Torah sources, linked to Sefaria.
The short version.
The Torah permits eating meat, but it forbids causing animals needless suffering. Factory farms cause that suffering every day, and it has been filmed and counted. This page shows what the Torah's laws mean for what you eat. Every source links to the original where one exists, so you can check.
This page has photographs or video of what is done to animals, which may include slaughter. They stay hidden until you say you're 18 or over.
The site can't check your answer, and it's saved only in this browser.
Step 1 · The law
An animal's pain matters to God. The Torah forbids causing an animal needless suffering.
In full: Does an animal's pain matter to God? · 1 min →
Animals in the Torah
The Torah calls an animal a living soul, the same words it uses for you.
The book of Mishlei calls a person righteous when he knows what his animal is feeling.
יוֹדֵעַ צַדִּיק נֶפֶשׁ בְּהֶמְתּוֹ וְרַחֲמֵי רְשָׁעִים אַכְזָרִי
“The righteous one knows the soul of his animal; the mercies of the wicked are cruelty.”
Mishlei 12:10 Also cited · Bereishit 1:30
נֶפֶשׁ חַיָּה
“living soul, the term the Torah uses for animals”
Bereishit 1:30 Also cited · Bereishit 1:20–21
יִשְׁרְצוּ הַמַּיִם שֶׁרֶץ נֶפֶשׁ חַיָּה... וְאֵת כׇּל־נֶפֶשׁ הַחַיָּה הָרֹמֶשֶׂת אֲשֶׁר שָׁרְצוּ הַמַּיִם
“Let the waters swarm with living souls... and God created every living soul that swarms in the waters. The Torah's word for a fish is nefesh chayah, a living soul, the same phrase it uses for people.”
Bereishit 1:20–21 The law against cruelty to animals
Making an animal suffer without need breaks Torah law.
The Talmud learns this law from a verse: if a donkey has fallen under his load, you must help unload him, even when his owner is a man who hates you.
צער בעלי חיים דאורייתא
“The Talmud debates whether the ban on causing animals suffering comes from the Torah itself.”
Bava Metzia 32b About this source
The Talmud records a dispute; most later authorities, the Rif and the Rosh among them, treat it as Torah law. On every view, the prohibition is binding. No opinion in the tradition permits needless animal suffering.Also cited · Shemot 23:5
The command to unload a suffering animal, even your enemy's. The Talmud learns the law against causing animals pain, tza'ar ba'alei chayim, from this verse.
Shemot 23:5 Does she feel it?
The Rambam: a mother's grief for her young is no different in an animal than in a person.
He says it to explain why the Torah forbids slaughtering a cow and her calf on the same day: the mother would see her calf killed. Her love for him, he writes, comes from feeling, not from reasoning, and most animals have it as we do.
A Hereford cow, a beef breed, licking her calf clean about twenty minutes after he was born. On most dairy farms, a calf is taken from his mother right after birth.Jlenevez · CC BY 3.0 · source There is no difference in this regard between the pain of a person and the pain of other living beings, since the love and tenderness of the mother for her young ones is not produced by reasoning, but by imagination, and this faculty exists not only in man but in most living beings. Said on shiluach haken and oto v'et b'no. (Friedlander, 1903.)
Moreh Nevuchim 3:48 The spirit of the law
The Torah's laws about animals all aim at one thing: no cruelty to them.
God's mercy is on everything He made, animals included. Rabbis disagree about exactly which acts the law forbids. None of them allows cruelty to an animal.
See it
A young calf in a sunlit field.David DeHetre · CC BY 2.0 · source וְרַחֲמָיו עַל־כׇּל־מַעֲשָׂיו
“His mercy is upon all His works.”
Tehillim 145:9 About this source
Recited three times a day, every day, in Ashrei.
Step 2 · The permission
The Torah allows meat because we crave it, not because we need it. The permission never covered the animal's suffering.
In full: Why did God allow meat? · 1 min →
Was it ever necessary?
The Torah permits meat because people crave it, not because they are hungry.
The first diet God gave people had no animals in it. Meat came later, as a permission and not a command.
