The Messiah and Meat-Eating

Might that hot dog you’re chowing down at the stadium actually be a concession to the violent inclinations of mankind? As a new book details, the early 20th century theologian Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook would think so. After all, he considered vegetarianism to be humanity’s spiritual ideal.

As the renowned Jewish Studies professor Marc Shapiro explains in his “Renewing the Old, Sanctifying the New: The Unique Vision of Rav Kook,” the first Chief Rabbi in Mandatory Palestine believed that in the Messianic Era, the only sacrifices brought in the Temple in Jerusalem would be of the vegetable variety — all the meat offerings detailed in Leviticus would be dropped. 

As Shapiro summarizes, Rabbi Kook felt that the permission that Noah and his children were given by God to eat meat after they survived the great flood was an expression of human failing and frailty that would last until the redemption of the world. Shapiro writes:

“In the 10th chapter of “Lenivukhei hador” [“To the Perplexed of the Generation”], Rav Kook explains that it was necessary for meat to be permitted while humanity had not yet developed to its full moral potential. He sees the consumption of meat as a concession to humanity’s weakness; the moment it ceases to be a necessity it will be regarded as immoral. In another passage he speaks of the permission to eat animals as a ‘concession to the evil inclination.’ In explaining why meat is necessary in what we can call the ‘preenlightenment era,’ he goes so far as to say that, without the possibility of consuming animals, a morally undeveloped humanity would have been prepared to eat human flesh …”

So bloodthirsty had people proven themselves to be in the years leading up to their punishment-by-drowning, Rabbi Kook believed that God had no choice but to allow Noah’s family and subsequent generation to quench that thirst through eating animal flesh. But in the ideal world, one that will eventually arrive with the coming of the Messiah, humanity would be restored to its Edenic existence, in which the first humans were only permitted to partake from food that grew from the ground. Animals too will have their spiritual level elevated during this time. For proof, Kook cited verses like Isaiah 43:20, which reads: “The wild beasts shall honor Me, jackals and ostriches, for I provide water in the wilderness, rivers in the desert, to give drink to My chosen people.” In this description of the utopian future envisioned by the ancient prophet, the animals will recognize God’s glory, and thus, Kook understood, no longer be subject to sacrifice at the hands of humans.

Rabbi Kook also noted in support of his argument that the last line of the prayer Shemoneh Esrei reads “Then shall the offering of Judah and Jerusalem be pleasant unto the Lord, as in the days of old and as in ancient years.” In this line, the word for “offering,” from the Hebrew “minchah,” alludes to vegetable sacrifices offered in Temple times, and leaves out mention of meat-based sacrifices.

Fascinatingly, Kook also felt that first-born males would also be elevated upon the Messiah’s arrival. They had been displaced as the spiritual and ritual leadership class of the Israelites following their involvement in the sin of the Golden Calf and replaced with the tribe of Levi, who had not partaken in that awful act of idol worship. But in the future, they, like all of humankind and animalkind, would get a promotion when the redemption comes. The first-borns would get their old jobs back. But they would not displace the priests. Rather, the two groups would work side-by-side in the sanctuary of the Third Temple.

In the meantime, then, while veal, burgers and those hot dogs are not yet verboten, you might as well enjoy meat. Whether or not you agree with Rabbi Kook’s perspective, you can still share in his wish that we might all soon merit the Messiah’s arrival.

Rabbi Dr. Stuart Halpern is Senior Adviser to the Provost of Yeshiva University and Deputy Director of Y.U.’s Straus Center for Torah and Western Thought. His books include “The Promise of Liberty: A Passover Haggada,” which examines the Exodus story’s impact on the United States, “Esther in America,” “Gleanings: Reflections on Ruth” and “Proclaim Liberty Throughout the Land: The Hebrew Bible in the United States.”