Halakhah su Genesi 1:29

Therefore the reverent person ought to have his intention connected to the higher things, and have his eating be to sustain his body alone and not to be drawn to physical pleasures, for being drawn to physical pleasures is the cause for the loss of both body and soul, and the cause for forgetting the point, for out of eating and drinking he will become full of himself [lit., lift up his heart] and stumble into great pitfalls and sins, and do things which should not be done. See how Joseph’s brothers sold him only in the middle of eating and drinking, as it is said, “They sat down to a meal, and looking up…”²²Gen 37:28. While eating the brothers looked up and saw the Ishmaelites to who they sold Joseph. R. Bahya expands upon this more fully in his commentary to the Torah on this verse. And for this reason the Torah said not to eat on Yom Kippur, which is the day of judgment for criminal cases involving people, because one’s eating might cause his soul to sin. And they even said in civil cases dealing with monetary compensation: “akhal ve-shatah al yorah” – “Don’t instruct right after eating and drinking!”²³A rhyming proverb in the Hebrew. Yorah, which means to instruct or teach, is the same verb used in the Biblical passage from Lev. 10:11 that R. Bahya cites. It is from the same Hebrew root as the word Torah. R. Bahya subtly makes another point here besides the obvious one that people are inclined to make bad judgments right after they’ve eaten and drunk. Namely, with this wordplay and the analogy to the Biblical priests, he’s reiterating his general contention that engaging in torah is a sacramental priest-likeactivity, even when done by non-priests – i.e., rabbinical torah scholars, or even ordinary Jews fasting on Yom Kippur. Why is this so? From what is written, “Drink no wine or other intoxicant, you or your sons,”²⁴Lev 10:9, addressed to Aaron and his sons, that is, the priests. and connected to it, “to instruct [le-horot] the Israelites.”²⁵Ibid., 10:11. When they were commanded to instruct [le-horot], they were warned to avoid wine, because wine confuses the mind, and it does not distinguish between the holy and the profane, which is why it is written “to distinguish.”²⁶Ibid., 10:10. All this is proof that eating and drinking causes human beings to move themselves away off the track of Torah and worship, and to cast aside all the statutes of Ha-Shem, may He be Blessed. All this is caused when one has eaten and is satisfied, and therefore the Torah commanded, “And you shall eat and be satisfied, and you shall bless” (Deut 8:10). That is to say, after you will have eaten and have been satisfied, and you are close to throwing off the yoke of the commandments, “You shall bless YHWH your God” at the very moment you need to bless Him, so that you will take upon yourself the yoke of His rule and bless His name. And this in my opinion is the meaning of the Scripture, “In all your ways, know Him;”²⁷Prov 3:6. it means even at the time of eating when you are close to forgetting Him and to severing your reason from your mind, at that very moment, “know Him” and cleave to Him. And if you do this, “He will straighten your paths,”²⁸Prov 3:6. He will straighten your ways on the paths of life, namely, the soul’s successful attainment of the world to come. If so, then a person ought to eat only for the sustenance of his body alone, and it is forbidden for him to pursue any sort of pleasure unless it is to make his body healthy and make the eyes of his intellect clear-sighted. In order for his body to be healthy and strong, he should pursue what pleases [his intellect] and his Creator, for his organs are combined and possess the capacity exactly in the measure that enables him to bear the yoke of the Torah and its commandments, which is the point of the verse written about the tribe of Issachar, “he bent his shoulder to bear the burden” (Gen 49:15), which is the same language used to refer to the giving of the Torah, “He [God] bent the sky and came down” (2 Sam 22:10). And anyone whose intention is this, is an angel of the Lord of Hosts, but whoever does not direct their intention to this end, is “likened to the beasts that perish.” (Ps 49:13,21). “You can see for yourself”²⁹1 Sam 24:12: Re-eh gam re-eh – “you can see for yourself” (JSB). Joseph the righteous, who was noted for his quality of reverence [yir’ah], from what is written, “I am a God-fearing man”³⁰Gen 42:18. and “Am I a substitute for God?”³¹Ibid. 50:19. hinted at this point when he said, “take something for the hunger of your houses and be off.”³²Ibid. 42:33. He comes to instruct and to teach people to know that they should only eat to break their hunger, not to fill their belly and be drawn by the taste, which is base and to be scorned, because that is a disgrace to us, utter waste, and a thing which has no point to it. And do not say that this because it was a time of famine, because when Joseph was “a prince and commander of peoples,”³³Is 55:4.and the treasuries of the king were under his control, he had the power to supply bread and food to his father and brothers, as in the other the years of plenty. However, instead he made it known to us that this is the way of Torah and fear of Ha-Shem (may He be blessed!), that a person should only eat, satisfy himself, and fill his belly to satisfy his soul.

