Cleaning for Passover: Don't be a fanatic!

Rebbe Nachman of Breslov, the great-grandson of the Baal Shem Tov, once got so caught up in an obsession about getting rid of chometz (leavening) before Passover that it almost drove him crazy.  During Passover, not only is it forbidden to eat chometz, it is forbidden to own it or derive any benefit from it at all.  So he started worrying about whether or not there would be chometz in the water used during the festival.  What if someone had dropped a piece of bread down the well?  That could taint the whole water supply.  Even the tiniest bit of chometz would render the water unusable for the whole eight days of the festival.

After much deliberation and minute examination of every possible halachic detail, Rebbe Nachman finally came to the conclusion that the only way to be absolutely, positively sure there was no chometz in the water would be to camp out next to a spring in the woods where the water bubbled up fresh and uncontaminated.  The problem was, the only such spring was a long way from his home.  If he went there, then he would be away from his family, his friends, his disciples, and the whole Jewish community.  Was that any way to celebrate a festival?

In the end, Rebbe Nachman decided that such ultra-strictness was unnecessary, even on Passover.  Being overly rigid killed the joy and led to depression.  Don’t be a fanatic, he taught, and do not worry yourself sick with unnecessary restrictions. “The Torah was given to human beings, not the ministering angels.”

That’s good advice.  And lest you think this obsession with “the letter of the law” is limited to Orthodox Jews, let me assure you that it occurs among secular people also.  Rebbe Nachman’s lesson came to mind a while back when I received an email about a vegan woman who had decided to take her practice to the ultimate ethical vegan level and refuse to eat anywhere meat, fish, eggs, or dairy were being served.  Basically, this meant hanging out only with other vegans in vegan restaurants, vegan homes, or at vegan events.

This ultra-strictness also resulted in her walking out on a reunion of family and friends that she had really been looking forward to, because they were serving meat. It was not enough that the organizers were willing to provide her with a vegan meal. Unless everyone there refused meat, the entire event was, to mix cultural metaphors, not kosher.

Many people in the vegetarian community probably lauded her utmost devotion to the cause. But if I were to do that, it would mean never eating with anyone but my wife.  We are vegetarians (not vegans) and we live in a rural area where most of my family, neighbors and associates are not vegetarians, let alone vegans.  If I followed that woman's advice to the letter, I would end up in an isolated social bubble, not unlike what would have happened if Rebbe Nachman had decided to camp out next to the spring in the forest during Passover.

It was this kind of fanaticism that Rebbe Nachman warned against.  Yes, we must clean house, search out all leaven and remove it, change the kitchen utensils over to the Passover set, etc.  But don't drive yourself insane doing it.  Don't make it a burden that kills the joy of the holiday.

This is why we have the bitul chametz procedure for declaring any leaven we might have missed to be null and void.  This is not a mere legality.  The rabbis who enacted this rule long ago were aware of the human tendency to obsess over things. There is always the possibility that we missed a bread crust the kids dropped somewhere.  Or maybe a guest you invited for the Seder isn't as thorough as you are, and dropped some crumbs from his pocket on the living room rug.  Or a mouse stored grain in the walls of your house... A person can go on and on about this kind of worry.

However, if we have done due diligence to remove all the leaven we know about, then renounced all ownership of what we might have missed, then dayenu, enough. Time to move on and celebrate!

Karen Davis, anti-kapporos activist, misses the mark on Jewish theology

For the past few years I have been a part of The Alliance to End Chickens as Kaporos, (hereafter referred to as "the Alliance"), a protest group headed by animal rights activist Karen Davis, campaigning to end the use of live chickens in a pre-Yom Kippur Jewish atonement ceremony practiced by some groups of Orthodox and Hasidic Jews.  (Read more on that...)  I advocate using the alternative, fully acceptable by Jewish law, to use money for the ceremony instead, then donating it to charity.

Anti-kapporos protest on Brooklyn Parkway, 2014.
Karen Davis is in the center holding a chicken.
(Photo by Matthew Taub)

I was among the early founders of the Alliance org -- I even helped think up the name.  In 2013, I narrated a one-minute slide show for them called A Heartfelt Plea for Mercy, and provided text and images for some of their protest posters.  (Including the one with the mother hen and chicks in this photo.)  I do not deny or retract those things, because I still believe in everything I said back then.

However, this past year [2014] before Yom Kippur, I found it necessary to distance myself from Davis' campaign.  This article explains why.

Let me be very, very clear that I still oppose using chickens as kapporos and will continue to do so.  But I have come to believe that Karen Davis -- who is not Jewish and does not understand Judaism or Jewish culture -- is the wrong person to be leading a campaign about an Orthodox Jewish ceremony.  Especially since she draws wrong conclusions about Hasidic beliefs and refuses to listen to real Hasidim -- like me -- who try to correct her.

I do recognize that Davis has done a lot of very good work for sensitizing the public to the suffering and exploitation of chickens, ducks, geese, turkeys and other domestic fowl.  If she would just stick to science and secular animal issues, everything would be fine.  But when it comes to Jewish theology -- which she confuses with Christian thought (more on that below) -- she is like a runaway tank in a minefield.  And this year, it all blew up in my face.

Preaching to the vegan choir?

Karen Davis is a vegan.  A very radical vegan.  To her, veganism is not just a diet, not just a personal lifestyle choice -- it's a religion, complete with dogmas, taboos, and its own special terminology.

Although there is no mention of veganism on the Alliance website, the group is in fact a vegans-only club, rejecting any argument that is not 100% vegan in content.  Although nobody ever insisted I had to become a vegan (I am an ovo-lacto vegetarian, eating only eggs from my own chickens), neither would they listen to any viewpoint that was not vegan.  Over the past three years Davis, who runs the group with an iron fist, has refused to use or forward links to any of my articles on this blog that even mentioned  slaughter.  Not even if such articles were effective within the Hasidic community.  Davis, it seems, prefers preaching to the vegan choir rather than preaching to the people who actually do this ceremony.

