re’eh
parasha re’eh, deuteronomy chapters 11—15
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Re’eh
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Buckle up, friends. This is a long one. But it goes somewhere. Somewhere joyful…
The last few parashot have been about hearing.
Sound.
Hear, O Israel… Speak these words…
Our God is a God to be heard. We heard God’s voice at Mount Sinai.
We’re told to listen, that we may hear the still small voice.
The universe was brought into being with sound. Only after the initial vibration, the first note was heard, was there light by which one could see.
Our God is without physical form. Without image. Unseen.
After being told to hear, now we’re being told to see. See the two mountains, a visual representation of the blessing and the curse.
See the words written on the engraved stones. See the words covered over—still there, but unseen.
Because even as we’re being told to see, it’s only to get our attention that we might listen.
Listen so that we can hear the blessings and hear the curse. Hear and choose.
It’s not the first time that we’ve been bidden to choose.
Let’s go all the way back to the beginning, to Adam and Eve. Choosing was pretty much the first thing they did. God plopped an exceptionally beautiful, delicious-looking tree in the garden, and said, “Don’t eat the fruit of that tree.” They saw, and what they saw was appealing.
And if that wasn’t enough temptation, God teased them by telling them a truth. It was a truth they couldn’t fully understand, but what they heard was even more enticing than what they saw.
Eat that fruit and you’ll have the ability to know good from evil. Eat that fruit and you’ll be unlike any other creature. Eat that fruit and you’ll be able to live outside the boundaries of your proscribed nature.
Take that fruit and choose free will.
Free will is both a blessing and a curse.
Life would have been so easy if we’d chosen differently. But if we had, our relationship with God would not have been all that different from the relationship that rocks, trees, and cats have with God.
God was banking on us choosing free will. It was the only way God could have a truly genuine relationship with us. Even if God had given us free will, it wouldn’t have worked. We had to choose to have free will. That choice is what gives the relationship value. It’s messy, but it’s real. Our lives are fraught from cradle to grave, but in every moment, we have the freedom to choose.
Among the things we can, and do, choose is our food. And the arguments between the different camps can get ugly. I’m talking about…
To meat or not to meat. That is the question.
Flippant meat eaters and militant vegetarians can be equally annoying. Each of us is on our own journey, and I think we need to respect where others are, on their personal path.(Although I suppose the militant phase is also part of the journey.)
In my family there are a lot of vegetarians, and plenty of omnivores as well. I try to consider everyone’s choices when planning a meal. Personally, I’ve gone back and forth with this issue for most of my life. I don’t pass judgement.
With that said, I’d like to objectively explore the question from the perspective of Jewish teachings. What to eat, and when and how to eat, are issues that come up over and over in the Torah. Since Parasha Re’eh has a lot to say on the matter, this might be a good time to talk about it.
In the very first chapter of Beresheet, God tells us, "Behold, I have given you every seed-bearing herb, which is upon the surface of the entire earth, and every tree that has seed bearing fruit; it will be yours for food.”
It isn’t until after the Great Flood that God says, “And your fear and your dread shall be upon all the beasts of the earth and upon all the fowl of the heaven; upon everything that creeps upon the ground and upon all the fish of the sea, [for] they have been given into your hand[s]. Every moving thing that lives shall be yours to eat; like the green vegetation, I have given you everything.”
What changed? Why were we now permitted to eat meat?
Let’s go back again. Before the flood, although we weren’t allowed to take the lives of animals for food, we were permitted, even encouraged, to slaughter animals for sacrifice. We could take an animal’s life in order to devote it to God—raising it to a higher state— but not for our own benefit. Some sages have said that humans were permitted to eat an animal that had died on its own, leading one to conclude that the rule against killing them for food was born out of compassion for them.
Nachmanides points out that we are permitted to eat the flesh of an animal, but we are not permitted to derive benefit from its soul. That’s why we’re forbidden to eat its blood.
It’s said that before the Great Flood, the earth was in a holier state. Only the humans were corrupt; the flora and fauna were in perfect harmony with God.
So, perhaps, and this is my own thought, after the flood the animals and the growing things were angry with God for destroying them, and they pulled away from God, weakening that perfect connection and thereby reducing their spiritual status.
Rabbis and sages and sagely rabbis love to explore multiple answers to questions that present themselves.
Rambam, and others, teach that it was justice that brought about the change in our diet —the animals only survived the flood because of Noah and his family’s efforts. Because they owed them their lives, they and their descendants now had rights over them. Those rights included the right to eat them.
