CALLING ALL VEGANS TO SHABBOS DINNER AT MY TABLE

Every Shabbat, I sing with gusto about luxuriating in “duck and quail,” “fatted stuffed chicken,” “meat and fish and other delights.” For all the mitzvot that I take at their figurative value, this is one that I take literally, with impeccable gravitas.

Yes, yes, I know all about Jonathan Safran Foers and his vegan protestations. They will eventually, I predict, go the way of all pop-culture, along with the Rubik’s cube and pet rock. Yes, I foresee a day when moderation will hold sway in the culinary world, and gluttony will never be confused with an occasional well-marbled steak.

The path to moderation will likely never satisfy those humanitarian souls who deem the fleishig route a one-way ticket to hell. I have no desire to convince them to the contrary, except to say that I am certain that many a great spiritual master and humanitarian succumbed to eating a hamburger without being sentenced to perdition. The Rambam a vegan? Akiva? Samson Raphael Hirsch (although he wrote to the contrary, that hypocrite!)? I have it on good authority that even the saintly Lubavitcher Rebbe ate meat at his meager repasts. I would not go so far to call vegans “The Hezbollah of Food,” ala Anthony Bourdin, just perhaps slightly misguided in their protestations about us meat-eaters.

My purpose is to reassure that we carnivores have not gone off the track by slaughtering, butchering, koshering, and proudly serving a delectably juicy brisket at our Shabbat table – while keeping our humanity intact.

Look, I wouldn’t lie to you. I’d be hard pressed to find any noteworthy rabbinical authority who says that slaughtering animals for human consumption is some kind of ultimate virtue. If anything, it is a necessary vice until “the time” comes when humanity attains its moral perfection. That noble Divine experiment was thwarted ten generations after creation at the time of Noah, when license to eat meat was introduced to the human diet. I dare say that our state of moral perfection hasn’t gotten much better since.

In fact, the Torah refers to the common hamburger as basar ta’avah – “lustful meat” – as anyone who stands in front of a grill al fresco with a beer in hand knows only too well. As much as I hate to hide behind the skirts of Divine authority, God does instruct that eating meat is a licit pleasure, deriving from a lust that is “kosher,” unlike lusting after a married woman or someone else’s property. A few scholars even maintain that slaughtering and ingesting meat signifies human dominance over the animal world, thus elevating the animal to a higher spiritual level by putting it into the service of man. Don’t get angry at me; I’m just reporting the news. Regardless, so long as man finds lusty gratification in eating meat, God will bless its use to celebrate Shabbat, holy days, and a variety of simchas and celebrations.

Let’s consider, then, that kashrut is the last line of defense between eating meat in the way of a mensch or as a barbarian. The animal must be chosen from a clean variety. The slaughtering itself must be performed swiftly and painlessly by an expert shochet, wielding an impeccably honed knife. The blood must be meticulously removed, so as not to intimate that the animal’s life-flow will be used symbolically to victimize it. For like reasons, we do not cook/eat milk and meat together. Thus, even if slaughter itself has odious connotations, the animal’s preparation for consumption is performed with sensitivity to the gravity of the act.

When I embarked on writing this essay, I knew that I would be hard pressed to justify the absolute virtue of dining on a juicy, rare steak. In the abstract, the vegans are probably right. Well, let the abstract be damned! Let me turn the rest of these ramblings into a confession, no, perhaps a love-song: Count me among those who lust for meat. I have never pondered the inconsistencies between that and my commitment to traditional Judaism, any more than a nearsighted person ponders his myopia. I feel no reason to defend my carnivorous inclinations.

Mr. Foers’ moral imprecations aside, I cannot contemplate the joy of a Shabbat dinner being complete without a steaming bowl of shimmering chicken soup, crowned with a matzo ball. Better yet, crown it with kreplach – a swatch of noodle encasing a tiny treat of hockfleisch, “Jewish wonton,” if a feeble comparison is necessary.

Just as our hearts have been lifted heavenward by ethereal golden broth, we are drawn back to the primal mothering of earthy chopped liver – the most negligible organ of the chicken transformed to nobility when napped in egg, onion, and hearty schmaltz.

Heaven and earth collide as the main course of brisket is presented. I do not mean the so-called “first cut” brisket, completely devoid of fat, that upon cooking morphs into a pile of wet hemp. Feh. Goyische nachas. No, I mean the whole brisket, fatty deckel and all, sliced so that each bite contains some of the fat and the lean, the perfect culinary yin-yang. And let every bite be accompanied by a morsel of potato kugel, again enriched by copious amounts of schmaltz.

Dessert? Why Apfelschalet, of course!

So much for Shabbat dinner. Fast-forward now to lunch. We return home after schule. The savory aroma of cholent greets us as the door – beans, barley, potatoes, garlic, of course, there must be garlic. But without a hunk of well-marbled brisket or flanken to fatten and season the mélange, one no longer has cholent, but a silly pot of baked beans.

My “Rhapsody in Fleisch” could go on endlessly. Suffice to say that “lustful meat” plays a role in celebration, or even perking up an otherwise ordinary day, that no mess of red beans and brown rice could ever replace. Propriety tells me that I should admire my vegan brethren for the moral perfection that they have attained. But why should I lie? I feel sorry for people who cannot throw health and pietistic concerns to the wind every once in a while for the gratification that only a juicy steak or a hot dog slathered in mustard can provide. As for me, I’ll ask God to arbitrate the dispute. I figure that God is already so picky about the things I may not do that I may as well fulfill my lust when God nods His approval.

Mr. Foers, you may find that my taste for meat is depravity personified. I’m willing to take my chances. After all, what would be worse? Spending an eternity in purgatory or a lifetime subsisting on tofu and soy?