The problem with this approach is that the vast majority of Hasidim are not vegetarians, let alone vegans, and the idea of mixing this issue with veganism is counterproductive.  If you use this "all-or-nothing" approach, most Hasidim will chose "nothing."  Going vegan means a lot more in Judaism than just giving up meat, because so many traditional Jewish foods and holy days center around meat.  It can be exceedingly disruptive to a family to go vegan cold turkey (pardon the expression.)  .

On the other hand, if you can start with simply giving up using a live chicken and substituting money for kapporos, this is not so threatening.  And it can be one step toward vegetarianism in the future.  I have seen it happen.  In fact, this has long been a Hasidic method of bringing Jews back to Torah observances:  Start with a few practices, rather than hit people with all of it at once.

When I first joined the Alliance, on the recommendation of Richard H. Schwartz, then president of Jewish Vegetarians of North America  (JVNA), I had no idea that veganism would be the litmus test for whether or not an argument could be used.  Since this was a specifically Jewish issue, I naturally assumed the keystone would be Judaism.

I had worked with Schwartz before and, although he himself is a vegan, he does not insist that this is the only way to present animal issues to Jews.  In his now-classic book, Judaism and Vegetarianism, he covers many different philosophical approaches -- from health to theology to world hunger -- as to why a person should give up meat.  And he considers them all valid.  He does not condemn Judaism for permitting meat, nor does he villify the rabbis and sages who ate it in the past.  He simply argues that in today's modern world, vegetarianism -- or even veganism -- is the best way to keep kosher.

So I naively assumed that we, in the Alliance, would take a similar approach, arguing from within the multi-faceted aspects of the Jewish worldview.  But I was wrong.

Inadvertently arousing antisemitism

I also assumed -- wrongly -- that Davis was Jewish, because "Davis" is a common Jewish surname.  Only later did I learn she is not.  This is not to say that a non-Jew cannot work on this issue, but I do feel that he or she should take the advice of those who are Jewish and who know the culture from within.  Which Davis does not.  To her, veganism is a religion, complete with dogmas she will not violate.  One of those dogmas is that you should never, ever appear to allow slaughtering anything for any reason.  You cannot ever believe that any kind of slaughter could be humane, or you become a heretic.  And that includes kosher slaughtering.  Even PETA does not go as far as Davis does.

The result is, that Davis has said and written some gross misinformation about Hasidism that has aroused antisemitism, even if that was not her intent.  I do believe her when she says she is not an antisemite and is just concerned with the abuse of animals by anybody anywhere.  But she is cluelessly naive about how her words can be twisted by those who are Jew-haters.  Targeting kapporos is not the same as protesting outside McDonalds.  Kapporos is a Jewish ceremony, practiced in some communities of Orthodox Jews who are already seen as highly visible "outsiders" by many Americans.  Unless handled with care and respect, the issue can spill over into hatred against all Jews -- which, in some cases, it has.

My attempts to educate Davis and the protesters

Early on, I raised the point that Davis was doing nothing to educate the protesters about the positive things in Hasidic culture, and that if their only contact with Hasidim was to show up once a year and yell "meat is murder" at the kapporos centers, then she was arousing hatred toward Hasidim in general.  She replied in an email that she was not the one abusing chickens, so I should direct my anger at the Hasidim, not the protesters.  She took absolutely no responsibility for the numerous vicious, antisemitic remarks coming from the vegan community in support of her cause.

We may all look alike to you,
but we do not THINK alike.
I am not the face of the enemy

Davis herself is not an antisemite, but a lot of her readers sure are.  The first time I visited the Alliance Facebook page I got flamed as "the enemy" based on my profile picture.  To her credit, pagemaster Rina Deych removed the offending comments and added to the "About Us" page a statement that the Alliance is against the ceremony only, not Hasidic culture in general.  But the fact that this happened at all was disconcerting, to say the least.  Apparently they saw only the clothes and not the face on the posters they were carrying.  If this happened with a member of any other group it would be blatant racism.

When I suggested we write some educational materials to send to protest organizers before the next year's events, she showed no interest.  So I took it upon myself to write a series of articles on my blog, as well as post a download link to Richard Schwartz's interview with me, Raising Holy Sparks: Hasidism and Vegetarianism, included in his 2012 book, Who Stole My Religion: Applying Jewish Values to Help Heal Our Imperiled Planet.  (Visit the book homepage.)

Davis' response was to write off the whole "Raising Sparks" thing as "a solipsistic conceit" (her words.)   It wasn't vegan, so it wasn't valid, period.  She even refused to forward the link to my 2013 article, Kapporos chickens don't sing! to activist Rina Deych, who told the story that inspired the article in the first place.  (However, to be fair, it does appear that other activists read the article and understood it, as witnessed by this poster in the 2014 protests.)

Whenever I posted a new article, Davis's only response would be to nitpick why it was not vegan enough.  When she viewed my 14-minute video on Raising Sparks and why I believe it leads to vegetarianism, she asked if she could use just the "Forward to Eden" part at the end and cut out the rest.  Which of course would have gutted the whole thing, so I refused.

The one exception to all this was Kapporos protests: What works and what doesn't, where I carefully danced around the vegan issue in order to get it past the Davis censorship.  That one she did link to, but not any of the materials that attempted to educate the protesters about Hasidic theology.

The last straw

The last straw for me came in August 2014, when I designed a flyer specifically directed at Hasidim, speaking from within that worldview. (View and/or download it here).  Davis would not use it because I had told the story of how the Baal Shem Tov used to cry when he had to slaughter an animal.  She accused me of "pulling a knife" (her words) on her for even mentioning slaughter in the same sentence as "compassion" and stated that the Baal Shem Tov could not have possibly have had any compassion if he was willing to slaughter at all.

She thereby wrote off the founder of Hasidim and with it, the entire culture and worldview.  (Not to mention that she also, by this argument, would write off Jesus as having no compassion, since he also ate meat.  So did Francis of Assisi, the Roman Catholic patron saint of animals.)

