D’var Torah by David B. Brooks at Adath Shalom Cong. In Ottawa, Canada (22Jan2021)

PARASHAT BO
(middle section of triennial cycle; second d’var by David Brooks on Bo)
Shemot 11:4 to 12:28
Starts on page:  *** Hertz; 379; Eitz Hayim; 451 Plaut

Our sedrah today is the middle portion of Parashah Bo in Shemoth (Exodus), which in the triennial cycle begins with 11:4 and extends to 12:28. The Parashah focuses on the tenth plague, the killing of the first born of all Egyptian families and of their cattle--and therefore it is also the first Pesach (Passover).

There is a lot going on in Parashat Bo, but I will focus on a single issue: Jewish vegetarianism and veganism. Some years ago I talked on the same parashah and on the same subject.  However, at that time I connected it directly with Pesach. Today, climate change is a close second to COVID-19 in our minds, and you can find a good reference to climate change in the October 2020 issue of The Jerusalem Report. I will assume that each of you is interested in climate change because I really have enough to say just with vegetarianism and veganism. 

If you are thinking that this d’var may be more political than religious, you are right. Therefore, to maintain the tradition of full disclosure, I can state that I would be quite content to live with an ovo-lacto vegetarian diet--that is, one that allows eggs and milk products.  However, I do not think that I would be content with a vegan diet, which does not allow any animal products at all. Even with that admission, I have to admit that, when looking at a golden kosher chicken breast at a Friday night dinner, I have been known to assert that on Shabbat chickens become vegetables.

Back to Parashat Bo; there is a lot of emphasis on eating a lamb as the main dish of the first Pesach meal.  What was a Jewish vegetarian living in Egypt at that time to do? Unfortunately, the answer appears to be that he or she had no choice but to eat some lamb.  This is surprising because, despite the later emphasis on animal sacrifices, vegetarianism seems to be the Jewish ideal.  Human beings were not even given permission to eat meat until after the flood. Part of the symbolism of the flood is G/d coming to terms with the weakness of human beings, hence giving in on some of His initial restrictions, and in this case the symbolism overcame the respect for nature.  Also, according to Tz'enah Ur'enah (Shemot, 349), the lamb was both holy to the Egyptians and 
the constellation for the month of Nissan. The point of eating lamb was both to show disdain for the gods of the Egyptians and to emphasize to the Israelites that their redemption came from G/d, not from some astrological power.

Let’s turn to modern times.  It is now widely accepted that food systems are responsible for 35 to 40 percent of all greenhouse gas emissions.  In New Zealand, an agricultural country, the figure is 50 percent.  Worse yet, in animal husbandry, a large part of those emissions is methane, which has a global warming potential more than 80 times greater than carbon dioxide over a period of 20 years after emission.  The main sources of those emissions are 1) the high level of beef consumption in western nations and 2) the shift to industrial forms of animal husbandry in the same countries. Not too far behind beef as climate change problems are parallel changes with dairies and milk products. I don’t know how many of you have visited the St-Albert Cheese Coop about an hour’s drive east of Ottawa. They boast that their annual production would fill four Olympic swimming pools. In today’s world, that plant is a pipsqueak, and it continues to exist only because of Federal protection of the dairy industry.

I could go on with more statistics, but few of you would remember them after my d’var. Instead, here are some statements from the United Nations Food & Agriculture Organization and from non-governmental organizations such as the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy:

•	The United States, Canada, China, European Union, and three other western countries are responsible for 60% of the world’s livestock emissions though they are only 15% of the world’s population. 

•	The industrial model of production with long supply chains has not only contributes to increasing emissions as a result of land-use changes but also to biodiversity loss, nitrate pollution, dead zones, and an increase of diseases that pass from animals to human beings.

•	Together, the world’s top five meat and dairy corporations now emit more green-
house gases than Exxon, Shell or BP.

•	On 25 March 2014, top executives of the Brazilian firm JBS, the world’s largest producer of meat, were in New York to celebrate the year's profits.  However, they had a more important message for Wall Street: global meat consumption is going up with a projected 30 percent increase in per capita global meat consumption by 2030.

•	Finally, lest you think that food production takes up all my attention as a villain of climate change, a 2020 report entitled The Production Gap reveals that most governments still plan to produce fossil fuels in excess of  levels consistent with the Paris Agreement to limit temperature rise to 1.5 degrees. 

It would take more than a d’var to discuss how we can work against industrial agriculture. However, what we can discuss is the role of diets. Studies suggest that if, instead of increasing meat consumption as suggested by JBS, we cut it in half, we would still meet nutritional needs, while reducing the climate contribution of the meat sector by more than half. Obviously, a more vegetarian diet has much to recommend it.  Equally obviously, it is not poor countries that have to do most of the reduction in meat eating but the rich ones, such as Canada.

What about Jewish vegetarianism?  First, we should recognize that it is not a new phenomenon. A Jewish vegetarian cook book was published in Vilnius in 1938, and Wikipedia has a sizeable entry on Jewish vegetarianism. Second, in 2017, a statement encouraging veganism for all Jews was signed by a number of notable rabbis, including Daniel Sperber, David Wolpe, Elyse Goldstein, and Shefa Gold.  Third, other rabbis who either were vegetarian or who have urged vegetarianism include Irving Greenberg, Joseph  Soloveitchik, Abraham Isaac Kook, and the late Jonathan Sacks.  Finally, Israel has the highest per capita percentage of vegans in the world (about 5 percent).
Recently, The Jerusalem Report (09 November 2020) published an article entitled, “Chronicling the Jewish Vegan Revolution.” It describes the lifelong effort by Richard Schwartz to promote vegetarian and vegan diets among Jews. Starting from various Talmudic precepts and his own books, Schwartz has brought climate change to first place in his recent book entitled Vegan Revolution: Saving our World & Revitalizing Judaism. He is not afraid of statements about our ancestors eating meat, or about animal sacrifices in our history. In answer, he points out that animals used to run free in pastures or open country, grazed on grass, and were slaughtered only for special occasions. Concern for the animals is something that Schwartz comes back to often. He has written that “in view of the horrible conditions under which almost all animals are raised today, Jews who eat meat are in effect supporting a system contrary to their Jewish principles and obligations.”
What more needs be said other than they are also leading to the wholesale destruction of ecosystems as vast as the Pantanal in Brazil.  Here is one final easy-to-remember comparison from The Jerusalem Report article on climate change that I mentioned earlier: Eating meat is like driving a large SUV; eating a vegetarian diet is like shifting to a hybrid; and eating a vegan diet is like riding a bicycle.
Shabbat shalom,