I didn’t understand the Rabbi’s intent in the sentence:
"How is that any different from eating kosher livestock, aside from the halakhic prohibition?"
In the context of gentiles…
What halakhic prohibition?

That’s exactly what I said. There is no difference except on the halakhic plane, and that is not relevant to gentiles.

I think there’s confusion here with eating a limb from a living animal—that is, an animal whose limb was taken before it was slaughtered—on that, gentiles are also commanded.

So I understand that anyone who criticizes gentiles for eating bat/snake meat has no basis in Judaism…
Maybe there is some problematic moral or aesthetic aspect here, but not a Jewish statement…

There is no moral problem here, nor an aesthetic one.
There is no difference between eating chicken and eating bat, beyond cultural habits.

Hello Aharon,
Most people in the world would agree that there is a moral problem with eating dog/cat meat, probably because of the closeness of these animals to humans. I’m not talking about evolutionary closeness, but because these are domesticated animals.

As for eating bat—first, I assume you’re aware that a bat is a mammal. It is much more similar to a rat than to a chicken. On the other hand, within the class of mammals, a bat is closer (evolutionarily) to a cow than to a rat.

But that doesn’t matter so much. Factually, eating rodents/bats instinctively arouses an enormous feeling of disgust in most people. So here the aesthetic dimension comes in, at least in the Western world.
I assume that not all people in the Far East eat bats and snakes either; from this one can infer that maybe this is not just a matter of cultural association, but that there is something deeper that arouses in us this sense of disgust.

I’d be glad if the Rabbi would express his opinion.

Ehud, I’m bothered by your use of the words “most people would agree”; the argument could be made even without that support (in principle, most people can be mistaken, unless the accepted opinion is what defines the term, as one might perhaps argue regarding aesthetics).

Are you claiming that closeness to human beings morally forbids eating a dog? Is that only when this specific dog served me, or even if it served no human at all, just by virtue of belonging to a domesticated species?
And what about a dog that died a natural death? Is it also morally forbidden to eat because it serves human beings?

As for the difference between mammals and birds, and between those evolutionarily close to us and those far from us, I didn’t quite understand why that is relevant. And regarding aesthetics, I also don’t know how to measure it. Maybe what I’m used to is perceived as aesthetic, and what I’m not used to isn’t? Maybe it is connected to culture and time?

Let me add something else, which may sound strange.
I don’t think there is a moral problem in eating human beings who died a natural death.
There is a problem when eating human beings could indirectly lead to causing their death, for example in times of distress.
There is a problem when a person fears that he will be eaten by others after his death, and that thought causes him suffering in his lifetime.
But without those qualifications, I don’t see any moral problem in the thing itself. It causes no one suffering.

Again, I’d be glad if Michi or someone else familiar with the criteria of morality would correct me.

One more qualification: someone who believes in life after death can argue that eating the human body causes suffering to his soul, and causing suffering to the soul is immoral.

I agree with every word. I wrote about this in my column on aesthetic values (154).

Hello Aharon,

As for your question, in my opinion the reason for the revulsion people feel when they think about eating a dog or a cat (for most human beings) is not only because these are ordinary domesticated animals (sheep and cows are also domesticated to some extent), but because these are domesticated animals to which humans become enormously emotionally attached, and there is also an emotional bond from them toward us. Even if I personally do not raise a dog or a cat, I encounter them (like most people) every day, and therefore the thought of eating their meat is difficult for me, even if I personally never had any specific relationship with them.

You could challenge this and ask: there are people who see chickens every day, and it’s not hard for them to eat poultry…

That’s true, but we need to remember several things:
A. Usually there is no emotional bond on the human side toward the chicken.
B. There is no emotional bond on their side toward us (unlike dogs).
C. If a person raised a chicken as a pet, he would probably feel uncomfortable eating it after it had hopped around his yard for years. He probably wouldn’t do that. He would eat another chicken, one he had never met.

