(כט) וַיֹּ֣אמֶר אֱלֹהִ֗ים הִנֵּה֩ נָתַ֨תִּי לָכֶ֜ם אֶת־כָּל־עֵ֣שֶׂב ׀ זֹרֵ֣עַ זֶ֗רַע אֲשֶׁר֙ עַל־פְּנֵ֣י כָל־הָאָ֔רֶץ וְאֶת־כָּל־הָעֵ֛ץ אֲשֶׁר־בּ֥וֹ פְרִי־עֵ֖ץ זֹרֵ֣עַ זָ֑רַע לָכֶ֥ם יִֽהְיֶ֖ה לְאָכְלָֽה׃ (ל) וּֽלְכָל־חַיַּ֣ת הָ֠אָרֶץ וּלְכָל־ע֨וֹף הַשָּׁמַ֜יִם וּלְכֹ֣ל ׀ רוֹמֵ֣שׂ עַל־הָאָ֗רֶץ אֲשֶׁר־בּוֹ֙ נֶ֣פֶשׁ חַיָּ֔ה אֶת־כָּל־יֶ֥רֶק עֵ֖שֶׂב לְאָכְלָ֑ה וַֽיְהִי־כֵֽן׃
(29) And God said: ‘Behold, I have given you every herb yielding seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed—to you it shall be for food; (30) and to every beast of the earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to every thing that creeps upon the earth, wherein there is a living soul, [I have given] every green herb for food.’ And it was so.
Garments of skin: There are those who say that originally Adam was just bone and flesh and now skin formed over him. And there are those who say "garments for their skin." And others say that there is a beast that looks like man and that God commanded him to shed his skin. But we should not inquire about this, just believe that God made for Adam and his woman garments of skin. And who can tell the greatness of God and who can recount his acts, and there is no way to understand his greatness.
R. Eliezer ben Yaakov said: From the skin of the snake that the snake shed God made for them garments.
(11) The earth became corrupt before God; the earth was filled with lawlessness. (12) When God saw how corrupt the earth was, for all flesh had corrupted its ways on earth, (13) God said to Noah, “I have decided to put an end to all flesh, for the earth is filled with lawlessness because of them: I am about to destroy them with the earth.
(2) The fear and the dread of you shall be upon all the beasts of the earth and upon all the birds of the sky—everything with which the earth is astir—and upon all the fish of the sea; they are given into your hand.(3) Every moving thing that lives shall be for food for you; as the green herb have I given you all. (4) Only flesh with the life inside, which is the blood, you shall not eat.
אמר רב יהודה אמר רב אדם הראשון לא הותר לו בשר לאכילה דכתיב (בראשית א, כט) לכם יהיה לאכלה ולכל חית הארץ ולא חית הארץ לכם וכשבאו בני נח התיר להם שנאמר (בראשית ט, ג) כירק עשב נתתי לכם את כל
יכול לא יהא אבר מן החי נוהג בו ת"ל (בראשית ט, ד) אך בשר בנפשו דמו לא תאכלו
מיתיבי היה ר' יהודה בן תימא אומר אדם הראשון מיסב בגן עדן היה והיו מלאכי השרת צולין לו בשר ומסננין לו יין הציץ בו נחש וראה בכבודו ונתקנא בו
התם בבשר היורד מן השמים
§ Rav Yehuda says that Rav says: Meat was not permitted to Adam, the first man, for consumption, as it is written: “And God said: Behold, I have given you every herb that brings forth seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in which is the fruit of a tree that gives forth seed; for you it shall be for food, and for every animal of the earth” (Genesis 1:29–30) but eating the animals of the earth is not permitted to you. But when the children of Noah came, God permitted them to eat meat; as it is stated: “Every moving thing that lives shall be for food for you; as the green herb I have given you all” (Genesis 9:3).
The Gemara raises an objection from a baraita to the assertion that eating meat was prohibited to Adam: Rabbi Yehuda ben Teima would say: Adam, the first man, would dine in the Garden of Eden, and the ministering angels would roast meat for him and strain wine for him. The snake glanced at him and saw his glory, and was jealous of him, and for that reason the snake incited him to sin and caused his banishment from the Garden. The Gemara answers: There the reference is to meat that descended from heaven, which was created by a miracle and was not the meat of animals at all.
You are permitted to make use of the living creatures and their service, you are allowed to exercise power over them so that they may promote your subsistence; but you may not treat the life force within them contemptuously and slay them in order to eat their flesh; your proper diet shall be vegetable food. It is true that the eating of flesh is not specifically forbidden here, but the prohibition is clearly to be inferred. ...Apparently the Torah seeks to convey that in principle man should refrain from eating meat, and that when Noah and his sons were granted permission to eat flesh, this was only a concession subject to the condition that the blood was not to be consumed. This prohibition implies respect for the principle of life (‘for the blood is the life’), and it serves also... to remind us that rightly all parts of the flesh should have been forbidden. It behooves us, therefore, to eschew eating at least one element thereof in order to remember the earlier prohibition.
Umberto Moshe David Cassuto 1883-1951, Comment on Genesis 1:29 (translated by Israel Abrams)
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According to Rav Kook, because people had sunk to an extremely low level of spirituality (in the time of Noah), it was necessary that they be given an elevated image of themselves as compared to animals, and that they concentrate their efforts into first improving relationships between people. He felt that were people denied permission to eat meat, they might eat the flesh of human beings due to their inability to control their lust for flesh. He regarded the permission to slaughter animals for food as a “transitional tax” or temporary dispensation until a “brighter era” is reached when people would return to vegetarian diets. Perhaps to reinforce the idea that the ideal vegetarian time had not yet arrived, Rav Kook ate a symbolic small amount of chicken on the Sabbath day.
(Richard H. Schwartz, "Rav Kook and Vegetarianism" http://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/rav-kook-vegetarianism/)
(13) And these ye shall have in detestation among the fowls; they shall not be eaten, they are a detestable thing: the great vulture, and the bearded vulture, and the ospray; (14) and the kite, and the falcon after its kinds; (15) every raven after its kinds; (16) and the ostrich, and the night-hawk, and the sea-mew, and the hawk after its kinds; (17) and the little owl, and the cormorant, and the great owl; (18) and the horned owl, and the pelican, and the carrion-vulture; (19) and the stork, and the heron after its kinds, and the hoopoe, and the bat.
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The modern, mechanized, commercial animal factories that process most of the animal flesh we consume utilize methods that transgress the fundamental Jewish principle of “tsa’ar ba’alei chaim” - responding to the suffering of animals - and violate the spirit, if not the letter, of the kosher dietary laws. The contemporary commentator Rabbi Pinchas Peli, in Torah Today, writes that “the laws of kashrut come to teach us that a Jew’s first preference should be a vegetarian meal. If, however, one cannot control a craving for meat,...” the dietary laws should “...serve as a reminder that the animal being eaten is a creature of God, that the death of such a creature cannot be taken lightly, that hunting for sport is forbidden, that we cannot treat any living thing callously, and that we are responsible for what happens to other beings (human or animal) even if we did not personally come into contact with them.” (Rabbi Jonathan Rubenstein, The Jewish World) |