What does it mean to say food is kosher when the animals that give us nourishment are raised as commodities with little concern for their welfare as living creatures?

Rabbi N. Daniel Korobkin
Beth Avraham Yoseph Congregation, Toronto

Rabbi Lisa Grushcow
Temple Emanu-El-Beth Sholom, Montreal

Rabbi Korobkin: Over this past Sukkot, I started a conversation in our shul that resonated with some and left others scratching their heads. It’s the topic of “factory farming” – the concern that a large part of our protein food supply, throughout North America, is coming from animals that are raised under factory conditions. 

Instead of cows being allowed to graze, they are penned up in extremely confined spaces. Hens are boosted with hormones in order to mature faster and produce more eggs. Today, animals that provide us with food – either through their meat, or from their milk or eggs – are raised as commodities with little concern for their welfare as living creatures. 

How should we in the Jewish community react to this reality?

Rabbi Grushcow: I think it’s a real issue. What does it mean to say food is kosher when it is produced in such environments? 

We need to be concerned about the welfare of the animals, and of the people working in these environments as well. Good work is being done on developing kashrut certification that takes ethics into account, but it’s not yet widely available. I look forward to the day when I won’t have to choose between kosher and organic meat. Kashrut is a primary value for me, but I have concerns about what’s under the label.
 

Meanwhile, there are things we can do. There’s a great book called The Sacred Table, which looks at food from a liberal Jewish perspective, and can spark communal conversations on the topic, or even just help us figure out our own choices. Also, our synagogue has become a pick-up location for Lufa Farms, a sustainable source of produce. It’s a small step, but offers one way of broadening the conversation about food beyond the question of kashrut. 

Rabbi Korobkin: Hold on. We both agree that the moral and ethical treatment of animals, and the workers who deal with animals, is important to us as Jews, and that’s why I raised the issue. But to conflate the issues of kashrut and ethical behaviour is, I believe, a mistake. 

By expanding the meaning of “kosher” to include anything that conforms to the cause célèbre of the day, you end up eventually diluting it into nothingness. The Torah prescribes the kosher laws for reasons that are largely metaphysical. While keeping kosher, we also should observe the mitzvah of tza’ar baalei chayim, treating animals with kindness and compassion and not inflicting gratuitous pain upon them. 

But it shouldn’t be confused with kashrut. After all, milk and eggs don’t need to be certified kosher, but the cows and hens that produce them need to be cared for properly.

Rabbi Grushcow:  Absolutely, something can be technically kosher without any ethical standards at all. Ethics and holiness are separate categories that do not always overlap. But this brings us to the fundamental question of the purpose of kashrut.

For millennia, our commentators have debated whether we observe kashrut simply because it is commanded by God or whether there is a meaning behind each of the laws. Philo, for example, a Jewish philosopher in the first century CE, developed a series of interpretations that explained why some animals were forbidden, based on the idea that we wouldn’t want to ingest their qualities. 

Both these positions are valid. But we have to remember that many Jews do not follow kashrut at all, most likely because the practice holds no meaning for them. Why not, then, follow the voices from our tradition that look to find meaning in what we eat and don’t eat? Rather than diluting the practice of kashrut, this deepens it.

It seems to me that at the essence of kashrut is the claim that God cares about what we eat, that what we put into our bodies matters. Should this not include our ethical concerns? 

An honest Jewish conversation about the food we eat has to go beyond the categories of what is permitted and what is forbidden. Our sages taught that the home is a mikdash me’at, a miniature sanctuary, and our tables should be as holy as the altar. I think you started an important conversation. Let’s bring our values to the table.