More
Rabbi Yosef Albo, a medieval authority, says that in permitting meat “the Torah spoke only against the evil inclination.”
A Herdwick lamb in the Lake District, standing in the grass, looking back at whoever is holding the camera. Yeshayahu says that one day the wolf shall dwell with the lamb.Shaun Dunmall · CC BY-SA 2.0 · source כִּי־תְאַוֶּה נַפְשְׁךָ לֶאֱכֹל בָּשָׂר... בְּכׇל־אַוַּת נַפְשְׁךָ תֹּאכַל בָּשָׂר
“When your soul craves to eat meat... according to the craving of your soul you may eat meat.”
Devarim 12:20 About this source
The Sages call ordinary meat “meat of craving,” because this verse permits meat when a person craves it.Also cited · Sefer HaIkkarim 3:15
כי מלבד מה שיש בהריגת הבעלי חיים אכזריות חמה ושטף אף ולמוד תכונה רעה אל האדם לשפוך דם חנם... ואפילו מה שהתיר מהם לא דברה תורה אלא כנגד יצר הרע, כמו שהתיר להם יפת תואר על זה הדרך... הנה גלו בפירוש שאכילת הבשר לא הותר אלא על צד ההכרח
“Besides the cruelty, rage and fury there is in killing living creatures, and its teaching a person the bad trait of shedding blood for nothing... even what the Torah permitted of them, 'the Torah spoke only against the evil inclination,' as it permitted the captive woman in the same way... they revealed plainly that eating meat was permitted only by way of necessity.”
Sefer HaIkkarim 3:15 About this source
Written in Spain in the early fifteenth century, in the chapter on Kayin and Hevel. Between the first and second excerpts he adds that meat 'produces coarseness and dullness in the soul.' After the third he says meat was withheld at Creation 'though it is good food,' just as wine is good and the Nazir who gives it up is called holy. So he does not say meat is bad. He says what kind of permission the Torah gave for it. The 'they' in his last sentence are the Sages of Chullin 84a. That last sentence is one medieval authority's reading of the permission, not a ruling: Devarim 12:20 permits meat when a person craves it.Where the wanting comes from
The Torah's one story of meat eaten out of craving ends at a place called the Graves of the Craving.
In the desert the people had manna to eat, and still they demanded meat. God gave them meat for a month, “until it comes out of your nostrils and becomes loathsome to you.” They were buried there, and the place was named for their craving.
See it
The Negev near Avdat. In a wilderness like this one, Israel buried the people who craved meat.Mark Neyman / Government Press Office of Israel · CC BY-SA 3.0 · source הַבָּשָׂר עוֹדֶנּוּ בֵּין שִׁנֵּיהֶם טֶרֶם יִכָּרֵת וְאַף ה׳ חָרָה בָעָם וַיַּךְ ה׳ בָּעָם מַכָּה רַבָּה מְאֹד וַיִּקְרָא אֶת־שֵׁם־הַמָּקוֹם הַהוּא קִבְרוֹת הַתַּאֲוָה כִּי־שָׁם קָבְרוּ אֶת־הָעָם הַמִּתְאַוִּים
“The meat was still between their teeth, not yet chewed, when the anger of Hashem flared against the people, and Hashem struck the people a very great blow. And he named that place Kivrot HaTaavah, Graves of the Craving, for there they buried the people who craved.”
Bamidbar 11:33–34 About this source
This is not a punishment for eating meat. The camp already had food, and the place is named for the craving, not for the meat. The story condemns people who kept demanding meat after they already had enough to eat.Also cited · Bamidbar 11:20
עַד אֲשֶׁר־יֵצֵא מֵאַפְּכֶם וְהָיָה לָכֶם לְזָרָא יַעַן כִּי־מְאַסְתֶּם אֶת־ה׳ אֲשֶׁר בְּקִרְבְּכֶם
“...until it comes out of your nostrils and becomes loathsome to you, because you have rejected Hashem who is among you.”