Davis kept citing the Mission Statement of her org, United Poultry Concerns which funds the Alliance.  That Statement reads: ""Promoting the Compassionate and Respectful Treatment of Domestic Fowl."  It was then that I realized that "compassion" is a code word for "vegan."  She could not say the Baal Shem Tov has compassion when he slaughtered because compassion, to her, means no slaughtering, period,.  And, I suppose, one cannot be "respectful" in her eyes if one is not vegan, either.  Her "About us" page says "We inform people about and actively promote alternatives."  But in reality "alternatives" is not really a plural.  Veganism is the Only Way

Comparing the Holocaust and 9/11 victims to chicken slaughter

The problem is, Davis sees any use of animals as "exploitation" and cruelty.  There are no degrees of difference in her mind between a Native American who prays for the soul of the animal he kills, reverently thanking it for giving its life so the people may live, and a psychopath who abuses animals for personal pleasure.  Beyond that, she sees no difference between animals and humans, and has compared factory farms to the Holocaust, as well as stating that the people who died in the 9/11 attacks on the Twin Towers did not suffer any more than chickens in the meat industry.  On a physiological level that may be true -- pain is pain -- but it shows a terrible disregard for human feelings to say that the life of a child in a daycare center was worth no more than that of a chicken.  Talk about lack of compassion!

Inadvertently (?) citing gnostic canards about Judaism

It became obvious to me that because Judaism permits eating meat, Davis feels this invalidates everything else.  At one point she told me to "get in touch with the God of Genesis" -- in opposition to the God who permits slaughter.  I doubt she realizes that she had just invoked a very antisemitic gnostic Christian belief from the Middle Ages, namely, that the "real" God of compassion who made the universe was not the "God of the Jews."  Davis is not sophisticated enough in theology to realize -- or even recognize -- the pitfalls of this type of thinking.  I doubt she would actually call Jews "children of Satan" or burn them at the stake as witches like the medieval Christians did.  But as I said before, when it comes to theology, she is a runaway tank in a minefield.

Davis confuses Jewish and Christian theology about Atonement

More recently, she has taken to stating that Jews are purposely "punishing" the chickens as "objects" and that "abuse" is part of the ceremony.  She is basing this on references she found where kapporos is compared to the biblical scapegoat.  She wrongly assumes that means it takes on all the suffering of the practitioner on a physical level.  In October 2014 she was quoted as saying, referring to kapporos chickens:  “They’re treated like what they are intended to be in the ritual, punished objects,  The only role of the chicken in the ritual is to be a symbolic recipient of the sins or wrongdoings and the punishment of the practitioner, to be mistreated, to be punished.”

Mistreating chickens like this is NOT part of
the ceremony, nor is it "punishment."  It is
a by-product of the modern secular meat industry.

Yes, it is true that the chickens suffer terribly when being trucked in without food or water, then stacked in piles of little cages -- again without food or water -- for days.  But this mishandling is not part of the ceremony!  All that is required is to say the blessing and slaughter the bird, period.  Even if is done with the most gentle care, with a healthy. well-cared-for, free-range bird handled properly, it is still kapporos -- and that is what it used to be before modernization.

There is NO requirement for the bird to tortured or "be punished."  There is NO requirement for the birds to mishandled, starved, etc. -- in fact, those are things that invalidate the ceremony, which is why rabbis who oppose it will focus on the cruelty of the pre-slaughter suffering.  Everything that happens before the actual saying of the blessing is NOT part of the ceremony.  To the contrary.  The cruelty in transporting and handling the chickens under modern conditions is frequently cited as an argument against using live chickens, based on the prohibition against cruelty to animals in Jewish law.  I myself have argued that the modern cruelty of mass production cancels out any value the ceremony once had in the past -- as I explained in my 2014 article, The Baal Shem Tov did it with a chicken, so why are you telling me not to?

Because the article quoting Davis was in The American Free Press, a white supremacist pub, I thought maybe she had been misquoted, or that the interviewer had distorted her words.  So I queried her.  It took almost a month for her to reply, but she did eventually say that she had no idea of the nature of this pub at the time (which I do believe, since their title is deceivingly innocuous) and was sorry she had give them an interview.  But she did not deny the statement about punishment.  On the contrary. she defended it and referred me back to a book she had previously quoted to me in an email, where the kapporos chicken is compared to the biblical scapegoat.  (Davis thinks I do not know my own theology and is forever trying to "correct me.")

Judaism and Christianity read biblical texts very differently!

However, once again, she misunderstood the reference, because she insists on equating "atonement" with "punishment."  Davis, who, I remind you once again, is not Jewish, simply cannot comprehend that the word "sacrifice" means one thing in Christianity and another thing in Judaism.  This is a common problem in general with Bible studies, where the issue is not only translation itself, but also the nuances of words in the different cultures.  The most common example being "eye for an eye," which, in the Christian world means tit-for-tat revenge, but in Jewish law means monetary compensation for the loss of the eye -- a very big difference!   In the same way, the words "sacrifice" and "atonement" have very different meanings in Judaism and Christianity.

The words translated as "sacrifice" also have different roots in Hebrew and Greek, a detail I won't go into here.  Suffice it to say, the scapegoat was not tortured, because it had to be a perfect specimen without any blemishes.  It was not even slaughtered.  Sins were symbolically placed on its head, but only by a laying on of the High Priest's hands.  Then it was sent off alive into the wilderness.  A second goat was slaughtered, but that was not the scapegoat.  And it was not tortured, either.

Once again:  All biblical sacrifices had to be perfect unblemished specimens (Leviticus 22), which means they must have been well-treated before being brought to the Temple in Jerusalem.  There was nothing in biblical times that even comes near to the horrors of today's factory farms.

Atonement does not mean torture

Yes, some people do see kapporos as an atonement sacrifice -- but in Judaism, that does NOT mean hours of torture.  This is not like Jesus on the Cross, where suffering in agony is part of the "sacrifice."  There is nothing in Judaism even remotely resembling Mel Gibson's R-rated film, Passion of the Christ.  And just because money -- which is an "object" -- can be substituted for a chicken does not mean the chicken is also a mere "object."  The bird can be redeemed -- ransomed -- with money, but that does not imply that the chicken is the same thing as money.