R. Hirsch takes a practical approach—he points out that after the flood the world shifted on its axis to its current angle and rotation—now, there were seasons. Humans would multiply and spread out over colder regions of the globe. Since there’d be times when the earth would be unproductive, humans would need meat to survive.
Abarbanel teaches—again practical— that when Noah and his family came out of the ark, the vegetation had not yet grown back, so they were allowed meat, and that held for all time.
Here's another, more esoteric teaching: Morality had sunk so low before the flood that people had started behaving like animals. Cain’s offering was of grain—he saw animals as equal to human, giving us no right to kill them, not even for the service of God. That initially may sound like a good position to take, but the mind can twist things around, and what seems good can, with logic, be transformed into evil. When Cain saw his brother sacrifice an animal, when he saw that God favored Able’s offering, it seemed to him that if animals could rightfully be killed, killing humans could be equally justifiable. Therefore, it’s important that we don’t see animals as our equals.
Noah’s children would press reset on the human race. Generation by generation, the descendants of Noah would slowly grow spiritually, culminating in the births of our patriarchs and matriarchs, who were the first, since the flood, to discover God. This spiritual climb increased the difference between animals and humans.
I’ve often questioned my right to eat meat, to take the life of an animal for my pleasure. But, and this is something I’ve always known intrinsically, everything has consciousness. Can we say for certain that a carrot doesn’t scream when we pull it from the ground, simply because we can’t hear it? Carbon-based life forms exist on this plane by consuming other carbon-based life forms. We might want to take that up with the Designer, but that’s where it’s at.
A Chassidic master taught that when a person mindlessly walks, the ground thinks, “what right has this person to tread on me?” When we live only for our own pleasure and our own benefit, we don’t have a right to eat meat, or to step on a blade of grass.
Kabbalah teaches that the souls of animals, plants, and rocks are higher than the souls of humans. At the shattering of the vessels, the higher elements fell the lowest in the way that when a building crumbles, the stones at the top fall further from the base than the stones below them. But, although the souls of animals, plants, and rocks are higher than ours, their condition is static. They can only behave each according to its nature. We are the only creations that have the ability to choose to reach higher, to free the holy sparks and repair the world.
I’ve always thought along the same lines, and I’ve expressed it this way—animals, plants, and minerals are perfect in that they behave exactly as they should, in the way they were designed. An iguana is generally much better at being an iguana than most humans are at being human. It’s all about that pesky free will that we chose to have.
Humans have the right to eat, the right to breathe the air, to drink the water, and to tread on the earth only when we do so with mindfulness.
We absorb these elements into ourselves and they nourish us, give us strength, enabling us to do good or evil. When we elevate ourselves by doing good, we elevate the souls of those elements that we’ve consumed.
So, should we choose to eat meat? When a higher life form consumes a spiritually lower one, the soul of the lower one has the potential to be elevated. The Talmud states that only a Torah scholar should eat meat, meaning animals should only be consumed when it will raise their souls.
Re’eh talks about the desire to eat meat. We don’t need meat to live. Those who eat meat do so for pleasure. If that pleasure is of a base nature, we do nothing for the soul of the animal. We’ve simply taken its life. On the surface, that sounds like not such a good thing.
The general implication in our culture is that going after pleasure, fulfilling our desires, is a bad thing.
Freud talks of the id, the pleasure principle. The id has no morals, no filter. The id just wants. The inference is that the id is a naughty child that requires the ego to mediate between it and the super-ego, the parent, that tells the id, “no.”
But, what if the id were actually holy? Could it be that the id is the vehicle that’s meant to take the ego and super-ego on a journey to a higher plane?
The body may desire meat for the sake of pleasure, but it’s really the soul that’s desiring joy and sending a message to the body. The soul desires meat in order to elevate the Divine Sparks within it, and it hopes that the body will receive the message ungarbled.
When we do things that give us pleasure, not hedonistically, but with the right mindset, with kavanah, with intention, we’re performing a holy act. Hence, lovemaking with the right person is a mitzvah and lovemaking on Shabbat is a double mitzvah. Eating meat can be the same, especially when it’s reserved for special times.
God wants us to live joyfully, mindfully joyfully. That’s what honors our creator. When we’re filled with joy in the right way, we’re filled with love of God. It’s that love that makes us cling to God, brings us closer to God.
We all desire different things. Living joyfully means different things to different people, and I think that’s fine.