Bamidbar 11:20 About this source
Here God gives the people meat; He does not refuse it. They get meat for a month, until they no longer want it. The word לְזָרָא, loathsome, appears nowhere else in Tanach. The manna was already feeding them. So the verse calls their complaint, and their weeping to go back to Egypt, מְאַסְתֶּם, a rejection of God, who was feeding them.
Step 3 · Complicity
A hen's suffering counts as much as a dog's, and when I buy, I share in it.
In full: Are you responsible for what the farm does? · 1 min →
The test
Name the difference between the dog you would defend and the hen on the farm.
You would stop a man beating a dog, and standing up for the dog costs you nothing. Standing up for the hen costs you food you like. That difference is about what you would give up. It changes nothing about what the hen feels.
A dog named Tomahawk, resting on a porch in California.Joe Parks · CC BY 2.0 · source Three possible answers
To keep eating meat, milk and eggs, you have to give one of three answers.
One: the hen's suffering does not count. But the Torah says it does, and you said it did for the dog.
Two: you have a real need, such as an illness. A real need does excuse you.
Three: there is a difference between the hen and the dog other than taste. Name it.
See it
A steak, as a restaurant serves it. The question to ask: did the person eating it need it, or only want the taste?Alex Munsell · CC0 · source Helping someone do wrong
You may not help anyone do wrong. The Rambam says that includes whoever strengthens the people who do it.
His example is buying from a robber. The robbery is already over, and the Rambam still forbids buying, because the money helps the robber rob again.
A farm works the same way. The hen in a battery cage is kept there because people keep buying her eggs.
More
The Talmud's basic rule covers only help the sinner could not do without. The Rambam's rule is wider: it covers any help that keeps the wrong going.
The Rema allows selling to a sinner who could buy elsewhere. In the same gloss he adds that anyone who takes his soul seriously should be strict with himself.
See it
One hen, in a battery cage in Poland, 2019. Her neck and back are worn half bare of feathers. The floor slopes so the eggs roll out, and she cannot stand fully upright.
וְלִפְנֵי עִוֵּר לֹא תִתֵּן מִכְשֹׁל וְיָרֵאתָ מֵּאֱלֹהֶיךָ
“You shall not place a stumbling block before the blind; you shall fear your God.”
Vayikra 19:14 Also cited · Rambam, Rotzeach 12:14
The ban on putting a stumbling block before the blind, lifnei iver, also covers anyone who strengthens the hands of people doing wrong.
Rambam, Rotzeach 12:14 Also cited · Rambam, Gezeilah 5:1
אָסוּר לִקְנוֹת דָּבָר הַגָּזוּל מִן הַגַּזְלָן... שֶׁכָּל הָעוֹשֶׂה דְּבָרִים אֵלּוּ וְכַיּוֹצֵא בָּהֶן מְחַזֵּק יְדֵי עוֹבְרֵי עֲבֵרָה וְעוֹבֵר עַל... וְלִפְנֵי עִוֵּר לֹא תִתֵּן מִכְשׁל
“It is forbidden to buy a stolen thing from the robber... for whoever does these things and the like strengthens the hands of transgressors and violates 'you shall not place a stumbling block before the blind'.”
Rambam, Gezeilah 5:1 About this source
The second set of dots skips only the verse reference. The robbery is already over when the buyer comes, and the Rambam still forbids buying, because it strengthens the robber's hands for the next robbery.Also cited · Avodah Zarah 6b
מִנַּיִן שֶׁלֹּא יוֹשִׁיט אָדָם כּוֹס שֶׁל יַיִן לְנָזִיר... תַּלְמוּד לוֹמַר: וְלִפְנֵי עִוֵּר לֹא תִתֵּן מִכְשֹׁל... הָכָא בְּמַאי עָסְקִינַן? דְּקָאֵי בִּתְרֵי עֶבְרֵי נַהֲרָא
“From where do we know that a person may not hand a cup of wine to a nazirite?... The verse says: you shall not place a stumbling block before the blind... What are we dealing with here? A case where they stand on two sides of a river.”
