Gail's great spiritbuilder on Ki Teze

Spirit Builder for August 24, 2007
"If, along the road, you chance upon a bird's nest, in any tree or on the ground, with young ones or eggs, and the mother sitting upon the young, or on the eggs, do not take the mother with the young. Let the mother go, and take only the young, in order that you may fare well and have a long life." (Deuteronomy 22:6-7)
This coming week in my World Religions class at Oakton Community College, I will begin teaching a unit on the religious beliefs and traditions of indigenous peoples, focusing on the Lakota Plains tribes.
Indigenous peoples generally have quite a different understanding of, and relationship to, wild creatures. When Lakota hunters needed to kill an animal so their tribe could eat, they made an offering to animal, as well as giving thanks to the animal for sacrificing its life. The respect and love shown for non-human beings was deep and substantial. Joseph Campbell, the late scholar of mythology, pointed out in The Power of Myth that hunter-gatherers often viewed animals as being superior to human beings.
Our hierarchy of life puts human beings squarely at the top. This view is clearly presented in the Torah. Psalm 8 says "You made him (humans) a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned him with glory and honor. You made him ruler over the works of your hands; you put everything under his feet: all flocks and herds, and the beasts of the field, the birds of the air, and the fish of the sea, all that swim the paths of the seas."
Yet Jewish tradition does teach respect for the creatures. The bird's nest commandment tells us to spare the mother. While you could read this to mean that we want her to lay more eggs for us to eat, many commentators have pointed instead to the feelings of the mother bird. The laws of Kashrut can be understood to some degree as displaying an ethical approach toward eating.
Our ancestors lived in much closer contact with the natural world than do we. They were close observers of nature because their lives depended on it. Whether they saw themselves in relation to animals as hierarchically above or below, they did respect and draw spiritual meaning from their understanding of non-human creation.
In this age we are much more distant from the source of our food. Few if any of us hunt for meat or gather eggs from wild birds for food. We go down to the grocery store and buy a pound of hamburger from a meat processing plant or a dozen eggs laid by chickens wholive several states away. How then can we show respect to those creatures who provide us with sustenance?
One option is envisioning the laws of kashrut in a new way, keeping the old, while adding dimensions of ethical eating to the mix. For more information on this idea, check out this website: http://reformjudaismmag.org/Articles/index.cfm?id=1245.
Shabbat shalom!
Gail Ginsburg