And it is necessary that you consider well that human beings’ food should have been only plants from the earth, such as grain produce and fruit, not animals. For animals have a soul of that gives them independent movement, which is similar in some of its activities to the soul of intellectual beings, and this is kinship which motivates us to keep away from what is harmful. Accordingly, a soul that can move itself ought not to be a food for the human soul. Therefore, Adam was originally commanded that his food and sustenance be grain produce and fruits, the point of what was written: “Behold I have given to you every grass and seed-producing plant…”⁷⁰Gen 1:29. But at the time when all flesh went bad, and all animals deserved annihilation and would not have been saved were it not for the merit of Noah, it was permitted to eat them [the meat of animals], just as the greens and grasses had been before. At that time the souls that could move themselves were permitted to wait upon the intellectual soul, who waited upon the Creator. And if so, this is not to demean the soul that can move itself, but rather a mark of respect, status, and merit, and accordingly our sages taught, it is forbidden for an am-ha-aretz to eat meat, as it is written, ‘This is the Torah of the beast and fowl.’⁷¹Lev. 11:46. All who engage in Torah are permitted to eat the meat of beasts and fowl, and all who do not engage in Torah are forbidden to eat beast and fowl. The explanation of this among the enlightened is – when we set aside a soul for a soul, this is nothing other than the soul that can move itself that we annihilate for the sake of intellectual soul. But because one is an am ha-aretz and has no intellectual soul, you have it that he is forbidden to eat meat, since [in him] we have nothing to set aside and annihilate the soul that can move itself, since he is someone who has no intellectual soul, and understand this.

Rav Judah stated in the name of Rav, "Adam was not permitted meat for purposes of eating as it is written, 'for you shall it be for food and to all beasts of the earth' (Genesis 1:29), but not beasts of the earth for you. But when the sons of Noah came [He] permitted them [the beasts of the earth] as it is said, 'as the green grass have I given to you everything' (Genesis 9:3)."

In point of fact, this talmudic dictum is simply a terse statement of the relevant law prior to the time of Noah but is silent with regard to any validating rationale. While the statement in question may well be compatible with a vegetarian ideal, it may quite readily be comprehended as reflecting entirely different considerations. Indeed, the classic biblical commentators found entirely different explanations for the change which occurred with regard to dietary regulations. Thus, for example, R. Jacob ben Asher, renowned as the author of the Tur Shulḥan Arukh, in his commentary on Genesis 1:29, explains that, prior to partaking of the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge, Adam lacked any desire for meat; only subsequent to eating of the forbidden fruit did man acquire a carnivorous nature. Hence the dispensation granted to Noah to eat the flesh of animals simply reflects man's transformed biological needs. R. Meir Leibush Malbim, in his commentary on Genesis 9:3, remarks that Adam was endowed with a "strong" constitution and that the produce available in the Garden of Eden was nutritionally optimal in nature. Under such circumstances, Adam's dietary needs could be satisfied without recourse to meat. Only as mankind degenerated physically as well as spiritually, became geographically dispersed and hence subject to the vagaries of climate, and as the quality of available produce became nutritionally inferior, did it become necessary for man, in his "weakened" state, to supplement his diet with animal products in order to assure the availability of the nutrients required for his biological needs.

Rambam, Guide, Book III, chapter 26, makes it clear that the concern evidenced in the prescription of the mode of slaughter is identical with the consideration underlying the admonition concerning za'ar ba'alei ḥayyim. Both the prescriptions concerning ritual slaughter and the prohibition against za'ar ba'alei ḥayyim are regarded by Rambam as having been imposed "with a view to purifying the people," i.e., in order to prevent internalization of cruelty as a character trait and to promote the development of compassion.¹⁸See also Ramban, Commentary on the Bible, Deuteronomy 22:6, and R. Joseph Albo, Book of Principles, Book III, chapter 15 as well as Ramban, Commentary on the Bible, Genesis 1:29, and Teshuvot Ḥatam Sofer, Oraḥ Ḥayyim, no. 54, s.v. u-mah. An identical view is expressed by Philo, De Virtutibus, 141.