Rabbi Michael Leo Samuel

One of the 20^th century’s greatest Jewish mystics, Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook, develops this theme in one of his most famous passages:

After the Flood, God lowered the standards of morality and justice He expected of humanity. We would no longer be culpable for slaughtering animals; we would only be held accountable for harming other human beings. Then our moral sensibilities, which had become cold and insensitive in the confusion of life, could once again warm the heart. If the original prohibition against meat had remained in force, then, when the desire to eat meat became overpowering, there would be little distinction between feasting on man, beast, or fowl. The knife, the axe, the guillotine, and the electric pulse would cut them all down, in order to satiate the gluttonous stomach of “cultured” man. This is the advantage of morality when it is connected to its Divine Source: it knows the proper time for each objective, and on occasion will restrain itself in order to conserve strength for the future.

In the future, this suppressed concern for the rights of animals will be restored. A time of moral perfection will come, when “No one will teach his neighbor or his brother to know God – for all will know Me, small and great alike” (Jeremiah 31:33). In that era of heightened ethical awareness, concern for the welfare of animals will be renewed.

In the interim, the mitzvot of the Torah prepare us for this eventuality. The Torah alludes to the moral concession involved in eating meat, and places limits on the killing of animals. If “you desire to eat meat,” only then may you slaughter and eat (Deut. 12:20). Why mention the “desire to eat meat”. The Torah is hinting: if you are unable to naturally overcome your desire to eat meat, and the time for moral interdiction has not yet arrived – i.e., you still grapple with not harming those even closer to you (fellow human beings) – then you may slaughter and eat animals. Nonetheless, the Torah limits which animals we are allowed to eat, only permitting those most suitable to human nature.

According to Maimonides (Guide for the Perplexed 3:48), the animals permitted for food are those most suitable for the human body, and “no doctor will doubt this.” Ramban disagreed, explaining that the permitted animals are the ones shechitah (ritual slaughtering) restrict the manner of killing animals to the quickest and most humane. With these laws, the Torah impresses upon us that we are dealing with a living creature, not some automaton devoid of life. And after slaughtering, we are commanded to cover the blood, as if to say, “Cover up the blood! Hide your crime!” These restrictions will achieve their effect as they educate the generations over time. The silent protest against animal slaughter will become a deafening outcry, and its path will triumph . . .[1]

For Rav Kook, the reverence for life that we show animals serves to heighten our sensitivities to all life-forms, which exist to serve God. Interpersonal human behavior cannot help but be positively affected by the sensitivity one shows toward all of God’s creations.