Question: How does Kabbalah relate to the ideology of vegetarianism, which is based on the desire not to cause harm or suffering to living beings?
Answer: People who make this claim do not understand the purpose of creation and the fact that each species in nature acts and exists for the sake of another higher form of being.
Inanimate nature exists in order for plants to grow; plants exist in order to raise animals, and animals in order to raise humans, while people exist in order to raise the Creator [1].
Each level of nature [2] is required to maintain a higher level. Just like the task of the earth is to support the plants and lend itself for their use, so the task of an animal is to be used by man. The question is only in exactly how to use the animals, in what form.
This is why we are given laws that define how to rear animals, how to kill them, how to prepare the meat, and how to eat it. All of this is described in great detail in the laws of Kashrut.
If we perform these actions correctly, then through them we sanctify both plants and animals, raising them to the degree of man, and together with man, onto the next degree. After all, a person lives in order to bring himself up to be Adam (man), “similar” (Domeh) to the higher force.
This is how I see it through my knowledge of the wisdom of Kabbalah [3] and understanding of the entire system. I am not forcing vegetarians to eat meat. For example, my wife eats it very rarely, but not for ideological reasons but simply because her blood type is A, and people of that blood type do not like meat. So this occurs in a natural way.
But the problem is that vegetarians are usually fighting for their idea. I have not yet met a single calm vegetarian. One would think that on the contrary, those who eat meat should be bloodthirsty and aggressive. But they appear to be calmer, perhaps because they are well fed, while vegetarians, possibly from lack of satiation, are often very irritable and demanding.
I do not understand why they are taking such a strong stand. Let everyone eat all the foods that nature has provided for us. We do not realize that we exist in a closed system of nature, and if we somehow alter our habits, then through that we change the laws of nature even on its still, vegetative, and animal levels.
Suppose the majority of humanity would now decide to become vegetarians, meaning, they would change their attitude toward the still, vegetative, and animal nature. Thus, we introduce into the overall system, which integrally ties all of us together, a new attitude that is opposite to the one originally imparted to us by nature.
Nature intended for every level to nurture and raise the one above it: the still would do that for plants, the plants for animals, and the animals for people.
We are made in such a way that we need to use all types of food specifically in this form: salt and water from the still level, permitted vegetables from the vegetative level, and permitted meat from the animate level, carrying out all the laws of their preparation.
We are talking about natural laws. I am not simply eating, but through this I am figuring out my attitude toward general nature. After all, I have to observe all the rules that determine what can be eaten and what cannot, and if it is allowed, then in what form. And if something cannot be eaten, maybe it could be used not as food, but in some other way, for example, for making leather.
Everything is structured so that a person would utilize all of nature correctly. If he does not do so, then through one’s incorrect relationship to nature he introduces a distortion into the overall system and alters physical, chemical, and other natural laws.
And then we are surprised when suddenly, some volcano erupted, or a tsunami appeared, or that there is an extraordinary heatwave up to 50° C in London. We do not understand why such disasters occur “all of a sudden,” and yet it is we ourselves who have disrupted the balance in the system.
[164543]
From KabTV’s “A New Life” 7/2/15
Related Material:
About Healthy Tasty Food… [4]
Back To Nature [5]
Balance Means Health [6]