Avodah Zarah 6b About this source
Every discussion of lifnei iver, the ban on putting a stumbling block before the blind, starts from this passage. The Gemara says the Torah-level prohibition is the case of the nazirite across the river: he cannot reach the wine unless you hand it to him. If he could have taken it himself, handing it to him is not lifnei iver by Torah law, and the Rishonim argue over what it is instead (Tosafot on Shabbat 3a call it a rabbinic prohibition on assisting a sinner; the Rambam folds assisting into the verse at Hilchot Rotzeach 12:14). The step on complicity raises this narrow reading as an objection to its own argument. It asks: when a farm raises animals to fill buyers' orders, is the buyer like the person who hands wine across the river, without whom the wrong cannot happen? Or could the farm go on without him?Also cited · Rema, YD 151:1
אֲבָל אִם יְכוֹלִים לִקְנוֹת בְּמָקוֹם אַחֵר מוּתָּר לִמְכּוֹר לָהֶם כׇּל דָּבָר... וְיֵשׁ מַחְמִירִין וְנָהֲגוּ לְהָקֵל כִּסְבָרָא הָרִאשׁוֹנָה וְכׇל בַּעַל נֶפֶשׁ יַחְמִיר לְעַצְמוֹ
“But if they can buy it elsewhere, it is permitted to sell them anything... And some are strict; the custom is to be lenient, like the first view, and every ba'al nefesh should be strict with himself.”
Rema, YD 151:1 About this source
In this gloss the Rema rules on selling idolaters things they will use in their worship. It is the code's standing ruling on lifnei iver when the sinner could buy from someone else. Read all of it. It is the strongest objection to the step on complicity, and it also answers that objection. The lenient view is the accepted custom: if the wrong could be done without you, the law does not hold you responsible. But the Rema ends by saying that a ba'al nefesh, someone who takes his own soul seriously, should be strict with himself anyway. This site asks exactly that of a reader who accepts the lenient view.
Step 4 · The facts
Factory farms make animals suffer as a matter of routine, and a kosher label does not change that. Every egg depends on the hatchery, and every carton of milk on the calf taken from his mother.
In full: What happens on the farms today? · 3 min →
What changed
Farms today are nothing like the farms Jewish law was written for.
On the old farm, the animals had a yard and a farmer who knew them. Today's turkeys are bred so heavy that the males cannot mate reliably, so almost every turkey is conceived by artificial insemination.
Commercial turkeys are bred by artificial insemination, week after week. Selection for a heavier, broader breast left the toms unable to transfer semen reliably at copulation. There is effectively no natural mating left in the industry.
Bakst & Dymond, poultry AI About this source
The common line that these birds are physically incapable of mating is stronger than the literature supports: they can mate, but not reliably enough for commercial production, so the whole industry runs on insemination by hand.
The numbers
2,600 a second
That is how many land animals are killed for food every second. 83 billion a year, and 75 billion of them are chickens.
Young chickens raised for meat, crowded together on the floor of an ordinary shed. They are so young that some still have yellow down on their heads.
83+ billion land animals slaughtered per year, roughly 2,600 every second.
UN FAO, FAOSTAT, 2022 About this source
Chickens alone are about 75 of the 83 billion, 75.4 billion slaughtered in 2022 in the same FAOSTAT series, which is why step four starts from one hen. Fish are counted separately.10 land animals a year for each of us, on the world average
Eighty-three billion killed in one year, divided among eight billion people, comes to about ten each. A person who goes vegan stops funding the deaths of about ten animals a year, for life.
See it
A cattle feedlot in New Mexico: hundreds of cattle on bare dirt, with no grass anywhere in the frame.Quintin Soloviev (2024) · CC BY 4.0 · source Also cited · UN FAO, FAOSTAT (2022)
83+ billion land animals slaughtered per year, roughly 2,600 every second.
UN FAO, FAOSTAT, 2022 About this source
Chickens alone are about 75 of the 83 billion, 75.4 billion slaughtered in 2022 in the same FAOSTAT series, which is why step four starts from one hen. Fish are counted separately.Day one is the last day for most male chicks
Male chicks cannot lay eggs, so the egg industry kills them on the day they hatch, billions a year. Germany banned the practice in 2022.
