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Back to Question of the Week Q: Dear Rabbi : This is a question about Kashruth [dietary laws] and the practice of hunting. This is not a practice that I take part in (I don't think I could harm a fly) but presumably at somepoint in time our people hunted for food. My partial understanding of Kosher meat is that a shochet ritually slaughters the animal by cutting the jugular veins in the neck so as to inflict the least possible pain and distress to the animal and to drain the carcass of blood. The meat is prepared according to custom with salt and it is certified as clean. The question relates to how wild game could be both hunted and Kosher at the same time? Is it possible? Best regards, Dan |
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A: Dear Dan: You are both informed and perceptive in detecting a problem with Jews and hunting. Your description of schechita- Jewish ritual slaughter- is essentially accurate, though it should be clarified that "clean" as you use it above means drained of blood and checked for lesions or disease. Furthermore, an animal which has died- or which will die- from something other than the ritual slaughter is called a treifa, or sometimes just treif, which means "torn," and is considered not kosher by those who observe traditional Jewish dietary laws. (The word "treif" is often used as shorthand or slang to mean all food considered not kosher.) According to The Jewish Encyclopedia of Moral and Ethical Issues, hunting for sport was considered cruel even as early as the Talmud (around 200-500 C.E.), and certainly prohibited by rabbinic authorities after that as a violation of tza'ar baalei chaim, which is a general prohibition on causing unnecessary suffering to living creatures. (See the entry under "Animals" for more details.) So there are several interesting observations to make in regards to your question about hunting. First, hunting is clearly known in the Bible; Esav, brother of Yaakov, is described as a hunter, and he brings his game to his father Yitzhak to eat. (See Genesis 27 for the full story.) Yet one could make a historical argument that the earlier stories reflected a time before the dietary laws were known to the Jewish people, or you could point out that Esav, among others, is hardly regarded as an exemplary character, and just because somebody did it doesn't mean it's permissible later. One could also point out that the laws of kashrut limit the kinds of animals that can be eaten anyway, and thus must have reduced the appeal of hunting for wild animals which couldn't be eaten. There does seems to be one permissive reference to hunting in the Torah, in Leviticus 17:13, but traditionally this has been understood to mean trapping an animal live and unharmed, possibly for kosher slaughter later. On the other hand, just because an animal is prohibited as food doesn't mean that it is prohibited for other uses. For example, I think the ancient rabbis probably had no problem with hunting animals for their furs; this would not be considered not sport hunting, which was seen as cruel and wasteful, but hunting with a permissible, constructive purpose. One could definitely argue that in the year 2000, when so many good fabrics are made from non-animal sources, that there could be no good reason to hunt at any time anymore. (Similar reasoning is employed by those who argue for the elimination of the farming of fur-bearing animals; this is not an unreasonable reading of Jewish sources.) We've discussed issues pertaining to animals and kosher slaughter quite a bit in this cyber-column; for links to past Reb columns, please return to our archives. NJL |
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