The Jews doing this ceremony do not wake up in the morning and say, "I'm going to go torture a chicken today so I can get rid of my sins."  Yes, some people do see the chicken as a substitute for their own death (which is theologically wrong but people believe it anyway).  And yes, some people do believe the chicken's soul benefits spiritually from this through helping to "raise the Holy Sparks," as I have written about.  But that does NOT mean they believe the chickens have to suffer or be punished.

But again, all my attempts to try to explain these things to Davis have fallen on deaf ears, and she continues to say this thing about Jews "punishing" the chickens.  Her mind is made up and she does not want to be confused by the facts.  More recently she has also claimed (in the American Free Press interview I mentioned earlier) that the whole thing is just made up "in the guise of religion" and the real purpose is for the rabbis to make a lot of money -- also wrong, but analyzing that charge will have to wait until another article, as this one is getting overly long.

Conclusion:  The difference between me and Davis

In conclusion, I will say that the big difference between me and Karen Davis is this: I protest out of love for my fellow Hasidim, seeking to lead them toward a more gentle way of life from within the Hasidic worldview.  I understand that these communities see themselves as the last remnants of a culture destroyed by the Holocaust, and that any change in religious practice can be seen as a betrayal of their martyred ancestors.  I respect that, and try to find arguments from within the tradition.

And I have had some success in this.  Right before Rosh Hashanah this year, a Chabad Hasid called from California to thank me for putting my materials online.  He had first found my videos on YouTube, then spent three hours reading this blog.  The result?  He said it "changed his thinking."  He also said the materials he found on on PETA, The Alliance, and other sites dd not move him because it was "all politics."  I was the only one he had found who came at it from the stand point of Jewish spirituality.

Davis should take a clue from this and similar stories.  But she cannot, because she has imprisoned her mind in the narrow vegan worldview.  She has no respect for Hasidim because they eat meat, and she comes at the issue filled with anger and rage.  She insists on projecting her own biases onto somebody else's culture.  As any anthropologist will tell you, that's a great big no-no.  To understand a culture, and to meaningfully dialogue with members of that culture, you need to be willing to see things from their point of view.  Davis is incapable of doing this.  Her  agenda is to make everyone vegans and, judging from the articles she has published,  she has no real respect for any other viewpoint.  Which makes her  very ineffective.

Not long ago another Chabad Hasid called me from Boro Park, NY, asking about my stance against kapporos.  We dialogued on the "Holy Sparks" doctrine and although we disagreed on how to interpret it, the conversation was mutually respectful.  During the course of the debate he asked me point blank if I thought the protests had ever convinced anybody not to use chickens as kapporos.  And I honestly had to say no, they have not.  I cannot think of a single instance where shouting "meat is murder" has changed anybody's mind in the Hasidic world.  On his end, he told me that nobody in his New York neighborhood takes the protests seriously, either.

The Alliance gets a lot of press, but has no real effect on Hasidim. It has become simply an annoyance to put up with -- one of many for a people who get harassed on the streets every day.  If anything, the disrespect of many protesters has caused the community to "circle the wagons" and hold on tighter to the tradition.  In the end, neither side is really listening to the other.

*  *  *

ADDENDA, added November 14, 2014 

Here is yet another place where she insisted on including the shipping of the chickens as part of the ritual.  This is from a mailing she did to her own org, United Poultry Concerns back in September 2006.  So this is not a one-time blooper on her part, it is a pattern of distortion she insists upon.   She stated:  "Kapparot includes the pre-ritual cruelty to the chickens, who are forced to sit crammed together in their own excrement for days without food, water or shelter awaiting their terrible death."

NO, as I explained above, kapparot as such does NOT include any "pre-ritual cruelty."  There is no requirement to "force" chickens to "sit in their own excrement," etc.  In the past, there were no factory farm cages, no open trucks, no sitting for days in warehouses.  As I explained in The Kapparot Ritual: how tradition has become a travesty, things were very different in pre-Holocaust Europe, where Jews lived is small villages and chickens were all locally raised free-range.  The problem today is urbanization, where people do not raise their own chickens and must truck them in from miles away.

To repeat:  NOTHING that happens before the blessing is said is required as part of the ritual, period.   Everything before that is secular and has no bearing at all on the ritual itself. 

Yes, cruelty happens nowadays in transit, because that is how ALL chickens are shipped and handled in the meat industry. The Jews are no worse than anybody else in this.  Yes, it is terrible.  Yes, it is cruelty for anybody to do that to a chicken, including those who slaughtered the secular meat sitting on your own plate.  But it is NOT part of the ceremony,  It is not "Jewish."  And it is NOT required that the birds be "punished" by starving them in cramped cages for days.

Granted, this was written in 2006 before I became involved with her, so maybe she was ignorant back then?  Maybe.  But since she said it again in 2014 (as cited in the article above), she has not become any more educated on the topic.  She certainly has not listened to me or anybody else.  

ADDENDA #2, added January 4, 2015

After writing this article, I found this by Davis in another interview from 2014  where she reveals that not only does she twist and misinterpret the ceremony, she has no respect for Hasidim in general:

Davis:  Rabbi Shea Hecht of the Lubavitch community, whose father began trucking chickens to Crown Heights, Brooklyn in 1974 and whose family is regarded as the leading cause of the growth of using chickens for Kapparot in the U.S., told NPR in this September 2009 report:

“The main part of the service,” he says, “is handing the chicken to the slaughterer and watching the chicken being slaughtered. Because that is where you have an emotional moment, where you say, ‘Oops, you know what? That could have been me.’”

Now, it is true that Rabbi Hecht said this on NPR, in answer to why he does not use money instead.  However, what he meant -- and what it has always meant -- is that the death of the chicken should remind us of our own mortality -- that's the "emotional moment."  But she interprets it to mean something it has never meant in Judaism,   Once again, she projects her own vegan values on another culture.  She goes on to say:

In short, Rabbi Hecht, and probably many (though not all) other Kapparot practitioners who use chickens, enjoy the experience of making and watching a helpless creature suffer and die “for them” (be punished in their stead for their sins). They like the control and are gratified by the pain and suffering they can inflict with impunity in the guise of religion. Obviously it is not necessary to cause needless suffering and death in order to improve yourself — just the opposite.

