Are jews allowed to eat meat during their Holy Week Holiday?
Rabbi Yehudah, the son of Bathyra, one of the outstanding sages of the Talmudic period, stated that the obligation to eat meat for rejoicing only applied at the time when the Temple was in existence. (Talmud: Pesachim 109a) He added that after the destruction of the Temple one should rejoice with wine. Based on this, Rabbi Yishmael stated, “From the day that the Holy Temple was destroyed, it would have been right to have imposed upon ourselves a law prohibiting the eating of flesh. (Talmud: Baba Batra 60b) The reason that the rabbis did not make such a law was that they felt that most Jews were not ready to accept it. (It was also thought then that meat was necessary for proper nutrition.) In a scholarly article in The Journal of Halacha and Contemporary Society (Fall, 1981), Rabbi Alfred Cohen, editor of the Journal and spiritual leader of the Young Israel of Canarsie concludes that “If a person is more comfortable not eating meat, there would be no obligation for him to do so on the
As indicated previously, Rav Kook stated that God provided many laws and regulations related to the consumption of meat as a reprimand, as a reminder that animals’ lives are being destroyed, and in the hope that this would eventually lead people back to vegetarianism in the messianic period. He and others maintained that vegetarianism is the Jewish ideal diet and that God permitted the eating of meat as a temporary concession, with many associated regulations, designed to keep alive a sense of reverence for life. There are other cases where laws were provided to regulate actions that God would prefer people not do. For example, God wishes people to live at peace, but he provides commandments related to waging war, because he knows that human beings quarrel and seek victories over others. Similarly, the laws in the Torah related to taking a beautiful captive woman in wartime are a concession to human weakness. We cannot conclude from this that we are therefore obligated to make war or t
