blogs/rabbi-huberman

The Ethics of Our Food

About forty years ago, I left my home and my family in suburban Montreal to chase my dream to become a newspaper reporter in the northern Canadian community of Fort McMurray.

I was no more than a boy.

To that point, I had lived only in a kosher Orthodox household.  It was the only way I knew how to eat.

One day, living in the basement of a home in Fort McMurray which also housed a number of oil workers, someone suggested that we all venture into the woods and hunt for deer or moose that weekend.

Being twenty-three at the time, the idea was idealistically appealing.  After all, to that point I really had no personal contact with the food I consumed. I shopped at the local Safeway, and ordered meat from a kosher butcher located two hundred and seventy miles away. 

Hunting for my own food seemed to me to link with personal responsibility. 

So, I called my father for advice. "Dad," I said. "Some of the guys are going out hunting this weekend. Is there a kosher way to kill a moose?"

There was a long silence on the phone. 

"Jewish boys shouldn't live far away from kosher butchers," he said.  

"Come home."

I never did go hunting that day, but the idea of meat and how it is procured, prepared, packaged and purchased remained on my mind.

These days, we are far removed from our food sources. We gather frozen packages from grocery store freezers. It rarely occurs to us that what these packages contain part of a once living and breathing creature of God.

The consumption of meat is something most of us ignore: better to block out thoughts of slaughter and suffering. Yet this week's Torah portion inspires us to pause for a moment and reflect about the food we eat, and what it says about us.

Most major world religions provide some restrictions regarding what we can or can't eat.  At the heart of these prohibitions is the concept that "we are what we eat."

We are told this week not to eat predators such as the vulture, the raven, the falcon or the eagle. The Torah perhaps is telling us that there is no place at our table - the altar from which our body is nurtured - for birds which flourish upon the demise of others.

In a world looking for spiritual meaning, does the idea of paying attention to the basic habits and identity of what we eat make any sense?

I believe it does.

In ancient times, long before the mass production of food, men and women enjoyed a direct relationship with the animals they raised.  Therefore, consuming a lamb, calf, or chicken was in some way personal.

But not today.  We are completely detached from the identity of what we eat - and I believe that affects our understanding of traditional Jewish food laws.

Yet, there are so many within Judaism who are not only looking to observe the laws of Kashrut, but to expand them as well.

And it's not just how animals are slaughtered.

About ten years ago, a series of charges were laid against owners of one of the largest kosher slaughterhouses in the United States.

The allegations, which ultimately led to a series of convictions, stated that owners of a kosher Midwest meat facility mistreated animals, employed illegal and underage workers, forged immigration documents, and polluted the environment.

Was the meat produced by this producer still kosher?

Many rabbis said "yes," but many others disagreed, arguing that kashrut involves the ethical path our food follows.

More specifically, should we be holding the producers of meat, and other food products to the highest standards of ethical, environmental, and humanitarian conduct?

This too is part of the kosher code.

Many use social media to monitor and spread the word of the labor practices of sweatshops in Europe, Africa and Asia.  Many of us ask how much money did the worker on the assembly line make so that we could purchase a cheap set of headphones or a toilet plunger at the local dollar store.

But perhaps in this world of fast food, microwaveable meals, and hot dogs made from questionable animal parts, we need to rethink this whole subject as it relates to ethical conduct and spirituality.

This week's Torah portion lays out restrictions regarding what we eat.  We may assume that pork is prohibited because of a pig's unclean habits.  Shellfish dwell and eat from what is deposited on the ocean floor.

Perhaps we are forbidden from mixing milk and meat because the Torah saw the immorality of cooking a baby goat in the milk of its own mother.

It is a fact of life serving as a rabbi of a modern Jewish congregation that the vast majority of members regard the idea of kashrut as partly or fully outdated.

But maybe we're missing the point.

Indeed, a company's labor, environmental, and other ethical practices should be considered along with the manner in which it was slaughtered.

For me, the laws of kashrut still make sense.  They remind me to think about what I'm eating, and how it got to my plate. And as was the case during this recent Passover week, dietary restrictions remind us that -- as entitled consumers -- we cannot consume anything, anytime, anywhere we want.

The word kosher actually means "proper."  Therefore let us ensure from all perspectives that the food we eat is proper. 

About a year ago, Rabbi Shmuly Yanklowitz, founder of Uri L'Tzedek, the Orthodox social justice movement launched a petition encouraging clergy and those they serve to pressure major certifiers of kosher products to include within their ritual inspection standards, ethical considerations as well.

The petition read: "Laws relating to ethical matters, such as the just treatment of workers, the compassionate treatment of animals, and dealing in business with integrity, while distinct from the laws of kashrut, are mandated by halachaand consequential to all God-fearing Jews."

Noted Rabbi Yanklowitz, "We're not telling agencies what their standards should be - we're just asking for each kosher certification agency to put together an ethics policy, so consumers know what behaviors cross the line."

This is the week within our Torah reading cycle in which so many rabbis and other spiritual leaders turn their sights and their sermons away from the topic of sacrifices and kashrut.  It's an uncomfortable and often alienating issue.

Yet within a world so thirsty for spiritual meaning, perhaps we need to review and renew our focus sacred on eating, and commit ourselves to a more holistic and spiritual approach.

I encourage you to Google a number of sources which discuss the inclusion of ethical considerations within not only kosher foods, but all items we consume.

The ethical kashrut movement is progressing very slowly. But as a new generation rises -- fuelled by social media and a strong sense of justice and spirituality - I believe a time will come when Judaism will more closely examine and ultimately expand what we deem truly "kosher."

I may never actually shoot a kosher moose, but I can take responsibility for the food I consume.

And may it be so for all of us.  Indeed, kosher is not a restriction, but rather it can be a holistic gateway towards a more ethical, spiritual and centered life.

Shabbat shalom, v'kol tuv (with all goodness)

Rabbi Irwin Huberman