There is NOTHING in Hasidism about "enjoying" the suffering or being "gratified by the pain and suffering" and it is not done in the "guise" of religion.   Those who do it are sincere and do regard it as a form of worship.  Yes, there are differences of opinion about the validity of the ritual BUT this is true of just about everything in Judaism.  Rarely do Jews speak in one voice.  And just because one group rejects something does not mean it is invalid for everyone.

But this is not the end of it her diatribe.  It gets worse:

INTERVIEWER: Why don’t they just use bags of coins instead of the chickens?

DAVIS: As I just mentioned in the example of Rabbi Hecht, many Hasidic rabbis insist on swinging and slaughtering chickens for Kapparot instead of swinging bags of coins for symbolic atonement and charity: there is a liking for the slaughter, the power, the blood. As human psychology, it is about the desire to have an innocent victim (Lamb of God, Scapegoat, Jesus Christ, Thanksgiving Turkeys, Experimental Animals, Young Boys sent to war to be slaughtered) suffer and die for oneself/community/nation/society. It’s about the age-old system of belief in cleansing/purifying/expiating sins, vices and diseases by transferring them to an innocent victim or class of victims.

So here she actually says what I have deduced all along:  She is indeed confusing it with Jesus on the Cross, as I discussed above.  And this bit about the "liking for the slaughter, the power, the blood" is, again, NOT part of Judaism.  It is HER projection, her prejudice against anyone who eats meat, religious or not, whether in the present or in all past centuries.

When asked if all Jews do this, she says most are Hasidim but also some are "Conservative and Modern Orthodox."  I have never heard of any Conservative synagogue advocating kapporos with chickens -- most don't even do it with money.  Nor do most Modern Orthodox do it that way, if at all.  Where she gets this idea, I do not know.  Maybe she confusing Modern Orthodox with Haredim (who do use chickens)?  What I do know is that she is abysmally ignorant about the different kinds of Jews.  She often relies on third-hand information from books or uniformed non-religious token Jews in the vegan world.  Just because someone is born Jewish does not mean they know what they are talking about.

She then goes on to disparage not only the ritual, but all of the Hasidic community:

In addition, Hasidic communities/members will rarely depart from/defy what their specific rabbis tell them to do. Even if a member personally winces or objects, he or she won’t speak up publicly. These communities live strictly defined lives like the Amish, Jehovah Witnesses, and other extremely insular groups. Women are not respected as persons in their own right. Fear of being shunned/ostracized, having no other options or imaginings but to conform, stay, and obey, are motivations....

I am probably partly responsible for that last part.  At one point I tried to explain that while it was easy for her to come in once a year, scream "meat is murder," then disappear until next Yom Kippur, for people who actually live in the neighborhood, it is harder to go against the grain.  People have to live with each other, and Hasidim are not the only people on earth who avoid confrontations in order to get along with their neighbors.  That, plus the fact that public protests are not the way things get changed in traditional Jewish communities.  People do discuss things behind the scenes, there are differences of opinion, and variations within families.   Hasidim are not clones.  But neither are they going to join Davis on the barricades when she is so openly disparaging of their way of life.  As I noted above, the arguments that work are the ones she has rejected.

I explained this to her in order to get her to tone down the anti-Hasidic rhetoric but here she twisted my explanation to suit her own anti-religious attitudes -- even getting in a dig about how women are supposedly "not respected as persons" and thereby insulting my wife, who is a critical thinker and most certainly a "person in her own right."  (She just does not like a lot of publicity nor does she want her picture plastered all over the Internet.)

Davis then goes on:

Finally, the temples that do the ritual are said to make a lot of money from it — purchasing chickens very cheaply at a few cents on the dollar, and “selling” them to practitioners for a lot of money.

In another interview she quoted prices as $18 and $36 at some center -- unaware that these are normal amounts Jews give to charity.  Jewish fundraisers always ask for donations in multiples of 18,   Even those of us who use money instead often give $18 -- so that is not seen as exhorbitant in our culture.  I would prefer everyone just give the money and skip the chicken slaughter, but I am not offended by it being used as a fundraiser and certainly not for asking $18.  And, we should note, not all kapporos centers charge this much.

Besides, Davis get money off this issue, too.  By her own admission in her newsletter (Poultry Press, Winter 2014 issue, p. 12), she spent $23,532 on the anti-kapporos campaign in 2014.  If she has the funds to do this, then she, too, is making money off kapporos --  through her sensationalist tactics.  This figure came at the end of an anti-kapporos article, and right below it there was a plea for funds.  My bet is, kapporos is one of her best sources of income for her org, because it is so easy to arouse public opinion with graphic photos and inflammatory rhetoric.  So the pot calls the kettle black...

She then ended with:

(For the record, I am not Jewish or religious. I grew up in a family that attended the Methodist Church down the street from us, but religion never influenced me as a worldview. No religion even if proven “true” would reconcile me in the slightest to the way things are.)

Note that she would not accept any religion even if it were true.   A rather odd statement if she is really interested in truth, but that is certainly her privilege.  However, with an attitude like that, she is never, ever going to make any kind of impact on religious people.   She has certainly turned me off -- and I am against using chickens.  But if forced to choose between her antagonism and my faith, I choose Hasidism.  And so, I shall continue to educate my people about why we should use money and not chickens, but henceforth I'll do it without Karen Davis.

*   *  *

To learn how you can be effective in this campaign, get my new book, just out on June 4:  Kapporos Then and Now: Toward a More Compassionate Tradition available on Lulu.com.  Neither a vegetarian manifesto nor a "Torah-True" religious tract, I approach the issue as a combination of theologian, cultural anthropologist, and participatory journalist, offering numerous reasons why using money is a better option today -- but also critiquing both sides for both their strong and weak points.  WARNING:  Whether you are for or against using chickens as Kapporos, this book requires an open mind to read. 