So the answer to the question, to meat or not to meat, is a personal one. It depends upon how you’re inclined to look at it.
Austerity is not the way to go. No one like a sourpuss, not even God. We can choose to live as a nazarite as a means to spiritual growth, but only temporarily. When we dance, when we sing, when we make a joyful noise, when we’re loving God with all our heart and soul, doing mitzvot with the thrill of knowing that we’re pleasing our beloved, we elevate ourselves—body, mind, and spirit—and everything we’ve taken into ourselves gets to come along for the ride.
The Torah says Noah walked with God. That’s fine. That’s good.
But how much better is it to skip with God, to dance with God!
So what shall we eat?
“Praise God with the call of the shofar! Praise God with the harp and the lyre! Praise God with timbrel and dance! Praise God with flute and strings! Praise God with crashing cymbals! Praise God with rousing cymbals! Let every breath be praise of God; All of creation Praises God!”
Let’s rejoice with music and delight our souls with a few delicacies—whether you choose to eat meat or you abstain.
I’m going to get a bit whimsical here. Each menu item relates to a song title.
There’s always wine on our Shabbat table, with grape juice for the kids, even after the kiddush. The only other beverage we serve is ice water. But on this Shabbat, we’re going to live it up with a refreshing Coconut Water Limeade. We’ll put the (freshly squeezed) lime in the coconut, and add a touch of simple syrup and a splash of fizzy water, and serve it ice cold for a thirst-quenching treat. Thank you, Harry Nilsson, for the “Coconut” song.
A bright salad is going to start the meal. Baby spinach, fresh strawberries, and spiced pecans, lightly dressed with an apple vinaigrette, will make you want to stay with the “Fab Four” in “Strawberry Fields Forever.” (swap out the pecans for walnuts if you, like my daughter, hate pecans.)
Instead of putting “Beans in My Ears,” as intoned by Pete Seeger, I’m going to put them into a silky smooth bean soup, enhanced with fresh herbs and finished with a shaving of black truffle. If the truffle is a bit too much of a delicacy for you, a swirl of truffle oil will be lovely as well.
This elegant Beef Brisket Braised in Red Wine tastes like it might have come from a Parisian bistro. It takes Harry Champion’s “Boiled Beef and Carrots” to a whole new place. Tender carrots and turnips, dried prunes and figs, and a dash of orange liqueur combine with beef stock, tomatoes, and red wine to create the most extraordinary sauce.
Did The Strawberry Alarm Clock envision this gorgeous Mushroom Wellington when they recorded “Rainy Day Mushroom Pillow?” We’ll never know. But one bite of this, and even the meat-eaters will be singing. This recipe is not mine; it’s from the British food writer and chef Elaine Lemm, as posted on The Spruce Eats. The sauce in her recipe contains dairy, so if you’re making this with a meat meal or you need it to be vegan, a few changes will need to be made. You could make a completely different sauce, or use this cashew cream instead of the dairy cream in the recipe. It’s amazing what these little crescents can be used for. Just follow this recipe and add the rosemary from the original recipe.
1 cup raw cashews
1 teaspoon salt
1 large clove garlic, chopped
1/8 teaspoon coarsely ground pepper
In a small bowl, cover the cashews with hot water. Let them soak for 30 minutes, then drain them and discard the soaking water. Combine the soaked cashews with the rest of the ingredients in a blender. Add 1 ½ cups fresh cold water and blend until very smooth. Store the cashew cream in a jar in the fridge until you’re ready to use it in your recipe.
Make the Brisket or the Wellington, or make both!
You’ll want to get up and dance, belting out The Ronnettes ’”Mashed Potato,” when you dip your fork into these fluffy spuds. Add a beet and add extra flavor and nutrition. They’ll complement either the brisket or the Wellington perfectly, and will perhaps, with a little help from Chappell Roan, make you think of “Pink Skies.” Just follow my recipe for pareve mashed potatoes and add a diced beet. Simmer the potatoes and onion with the beet until the beet is very soft and continue on with the recipe.
And finally, Fats Domino will take us home to “Blueberry Hill.” You’ll no doubt find your thrill with this easy, warm, and delicious blueberry crumble, bursting with fresh berries and cinnamon, made even better with a little help from Neil Young’s “Cinnamon Girl.”
I’d like to keep going. Perhaps an appetizer of a few wings smothered in a smoky sweet red onion marmalade for Billie Eilish’s “Birds of a Feather” would be a nice addition…but really, how much can we eat?