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Back to Question of the Week A few weeks ago, your humble and pious Reb discussed a series of questions dealing with the relationship between ethics and ritual practice, specifically if genetically modified food was kosher. I said at the time that the issue would be put to rest for a while, but then I got an e-mail from Jennifer, raising the issue of kosher slaughter. . . . Q: I'm curious about the issue of ethics in kashrut [laws of keeping kosher] in light of a rumour on a Conservative mailing list I read that the RA [Rabbinical Assembly- the association of Conservative rabbis] is considering legislating against the "hoist and shackle" method of slaughtering animals. To me, this seems like an ethical ideal, and I'm concerned that they feel it should cross over to become part of the halachic ideal. I am also concerned that the RA is adding "stringencies" when people in Conservative congregations aren't really adhering to the basics yet, halachically. Jennifer |
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A: Oy, oy, I thought I wasn't going to get dragged kicking and screaming into the issue of ethics and ritual again- then I thinks to myself, "wait a minute, I'm the Reb on the Web, if I don't discuss difficult Jewish issues in an educational and pluralistic way, then who will ?!?" OK, so let's define the issue here, and bring the other members of the cyber-hevre up to date. According to a verse in the Torah, meat may not be eaten "with the blood." (Leviticus 17:10-13) Thus, animals which are killed for food in a Jewish context are slaughtered by having an extremely sharp knife drawn across the blood vessels of the neck; this leads to an almost instant and very painless death, and also allows the blood to drain out. The problem is not so much in kosher slaughter but in North American hygienic regulations, which (quite properly) insist that slaughterhouses raise the animals up so that they do not fall on the floor or come into contact with the blood of previously killed animals. The way many slaughterhouses used to do this is called, as Jennifer noted, "shackle and hoist." It involves lifting the animal up by its hind leg so that when it is killed, it cannot come into contact with the floor or anything else. Animals killed for the general market are stunned unconscious before being shackled up, but animals to be killed in a kosher manner are not, because the stunning causes the blood to congeal, making it harder to drain out, which would be unkosher. Thus, when animals are "shackled and hoisted," they are lifted up while conscious, which is considered by many to be cruel, because their legs often break and tear. OK, everybody vegetarians by now? I sure am, have been for 18 years. The good news is that most slaughterhouses do not use "shackle and hoist" methods anymore, because more humane pens have been designed which lift the animal up in a kind of wire cage, painless until the end. In fact, according to my colleague Rabbi Roy Tanenbaum, of Beth Tzedec Congregation, no slaughterhouses in Canada use this method. However, in the USA, a few still do, and thus the Conservative rabbis are considering a ruling that would declare this method of slaughter unacceptable for kosher observers. (I briefly checked the website of the Reform rabbinate for similar discussions but did not find any in my admittedly unexhaustive search.) What concerns Jennifer is that this will merely add stringencies to an already difficult area of Jewish observance. Perhaps she's right, but perhaps the rabbis need to make a moral stand that unnecessary cruelty to animals is not consistent with Jewish values. To put it another way, if the Conservative rabbis make such a declaration (which they haven't done yet), they will be saying that ritual law and ethical law are at least sometimes intrinsically linked, and that kashrut as a spiritual practice makes no sense if it violates our moral standards. One the other hand, as Jennifer noted, maybe we should in fact make a distinction between ethical ideals- never eating meat killed in an inhuman way- versus standards of ritual behavior- which in this case would be leaving the technicalities of kosher slaughter as they are. Personally, I'm in favor of the Conservative rabbinate coming out against "shackle and hoist" methods- as well as other morally problematic aspects of factory farming- because I think we need to show that Judaism has something challenging to say about all aspects of our lives; kosher isn't just a set of rules but a consciousness one develops. Now, one may remember that a few weeks ago, I seemed to be arguing for the opposite viewpoint: I said that I thought that kashrut seemed separate from genetic engineering, for example, even if genetically modified food was a really bad idea. To me- this is only the Reb's 2 shekels- the cases seem different because the way the animal is slaughtered is central to the rules of kashrut; if that part is not ethically up to snuff, then it seems one could question the whole enterprise. For two more opinions on this very question, check out our Hot Topic of the Month, and tell us what you think in our interactive discussion forum! NJL chevre: group, colleagues, peers (Not to be confused with the
goat cheese of the same name). |
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