As for aesthetics, there is an “aesthetic sense” in reality that is also absolute.
So true, sometimes culture may influence people to tune themselves opposite to that aesthetic sense, but that doesn’t mean it is relative. This aesthetic sense too contains a point of absolute truth. And apparently someone who does not eat bats, or feels disgust at eating human corpses, is closer to that truth found in that sense (and sorry if that offends you a bit).

That aesthetic sense is relevant to a variety of areas of life, for example music, morality, painting, sports, physical appearance, mathematics, and yes, foods as well. By the way, I understand that many things that were considered aesthetic, without it being exactly clear why, were recently found to follow the golden ratio.

*I haven’t read the Rabbi’s column on the subject

A. I think you are mixing up the concept of emotion and the concept of morality.
B. Regarding aesthetics: its definition is complex, and that’s what we are discussing—whether there is such a thing as absolute aesthetics.
But even if there is, that doesn’t mean all aesthetics is absolute. It could be that there is absolute aesthetics, and there is culture-dependent aesthetics, right?
If so, your generalization—“apparently someone who does not eat bats, or feels disgust at eating human corpses, is closer to that truth found in that sense”—is not correct. Perhaps not eating certain kinds of animals in most of the Western world is indeed culture-dependent?

Hi Aharon,

You wrote:

“But even if there is, that doesn’t mean all aesthetics is absolute. It could be that there is absolute aesthetics, and there is culture-dependent aesthetics, right?”

Of course there is also room in reality for “other aesthetics,” because God allowed it, but that doesn’t mean that in all of reality there is not one aesthetics that is the truest, and that also contains more.

I’ll give an example from the religious/faith world. Jewish faith is the most aesthetic thing among all faiths, and apparently it is the closest to the most perfect aesthetics.
Are there not also certain aesthetics in Christian and Islamic beliefs?
Apparently yes, and apparently many souls were created that would settle specifically into that partial aesthetics. The fact that the Arab world connects more to an Islamic aesthetics (as stated, a very partial one), and that there is some “cultural aesthetics” there, changes nothing about the fact that Jewish faith is specifically the more aesthetic and more inclusive one.

Broadly speaking, in the end, and with full faith that Rabbi Kook’s view is currently the most advanced approach within the range of Jewish faith, I say that the whole world aspires to the good, an infinite good toward which there is always room to aspire.
And in the end, other partial aesthetics also need ultimately to connect to the comprehensive aesthetics of the Jewish people. And the Jewish people will reveal a higher aesthetics—a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.

Best regards, Ehud

I didn’t really understand what it means that Jewish faith is the most aesthetic.

By the same token, can one say that Jewish faith is the tastiest?

Aesthetic = the truest and most correct. The closest to the perfection that ought to be.
Question: have you ever studied Rabbi Kook?

Aesthetics: aesthetics is a branch of philosophy that deals, among other things, with questions of beauty and its characterization. Aesthetics examines the role of beauty in the work of art and the ways of creating beauty (Wikipedia).

I have not studied the writings of Rabbi Kook.

“The aesthetic sense generally needs to develop well, to the point that the soul can arm itself with the image of noble splendor, in such a way that it may stand upon the heights of its levels. And the literature of the generation, and its desire for the expansion of beauty that has gripped it, although they incline to worldly matters, and at times become very defiled, are nothing but stages and preparations for the supreme purity of supernal glory that will appear in the world.” (Eight Collections, 2:111)

To know definitions of concepts, it is customary to consult dictionaries and encyclopedias.
The accepted definition of the concept of aesthetics is not as you understand it.

Though of course the debate is semantic. We are talking about two different concepts, and there is no essential difference whether we call “my” concept semantics, or “yours.”

Regarding understanding passages in Rabbi Kook’s writings: when someone claims to understand these writings, I ask him to succeed on the test at the following link (Professor Nadav Shenar’s site). Will you succeed?

https://woland.ph.biu.ac.il/?page_id=154

I’ll note that when I saw the passage you brought me, I actually suspected you had generated it using his text generator.

Indeed, the discussion between us is semantic.
I was familiar in the past with Shenar’s test, on Michi’s recommendation of course.
I’ll be honest and say that I failed, as best I remember.