See it
A chick a week or two old, sitting in someone's hand. He is very small. If he had hatched in a hatchery for laying hens and turned out to be male, he would not have lived this long: the males are killed on the day they hatch, billions of them a year.Tushar Hossain · CC BY-SA 4.0 · source Male chicks of laying breeds cannot lay and do not fatten well, so the egg industry kills them the day they hatch, by maceration or gassing, billions of them a year worldwide. Germany banned the practice from 1 January 2022, and France from 2023.
Krautwald-Junghanns et al., 2018 About this source
A peer-reviewed review, cited for the practice and its rationale rather than a precise tally (global estimates cluster around 6–7 billion a year). Germany's ban took effect 1 January 2022; France's decree followed, with white-egg layer lines, over a tenth of French male chicks, exempted because their sex is harder to tell inside the egg. Testing the egg's sex before it hatches is now the alternative. It does nothing at all for the hens themselves.5 minutes with her calf is enough to bond
When her calf was taken, every cow in the study paced and called out without stopping. Twelve hours later, each cow could still pick out her own calf.
More
A human mother in her place would still be listening for her baby.
The Talmud states it as common knowledge: more than the calf wants to suckle, the cow wants to nurse. The Torah would not accept a newborn calf as an offering before he had seven days with his mother. A dairy takes him within one day.
Five minutes with her calf after birth is enough to form a strong bond specific to that calf. Separated, every cow in the study showed distress — walking, urinating, butting, vocalising continually from one end of the paddock. She could still recognise her own calf twelve hours later. By twenty-four hours she was still distressed, and could no longer tell which calf was hers.
Hudson & Mullord, 1977 About this source
A 1977 study by researchers of cattle farming, not an advocacy paper. That is why this page relies on it. It has two limits: it did not measure whether she suffers more or less than a human mother would, and it is one study from one herd.Also cited · Pesachim 112a
יוֹתֵר מִמַּה שֶּׁהָעֵגֶל רוֹצֶה לִינַק פָּרָה רוֹצָה לְהָנִיק
“More than the calf wants to suckle, the cow wants to nurse.”
Pesachim 112a About this source
R. Akiva said this to R. Shimon bar Yochai in prison, to explain that he wants to teach even more than his student wants to learn. He compares himself to a cow because everyone who heard him knew that a cow wants to nurse her calf. The Talmud takes that for granted. On a dairy farm, as step four shows, the calf is taken from her so that she cannot nurse him. Separated from him, she calls out and searches for him (Hudson & Mullord (1977)).Also cited · Vayikra 22:27
שׁוֹר אוֹ־כֶשֶׂב אוֹ־עֵז כִּי יִוָּלֵד וְהָיָה שִׁבְעַת יָמִים תַּחַת אִמּוֹ
“An ox or a sheep or a goat, when it is born, shall stay seven days under its mother.”
Vayikra 22:27 About this source
The verse sets the earliest day a newborn animal may be brought as an offering: the eighth day. It is not a law about raising animals, and this site does not read it as a ban on taking a calf from a cow. Asa Keisar's book reads it that way; this site does not repeat that reading. The plain facts are enough without it. The Torah does not allow a calf on the altar until he has spent a week with his mother. The dairy takes him from her within a day (EFSA, calves (2023)).
What the farms look like
Eggs
A hen wants to make a nest before she lays, and to scratch and bathe in dust. In these cages she can do none of it. The eggs roll out through the bars, and the hens never leave.
Laying hens in battery cages in Bastos, Brazil, their heads pushed out through the bars. Their eggs roll away on the belt below them.
See the rest of the footage (13)
Eggs
A laying hen in Israel. Her beak was cut back as a chick so crowded birds do not injure each other, and the cage wore the feathers off her neck.
A laying hen at Shefer, Israel, January 2012. Her beak was cut back as a chick so that crowded birds do not injure each other, and the bare patches are where the cage wore her feathers off. The EU's own scientists say the cutting hurts and should be phased out. It is still standard practice.
