This week's Torah reading contains additional details about Kashrut, our sacred diet. To better understand the significance of the details of Kashrut, we need to go back to the Creation Story (as found in the first chapter of Genesis) which depicts God as imposing "order over chaos." By the time the chapter ends, everything has been assigned its place, in a very well-defined hierarchy. The human being is at the top of this Divinely ordered universe, yet, it is not allowed to use animals as food. Rather, humankind is to live on the things that grow from the earth. Later on, after the flood, a compromise is reached and humans are permitted to eat animal meat, but not to ingest its lifeblood. The restriction is based upon the notion that doing so would lessen the Divinity inherent in human beings (remembering that humans are created in the Divine image).
In the earlier chapters of Leviticus we read about animal sacrifices which were comprised of domesticated animals, like sheep, lambs, etc. (for the moment, I will not attempt to harmonize Leviticus with the rules found in Deuteronomy). Domestic animals were only slaughtered and consumed within the confines of the Tabernacle. The sacred fire burned most of the meat and the priests and lay people consumed very little of the total animal.
In Biblical times, agriculture and animal husbandry were already dominant forms of acquiring food. Biblical sources and zoo-archeological evidence indicate that hunting and trapping provided supplemental human nourishment. According to Levitical law, hunters such as Nimrod and Esau, chased after wild animals like deer, which are kosher. These methods present a serious ritual problem: the spilling of blood. It is rare for animals shot with an arrow to fall to the ground. The animal often attempts to flee, and the hunter follows its bloody escape route. What then becomes of the blood that the animal has lost? Our Parashah presents the solution: "And anyone of the people of Israel or of the aliens who reside among them who hunts down an animal or bird that may be eaten and spills its blood; he must cover its blood” (Leviticus 17:13).
In researching this commandment, scholars like Rabbi Marcus Mordecai Schwartz, explain that this could be a miniature burial ritual, or perhaps a way of "returning the blood to God.” Schwartz further comments that, in his view, the God of Israel is the Creator of heaven and earth and "God receives the blood of the farmstead on the altar, and the blood of the hunt under the earth.” If I understand his reading properly, then we are learning about the two distinct ritual acts of thanksgiving. One "on the altar," and the other as "covering the blood.”
My thesis is that this reading (about the hunter's ritual) only comes from the work of modern scholarship, like that of Rabbi Schwartz. Talmudic sources, however, require that all animals be ritually slaughtered by a process known as Shechita. In rabbinic law, an arrow wound would render the animal Treifah (a torn or fatally wounded creature) and therefore it would not be Kosher, even if it were followed by Shechitah. The Talmud rejects the notion of hunting as a source of Kosher food.
As hunting became a highly impractical way to procure food, and much more of a sport; hunting, in Jewish sources, consequently came to be regarded as a form of animal cruelty. When Well-known Reform Halachist Rabbi Salomon Freehof (1892-1990) was asked about hunting he simply replied: "Jews don't hunt." As our culture evolved, from one stage to another, and the means of obtaining food changed, our Rabbis and spiritual teachers tried to respond by finding ways to inculcate a sense of holiness, and a means of expressing gratitude concerning both the process of food preparation, and its consumption. They were guided by the notion that the way we relate to eating needs to reflect and enforce the Godliness that lives in all of us!
In conclusion, I would like to share a paragraph of wisdom teaching from the poet Kahlil Gibran:
Speak to us of Eating & Drinking. And he said: Would that you could live on the fragrance of the earth, and like an air plant be sustained by the light. But since you must kill to eat, and rob the newly born of its mother’s milk to quench your thirst, let it be an act of worship.
It's not too late to join us THIS SUNDAY to perform acts of Tikkun Olam (Repairing the World) at our Congregational Mitzvah Day in Memory of Lynn Myers (Z"L).
Yom Hazikaron, Israel's Memorial Day, will be recognized at B'nai Amoona during evening Minyan on Tuesday, May 3 and during morning Minyan, Wednesday May 4.
We also encourage you to join the community-wide commemoration on Tuesday evening, May 3 at 7:00 pm at the JCC Staenberg Family Complex. (MORE INFORMATION HERE)
We will transition from Yom Hazikaron to Yom Ha'atzmaut, Israel's 74th Independence Day, during Wednesday evening Minyan on May 4 and will continue to celebrate at Thursday morning and afternoon Minyanim on May 5.
We invite you to join the community-wide celebration at the JCC Staenberg Family Complex on Thursday, May 5. (REGISTER HERE)
Please click the images below for more information about the community Yom Hazikaron and Yom Ha'atzmaut community events.
In Our Community
WE MOURN THE LOSS OF...
Michael Lewis Holbrook; beloved husband of Beth Frohlichstein; loving father of Jacqueline Holbrook and Daisy (cherished family pet); loved son of Leonard and Patricia Holbrook; dear brother and brother-in-law of Leah (Jonathan) Sackett; grandson of Delores and Francis (Z"L) Saputo and Rita (Z"L) and Leo (Z"L) Holbrook; son-in-law of Dr. Dale and Louise Frohlichstein; dear brother-in-law of David Frohlichstein; uncle to Isabella Gaines and Eliana Frohlichstein. Dear nephew, cousin and friend to everyone he met.
Regular Morning Minyanim Sunday Morning Minyan: 9:00 am Monday - Friday Morning Minyan: 7:00 am In-Person, Zoom, Livestream, and FB Live Zoom Link: https://zoom.us/j/97189645201 Meeting ID: 971 8964 5201 This Zoom link is for all morning Minyan Services
Regular Evening Minyanim
Sunday - Thursday Evening Minyan: 6:15 pm via Zoom, Livestream, and FB Live Zoom Link:https://zoom.us/j/97924715014 Meeting ID: 979 2471 5014 This Zoom link is for all evening Minyan Services