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"

Refuting Rabbi Eliezer Melamed's attack on the vegetarian movement

On Monday, May 26, 2014, the Israel National News printed an article by Rabbi Eliezer Melamed  entitled Judaism: Vegetarianism for Moral Reasons.   This title is misleading, however, because it turns out that Rabbi Melamed is against encouraging vegetarianism for moral reasons.  His reasoning is, in my opinion, one of the best examples of why everyone should be required to take a course in basic logic before putting fingers to keyboard.

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

The article begins, not with vegetarianism, but with an argument from the book of Numbers about why every Jew should join the Israeli army.  This is hardly surprising coming from this rabbi, given that he is a disciple of the late Rabbi Zvi Yehuda Kook, founder of the Gush Emunim settlement movement in Israel. In other words, Rabbi Melamed is a radical right-wing activist.  Were this the only content of his article, I would not be bothering to write this blog post, except maybe to refute his militaristic interpretation of the Jewish holiday of Lag B'Omer (see below.)*

However, right in the middle of this discussion about Jewish armies, he makes a switch to vegetarianism.  He begins with the usual story of how Eden was vegetarian, but after the Fall both humans and animals degenerated into killing and eating each other.  Then comes Noah, the Flood, etc.  All pretty standard theology until we get to this:

 "Up until the generation of the Flood, people could receive all their nutritional needs from plants. After the sin and the collapse of all systems of nature – plants were no longer sufficient for a person, and therefore, God allowed Noah and his sons to eat the flesh of cattle, birds, animals and fish. In other words, the moral decline of the world created a completely new eco-environment in which the consumption of meat is necessary." 

Here is where I take issue.  Given the huge number of perfectly healthy vegetarians and vegans in the world today, it can hardly be argued that plants are "no longer sufficient for a person" or that "the consumption of meat is necessary."  It may be true that in past generations, when the principles of balanced nutrition were less understood, it was more difficult to be both vegetarian and healthy, but this was due to lack of knowledge and, in some cases, lack of year-round access to fresh vegetables -- not to the impossibility of living on a plant-based diet.

The good rabbi also does not seem to be bothered by the horrible conditions in today's factory farms.  On the contrary:  He seems to think this benefits the animals, and that we are somehow protecting them and doing them a big favor by raising them for meat:

"In the present situation, if we stop eating meat, it is not clear that it would benefit those species we normally eat, because if we do not continue raising and growing them for consumption, their numbers among other animals will decrease sharply. At present, they breed under human supervision, but if all the animals and chickens were let loose, within a short time, very few would be left."

Not only does Rabbi Melamed need a course in logic, he would also benefit from some basic ecology.  His argument might hold true in the case of factory farm chickens who have spent their whole lives crammed in cages and have no idea how to survive in the wild.  But feral chickens in many places on earth are doing just fine.  My own free-run flock is in no danger of dying out.  The opposite is true:  I have hens who keep sneaking off to raise broods of chicks in the woods.  (I eat eggs but not meat.)

Stopping meat consumption would mean that there might be fewer chickens in the world than the billions that are raised for slaughter each year, but that is an artificially inflated number to begin with.  If chickens were released (or maybe sent to sanctuaries to live out their lives) and the mass production stopped, their numbers would eventually adjust to the natural population that is supposed to be in the ecosystem.  And those that do survive would be a whole lot happier.

Rabbi Melamed then goes on to argue that not only is meat-eating "necessary," it is, in his opinion, morally wrong to encourage people to be vegetarians.  And here we find the strangest case of false logic that I have seen in a long time.  He states:

"Moreover, if we are overly concerned about educating towards compassion and love for animals, instead of helping them, we would destroy ethical relations between human beings, because people whose sense of morality is not fully developed could think to themselves: “Since in any event, we aren’t warned about killing animals and eating them, we can also kill people who stand in our way, and maybe even eat their flesh.” And there would be other evil individuals who would focus all their good qualities towards animals – because ultimately, every wicked person possesses a spark of conscience and compassion. But after silencing their conscience, they could steal, exploit, and kill people without any ethical dilemma, because in their hearts, they take pride in the great mercifulness they show towards their pets."  

As bizarre as this argument may seem, I have heard it before -- in connection with the Holocaust.  People using it like to point to Hitler's supposed vegetarianism (for the record, he was not a vegetarian  -- read more here) and then say, "See?  Hitler was a vegetarian and he certainly was not moral."  They also like to point to Nazis who loved their dogs while at the same time hating and killing Jews.  This was true in some cases -- but let's not confuse cause and effect.  Loving a dog (or any other animal) does not lead to cruelty toward humans.  People who split their consciences like this are in a state of denial, disassociation, or even psychosis, but loving the dog did not cause this.  For that matter, such Nazis also loved their families -- so are we to say nobody should love their children because it might lead to mass murder?

Rabbi Melamed then goes on to say:

"Therefore, as long as murder and cruelty remain in the world, people should not be encouraged to refrain from eating meat. One might say that as long as people have a desire to eat meat, it is a sign that we have not yet reached the ethical stage in which it is morally important to refrain from eating meat." 

By this circular logic, we would never try to improve ourselves or overcome our base desires.  We would all just keep on justifying our bad behavior by reasoning that if we are doing it, then it must be what we are supposed to be doing.  So where would it end?  Shall we say that as long as people have a desire to make war, it is morally wrong to try to make peace?  Or as long as people want to buy slaves, we should not try to end slavery?  Try telling that to the parents of those girls who were recently kidnapped in Nigeria.

However, Rabbi Melamed inadvertently provides a loophole big enough to drive a truck through, namely, that "as long as people have a desire to eat meat" they are not morally advanced enough to cease eating it.  (This must be the case with Rabbi Melamed himself, since, as far as I know, he is not a vegetarian nor does he express any desire to become one.)  By his own logic, the reverse must also be true:  if a person does lose his or her taste for meat and no longer desires to eat it, then it must be a sign that he or she is now morally advanced and should consider becoming a vegetarian.  As more and more people are doing every day.