Chicken
This is a free-range shed, with doors to the outside. Free-range is the best the chicken industry offers, and it still looks like this.
Thousands of chickens raised for meat, packed end to end inside a free-range shed.
Eggs
This is the machine in an Israeli hatchery. Male chicks cannot lay eggs, so on the day they hatch they go down this funnel.
The grinder for male chicks in an Israeli hatchery, 2014. Male chicks cannot lay eggs, so on the day they hatch they are dropped alive into this funnel. The machine is quiet, clean, and on wheels. Nothing in the picture is graphic. This is how a hatchery looks on an ordinary day, when no investigator is filming.
Milk
Born 27 July 2014 on an Israeli dairy farm and taken from his mother the same day. The tag is the only name he will get.
Number 556, born 27 July 2014 on an Israeli dairy farm and taken from his mother the same day.
Milk
This cow is following the trailer that takes the calves away. Dairy calves are taken within a day of birth so the milk can be sold.
Newborn dairy calves are towed away in a cage on wheels, and a cow walks after them. The captions on the film are its publisher's, not this page's.
Milk
The calf nursery at a kibbutz dairy in Israel. Newborns are taken from their mothers at once and kept one to a cage under a heat lamp.
The calf nursery at a kibbutz dairy in Israel, 2016. Newborn calves are taken from their mothers at once and kept one to a cage under a heat lamp. The milk their mothers made for them is sold instead.
Milk
Where a calf on an Israeli dairy farm goes after he is separated from his mother. He has one lamp, a little straw, and no other animal with him.
A calf on an Israeli dairy farm, 2014, alone in the pen he was put in after he was taken from his mother. He has one lamp, a little straw, and no other animal with him.
Veal and dairy
This is where a dairy calf goes once she is taken from her mother. Each box holds one calf, alone.
Rows of calf hutches, one calf to each: the standard housing for a dairy calf once she is taken from her mother. This is an edited campaign clip. The captions and the inset are its publisher's, and the original footage has no credit of its own.
Milk
A dairy barn. Each cow is chained to her place by the neck, and the calf behind her is chained too.
A tethered dairy barn in Poland, 2014. Each cow is chained to her place by the neck. The cow looking at the camera is a mother. She is kept giving milk, and each calf she bears is taken from her.
Israeli slaughterhouse
A calf in the holding pen of an Israeli slaughterhouse, waiting his turn. Kosher supervision begins at the knife. It does not cover this pen.
A calf in the holding pen of an Israeli slaughterhouse, 2013, waiting his turn to be killed. Kosher supervision begins at slaughter. It does not cover this pen, or anything that happened to him before it.
Israeli slaughterhouse
The kill floor of an Israeli slaughterhouse in the seconds after the cut. A photograph cannot show whether she was still conscious. It does show the floor, and kosher supervisors do inspect this part.
A cow on the kill floor of an Israeli slaughterhouse, 2005, seconds after her throat was cut. A photograph cannot show whether she was still conscious. Kosher supervision does inspect this step, the slaughter itself.
Israeli slaughterhouse
The same floor minutes later. The round steel door is the pen that turns each animal onto her back for the cut, one after another.
The same floor, minutes later, and the cow is dead. The round steel door is the rotating pen that turns each animal onto her back for the cut. The worker's chain is for hoisting her up by the leg.
Turkey
This turkey has been bred heavier than her legs are built to carry. The males of her breed can no longer mate reliably, so the industry breeds them by hand.
A young turkey alone against the wall of a commercial shed. Her white feathers are thin and dirty.
Step 5 · The need
I don't need meat, milk or eggs. I can live well without supporting that suffering.
In full: Do you still need meat, milk or eggs? · 2 min →
Need or taste
Rav Moshe Feinstein forbade raising calves for white veal.
The calf spends his life in a crate, kept from his mother's milk, so that his meat comes out pale. Rav Moshe ruled that pale meat is not a real need, so the calf's pain is forbidden.
He did allow some pain to make meat taste better. But the Torah calls the wish for meat a craving, not a need. Ask yourself whether you eat meat because you need it or because you like the taste.
