Re'eh: The Cruelty Of Being A Vegetarian

Hi, it's David Lanski with the Parsha in 5, where in 5 minutes we try to give you some insight into the Parsha. And the Gamara discusses a very interesting topic. And that is a topic that is in this week's Parsha. It is called Basa Taiva. What does that mean? Basa Taiva, literally the meat of desire. So, there's a machlokes in the Gamara whether in the midbar, the 40 years they were in the desert, they were allowed to eat basa taiva. Or were they only allowed to eat carbonais? So, let's say you were in the mood for a steak. Yeah? So, you'd take your cow, or you would take your sheep, or you would take your goat. I haven't met anyone yet who's had goat. I've I've been very curious about this. I can't eat sheep, a lamb, cuz it it smells like an animal to me. >> [laughter] >> Cows don't smell like anything. I don't know. Beef it doesn't doesn't make any smell at all. It's just it's just meat, yeah? But I don't know when there's a when I have I have a lamb chop or you know, a lamb roasted, >> [snorts] >> I don't know, it smells like an animal. A goat I can only imagine >> [laughter] >> what it must taste like. And I keep asking people, "Do you ever have goat?" No one I know has had goat yet. Anyway, but parenthetically, I've always wanted to have goose. I came to learn in Israel in 1975, and there was a restaurant on the corner of Yafo and King George called Feferberg's. It was a Jewish restaurant. You know, they don't have a lot of Jewish food here in Israel. It's mostly Arabic food, you know? So, but Israelis seem to think it's Jewish food, you know? But for years you couldn't get Jewish food. To this day you can't buy teiglach, you know? Kreplach is a seasonal food. You can only get it on special holidays, you know. There's no black cherry soda. I mean, all the Jewish food is hard to get around here, you know. >> [snorts] >> But, um uh but Fefferberg's was a kosher restaurant. You know, they had good gefilte fish and chicken soup. And it said roast goose. Now, obviously the restaurant wasn't Mehadrin. There were very few Mehadrin restaurants back then. You know, there was this one falafel store with a Badatz that you could stand and and eat a falafel. But, uh but otherwise, you know, there was where restaurants. And I said, "I wonder what goose tastes like." And to this day I've never had it. And uh someone tells me you can't really get kosher goose because they stuff them to be able to enlarge their liver uh because the foie gras is what's so valuable. And so, they end up spending the money on that, you know. And so, they make it treif when they stuff it. Anyway, anyone who knows where I can find glatt uh goose out there, you know, let me know. Uh probably I I don't even know if I'll enjoy it, but you know, as the expression goes, probably tastes like chicken. Anyway, but um uh uh so, you want to you bring your sheep or you bring your goat or you bring your cow to the Mishkan and you bring it as a korban shlamim. You take it home and you eat it bi kedusha. And so, they did not have basar ta'avah all 40 years. That's why they complained, "Give us basar." What do you What do you mean you have basar? He says, "We have korbanos, but we'd never had a regular steak, what the Torah calls basar ta'avah." So, the Torah in this week's parsha says, "Right now, the Mishkan is there. Anybody can walk there and bring a korban. But, there's going to come a time you're going to come to Eretz Yisrael. And someone's going to be living in the Golan. And he says to himself, "Yeah, I'd I'd love to have a steak. So, I'll take my cow all the way down to the base of Migdal, have it shocked, and I can only eat it inside of Jerusalem. Uh what about barbecue?" So, once you come to Israel, you're allowed to have basar ta'avah. You can now shock an animal and eat it. Basar ta'avah. It's a very interesting thing. I was I was giving a class once in I was doing question and answer in Asia tour. And there was a vegetarian. Someone says, "I think it's wrong to eat animals." And I said, "Let me tell you something. I believe that if you understand the nature of the world, uh you'd understand why we eat meat. Because there is no cow heaven. A cow who eats grass and dies, he falls to the ground, turns into dust. That's the end of him. There's no cow heaven that he goes to. But if a person shocks him and eats him, then he becomes part of a human being. He becomes digested and becomes part of a human being himself. And then he has nitzotz, then he lasts forever. You're denying eternal life to that cow. I don't think there's anybody more cruel than a vegetarian. Cuz if you cared about animals, you'd eat them. >> [laughter] >> I heard somebody observe once that things that are filled with kedusha have the most halachas associated with it. So, the most halachas are on Shabbos. The next is taharas hamishpacha. And the third is all the halachas involved in the preparation of meat. Shchita and salting and soaking and you know, not mixing things together and all the different dinim that go with the preparation of meat because it has within it kedusha. Buz hata'avah means that if I can't eat the meat as a korban, at least I'm going to eat it in a way that I'm going to use it for a potential of kedusha. And that's why the the Ramban says, "I don't understand why the people asked for the slav in the desert. They said, 'Give us meat.'" It says in Beshalach when the manna fell that the meat fell. So, the Ramban gives two answers. He says, "Well, maybe that was a one-time event." Or he says, "It only fell for the tzaddikim and anshei ma'aseh." For the righteous people, they got to eat meat because the meat gave them the strength to do mitzvahs, but for a regular person, what do you what do you need meat for? Yeah, what do you need that extra strength that meat gives you? Why do you need that potential for kedusha? So, the Torah this week permits us to be able to have meat. So, let's use that inspiration to take that meat and use it for good purposes. Have it on Shabbos. And with that, have a good Shabbos.