*  *  *

*Regarding Lag B'Omer, he states that the custom of shooting arrows on Lag B’Omer alludes to preparing for the establishment of a Jewish army.  This completely turns the story on its head.  The custom originated during the Roman period when it was forbidden to teach Torah.  So the rabbis would pretend they were taking the boys out to target practice as a ruse to fool the Roman soldiers.  Rather like the story of the Hanukkah dreydel, where toys and games were used as a ruse to cover teaching Torah.  I have never, until now, heard of anybody attaching a theme of military training to the archery story.

*  *  *

  

UPDATE, June 20, 2014:  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.   In this 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.  Read my latest response, Vegetarianism Leads to Terrorism, says Rabbi Eliezer Melamed, in which I refute this absurd claim.

Kapporos chickens don't sing!

Every year before Yom Kippur, a small percentage of the Orthodox Jewish community performs a ritual called kapporos (or kapparot, depending on your Hebrew dialect) in which a chicken is ritually sacrificed.  In recent years, there has been growing opposition to this practice, urging people to use money instead of chickens -- a stance that I support.  (See my 2011 blog article, The Kapparot Ritual: How tradition has become a travesty).

In this article, which will be my last on this topic for this year, I would like to address one particular quotation that got wide publicity in a number of articles in September 2013.  According to Rina Deych, a Jewish activist in Brooklyn who has been protesting the ceremony for years:

 "Every year I’d see little kids tell their parents, ‘The bird is crying!,’ and the parents would say ‘No, it’s singing. It’s happy to help us.'   I’d come over and tell them the kid is right.”

Having viewed numerous videos of kapporos ceremonies on YouTube recently, I would agree that the chickens are definitely not singing.  Nor are they very happy.  The call heard most often on the soundtracks is the incessant, shrill, high-pitched peeping of terrified, distressed half-grown chicks.

Kapporos chickens crammed in a crate. 

In many kapporos centers, the birds being used are not yet mature enough to crow or cluck.  They are factory-farmed, eight-week-old broiler birds, not even fully feathered out yet.  They are crammed into crates stacked on top of each other, often without food or water, peeping in miserable baby voices.   Most definitely, the children are right.  The kapporos chickens are crying.

The only time I ever hear that distress call among my own free-range chickens is if a chick is in trouble, perhaps separated from its mother or lost outside the chicken wire fence.  Normally, chickens do not constantly peep or shriek in those shrill, high-pitched voices unless something is seriously wrong.

Chavah and Freidl,
two kapporos chickens rescued in 2012
and now living happily in a sanctuary.
(Photo by Richard Cundari)

So why would the parents think the chickens are singing?  It seems hard to hear those peeping chickens and not know they are crying.

 However, most of the people doing this ceremony are urban Jews who know little or nothing about chickens.  Most likely, the only time they ever see or hear a chicken is at kapporos time, when the birds are all peeping in distress.  They never hear -- and probably do not even know about -- the 40+ different calls that chickens make in free-run flocks where they can express themselves in a natural environment.  So it is no wonder that people think the distressed call is normal.  They have no idea what a happy chicken really sounds like.

The next question concerns why they would say the chicken is "happy to help us."  This statement is more about Hasidic theology than chicken biology.  What I am about to present will probably seem strange, maybe even offensive to many readers.  And yet, this "happy chicken" statement is based on a kabbalistic belief that is central to Hasidic philosophy.   Understanding this POV is necessary for learning how to meaningfully dialogue with Hasidim -- a skill you will need if you ever want to convince Hasidic Jews not to sacrifice chickens.  So, my activist friends, I ask you to set aside your pre-conceived prejudices about Orthodox Jews, put on your multi-cultural hats, and follow me into the world of Jewish mysticism.

To understand why the parents in the Rina Deych quote would say the chicken is "happy to help us," we must go to kabbalah and a doctrine called "raising holy sparks."  Briefly summarized, it goes like this: The "holy sparks" are fallen refractions of the Original Light of Creation, which have descended into lower levels of the material world.  These "sparks" (or spiritual "energies") need to be mystically elevated back to their proper places in the universe. This process is part of what kabbalists call tikkun olam, or "repairing the universe."

Eating kosher food is therefore a sacred act that facilitates this process, provided that the proper blessings are said with the right focus and intention.   (For an in depth discussion of how this doctrine can be reconciled with vegetarianism, read and/or download this interview that Richard Schwartz did with me for his book, Who Stole My Religion?)

Based on this teaching, many Hasidim and other Orthodox Jews see meat-eating as an essential part of planetary healing, because it raises the souls of animals to a higher spiritual level which, in turn, elevates the energy of the entire universe.  I have many times been told that the chickens are hoping to be eaten by Jews at a Sabbath or other sacred meal, and thus have their own spirits elevated through this service to God.  I have also seen this explanation given in the Comments sections of articles and videos as to why the person commenting still eats meat.

And yet, this teaching is rarely, if ever, discussed among those activists who are trying to end chickens as kapporos.  Or, if it is discussed at all, it is only to put it down as, in the words of one activist to me, "a solipsistic conceit" to believe that humans have this kind of central role in the world.  This kind of judgemental attitude only hinders the dialogue.

So, before all you vegans out there go calling the Jews a bunch of medieval barbarians for believing in this teaching, let me remind you that there is a similar story in Buddhism, a religion that is widely upheld among vegans as the epitome of nonviolence.  And yet, Buddhists tell the tale of the selfless rabbit who offered to give his own body to a holy man as food -- and was rewarded by becoming Moon Rabbit, the "rabbit in the moon."  (Read the story here.)   Folktale?  Maybe.  But Moon Rabbit is widely believed to have been an earlier incarnation of the soul that would become the Buddha.  His story is told to Buddhist children as the epitome of self-sacrifice.

