Is vegetarianism practical? Is it healthy? Is it based on sound moral principles embodied in the Bible and in other writings? This book says yes, and it backs its point of view with a wide range of references to religious and scientific sources. Thoroughly researched and prepared in consultation with scientific authorities. With citations from the fields of anthropology, psychology, medicine, and nutrition, it explains the vegetarian way of "hallowing the everyday," demonstrating that vegetarianism is endorsed by Holy Scripture as an ethical-philosophical stance of great moral value. An appendix simplifies such key vegetarian principles as protein-balancing, discusses vegetarian meal-planning, offers original recipes, and separates food fads and fashions from scientifically established principles. A rabbi expresses a traditional Jewish attitude toward vegetarianism in the following words: "For a Jew to adopt vegetarianism because he objects to killing animals for food is to introduce a moral and theological idea which suggests that Judaism has, in fact been wrong all the time in not advocating vegetarianism. How do you answer that? The sages agree that man was created as a vegetarian, and it is prophesied that in the time of the Messiah man will return to vegetarianism ("The lion will eat straw like the ox"). In the Bible therefore, it may be said, vegetarianism is held up as an ideal, even though the Jews were permitted to slaughter grazing (vegetarian!) animals in prescribed ways because man seemed to have an unquenchable craving for meat. The Temple sacrifice system may be regarded, in part, as an act of atonement for violating God's rule of compassion for all living things. Our times differ from the days of the Bible, and some of these differences raise the question as to whether we still need this permission to slaughter animals. Modern biochemistry tells us how to satisfy man's nutritional needs completely without the use of meat, so that the physiological craving for meat is no longer a problem. Modern medicine tells us with increasing clarity that meat-eating does not favor the preservation of life. Vegetarianism points toward a solution to the world hunger problem, a phenomenon of our times which the Biblical ethic cannot let us ignore. In a world of change, Judaism may have to change in order to be true to its traditional values. But Judaism has not "been wrong all the time" any more than the findings of biochemistry have been known all the time, or that meat has contained questionable additives and contaminants all the time.
by Louis A. Berman