it sit overnight so any leftover impurities settle to the bottom.   

In the morning it's easy to pour off the clear syrup, leaving any sludge behind.   (I add the sludge to the chicken mash -- they like a sweet treat, too!)  I then sterilize my canning jars and can it the same as for jelly.  Done right, it keeps for years -- but once you open a jar, refrigerate it or it will get moldy.

So there you have it -- the first crop of the year on my land.  But enough blather -- time to go out and collect that sap!