Native Americans (Indians) also have similar tales, such as the story of Jumping Mouse, who selflessly gave up parts of himself to help others, and was reborn as a eagle.  We should also remember the widespread custom among Native hunters of thanking the animal for giving its life so the people may live -- a prayer that is not unlike the traditional blessing said by Jews before slaughtering an animal.  In both Native and Jewish traditions, failing to treat the meat of the animal with respect is seen as a sin that can affect the well-being of the entire tribe or nation.  Among the Eskimos, it was widely believed that if one did not honor the spirit of the seal or fish that one ate, then the animals would not reincarnate and the humans would starve.

So, as we talk about the Hasidic belief in "raising holy sparks," please see it in the light of these stories from other, better-known (and often better respected) cultures besides Hasidic Judaism.  If you can honor the teachings of Buddhism and Native Americans, then at least try to understand similar ideas within Judaism.  In fact, the idea that animals might consciously allow themselves to be eaten in order to serve a higher purpose is very widespread around the world.

The positive side of these stories is that they all date from a time when people believed that animals have a form of consciousness or soul, and that they can make decisions about their fate. (Read Do animals have souls?, the most popular post on this blog, for an explanation of the soul concept in Judaism).  The ability to understand the language of the animals was attributed to Solomon and also to later Jewish sages and saints.  In Psalm 150, "everything that has breath" is praising God.  So clearly the ancient view among Jews and others was that animals have a form of consciousness.

The doctrine of "holy sparks" and other traditions mentioned here predate the French philosopher Rene Descartes, the "father of modern philosophy," who believed animals were nothing more than unfeeling machines.  It is the philosophy of Descartes -- not Judaism! -- that is most responsible for the insensitivity and abuses of animals we see today.  (Read my previous article on "animal souls" and Descartes.)

Unfortunately, the insensitivity of Descartes' philosophy has fully penetrated the Western World, including even the more isolated communities such as the Hasidim who use chickens as kapporos.  Thus, although the original "sparks" doctrine says that animals -- even those destined for slaughter -- must be treated with respect, the reality of today's meat industry makes that virtually impossible.  The parents who tell their children that the chickens are "happy to help us" in performing a ritual do sincerely believe this, but, at the same time, they are blocking out the suffering of all those chickens stacked in shipping crates without food or water.

Which brings us to the "down side" of the "holy sparks" teaching:  Just as it is possible to elevate energy through using the material world to serve God, so is it also possible to drag down the spiritual world through the misuse of the things around us.  The Ba'al Shem Tov ("Master of the Good Name"), founder of Hasidism in the 18th century, said:

Portrait of Rabbi Israel ben Eliezer,
the Baal Shem Tov

All things of this world that belong to man desire with all their might to draw near him in order that the Sparks of Holiness that are in them should be raised by him back to God... Man eats them, man drinks them, man uses them; these are the Sparks that dwell in the things. Therefore, one should have mercy on his tools and all his possessions for the sake of the Sparks that are in them; one should have mercy on the Holy Sparks. 

"Having mercy" does not mean we should never kill anything, and the Ba'al Shem Tov himself ate meat.  But he was also sensitive to animals as living beings.  He taught:

A worm serves the Creator with all of his intelligence and ability… A person should consider himself and the worm and all creatures as comrades in the universe, for we are all created beings whose abilities are God-given. -- The Baal Shem Tov (Tzava’as HaRivash 12)

Modern kapporos centers certainly are not "having mercy" on the chickens they sell and use for the ceremony, nor are they considering them "comrades in the universe."  Many have probably never heard these quotes from their founder.  It is doubtful in my mind whether the Baal Shem Tov himself would approve of the way these poor birds are being treated today.

As I explained in "The Kapparot ritual: how tradition has become a travesty," this is not the way things were done back in the days when Jews lived in small rural villages. and people raised their own animals.  Chickens were not raised on factory farms, trucked in for miles in open trucks, then left to go hungry for days on end.  Arguing that "they would be killed anyway" -- as some people do -- is no valid basis for treating them as if they are nothing but inanimate objects.  In fact, even inanimate objects (the "tools" referred to in the "sparks" quote above) should be treated with respect -- how much more so should one be gentle with living things!

"Raising sparks" is the Hasidic ideal, but today's attitudes often fall far short.  Some would condemn the whole culture for this insensitivity.  I place the blame on modern urbanization.  Since it is axiomatic that one cannot commit a sin to do a mitzvah, we must ask ourselves if the suffering of the chickens under modern conditions fails to raise the sparks and might even be dragging them down instead.  We must ask ourselves if the callousness often witnessed at these ceremonies is really the way a true Hasid should behave, or is it a goyishe attitude assimilated from the surrounding gentile culture.

I take the "holy sparks" teaching seriously, which is why I have devoted considerable energy to the question of whether or not it is being done properly.  Both in the above-mentioned interview with me by Richard Schwartz and this 14-minute video (below) that I posted on YouTube, I present arguments from within the Hasidic tradition as to why I believe "raising sparks" through eating meat is no longer possible under the conditions of the modern industry.  I encourage you all to study both of these resources, so that, next time you are told that kapporos chickens are singing in joy to "help us," you will know how to answer with respect and understanding.

UPDATE 2014:  I have written a one-page handout directed at Hasidim on the issue of not using chicken for kapporos. No, it is not vegan or even vegetarian, but it is not directed at vegetarians, it is intended for Hasidim and argues from within the context of Hasidic thought.  Download the PDF here.   Feel free to print and hand it out, adding your own local contact info at the bottom.

To learn how you can be effective in this campaign, get my new book, just out on June 4:  Kapporos Then and Now: Toward a More Compassionate Tradition available on Lulu.com.  Neither a vegetarian manifesto nor a "Torah-True" religious tract, I approach the issue as a combination of theologian, cultural anthropologist, and participatory journalist, offering numerous reasons why using money is a better option today -- but also critiquing both sides for both their strong and weak points.  WARNING:  Whether you are for or against using chickens as Kapporos, this book requires an open mind to read. 

See also: The Baal Shem Tov did it with a chicken, so why are you telling me not to? -- my answer to this Frequently Asked Question I often get from my fellow Hasidim.

"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.