A calf in a truck on the way to slaughter, Israel, 2014. He stands on a metal floor covered in dung, beside another calf.
וְהִנֵּה לְאֵלּוּ שֶׁעוֹשִׂין זֶה אִיכָּא וַדַּאי אִסּוּר דְּצַעַר בַּעֲלֵי חַיִּים, דְּאַף שֶׁהֻתַּר לְצֹרֶךְ הָאָדָם הוּא כְּשֶׁאִיכָּא צֹרֶךְ... אֲבָל לֹא לְצַעֲרָם בְּעָלְמָא, שֶׁזֶּה אָסוּר אַף אִם יִהְיֶה לְאֶחָד הַרְוָחָה בָּזֶה... וּבַעֲלֵי נֶפֶשׁ אֵין לָהֶם לֶאֱכֹל כְּלָל מֵעֲגָלִים כָּאֵלּוּ
“For those who do this there is certainly a prohibition of tza'ar ba'alei chayim. Although this is permissible when done to serve human needs, that is only when there is a true need... But it is not permissible to cause them pain for no good reason, even if there exists an individual who will derive some profit from this... A ba'al nefesh should not eat from such calves at all.”
Igrot Moshe, EH 4:92 About this source
Written to his son-in-law, R. Moshe David Tendler. The ban falls on the people who raise the calves. To the person who eats veal he gives advice for the scrupulous, mostly because many such calves turned out not to be kosher. He forbids white veal because its only benefit is the pale look of the meat. His closing line calls raising white veal forbidden 'מאיסור צער בע״ח מדאורייתא', by the Torah's own prohibition on causing animals pain.Also cited · Rema, EH 5:14
כָּל דָּבָר הַצָּרִיךְ לִרְפוּאָה אוֹ לִשְׁאָר דְּבָרִים לֵית בֵּיהּ מִשּׁוּם אִיסּוּר צַעַר בַּעֲלֵי חַיִּים... וְלָכֵן מוּתָּר לִמְרוֹט נוֹצוֹת מֵאֲוָזוֹת חַיּוֹת וְלֵיכָּא לְמֵיחַשׁ מִשּׁוּם צַעַר בַּעֲלֵי חַיִּים... הָעוֹלָם נִמְנָעִים דַּהֲוֵי אַכְזָרִיּוּת
“Anything needed for healing or for other purposes carries no prohibition of tza'ar ba'alei chayim... Therefore it is permitted to pluck feathers from live geese, and there is no concern of tza'ar ba'alei chayim... People refrain, because it is cruelty.”
Rema, EH 5:14 About this source
This line appears in a gloss on the laws of castration. The Rema codifies the Terumat HaDeshen (Pesakim uChtavim 105) and the Issur VeHeter HaAruch (59): causing an animal pain is permitted for a human need. Later rulings on animal pain, the Noda BiYehuda on hunting, Igrot Moshe on veal, and the debates over what counts as a need, all argue about this sentence. Read all three clauses. The permission depends on need. The example, plucking live geese, was a real practice in the Rema's day. The last clause opens in the original with 'nevertheless'. In it the Rema reports that people did not pluck live geese, and he gives the reason in his own word: cruelty.Also cited · Devarim 12:20
כִּי־תְאַוֶּה נַפְשְׁךָ לֶאֱכֹל בָּשָׂר... בְּכׇל־אַוַּת נַפְשְׁךָ תֹּאכַל בָּשָׂר
“When your soul craves to eat meat... according to the craving of your soul you may eat meat.”
Devarim 12:20 About this source
The Sages call ordinary meat “meat of craving,” because this verse permits meat when a person craves it.Name the need
Only a real need can justify what factory farms do to animals.
Real needs exist: illness, a body that cannot absorb what it needs, poverty with no other food. If your family is not ready, that can limit what is served at shared meals. It does not decide what you buy and eat yourself.
For everyone else, dietitians say a well-planned vegan diet can meet an adult's needs.
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A real need allows only as much as the need requires.
Taste, habit, convenience and what people will think are not needs.
See it
A vegetable stall at Borough Market, London. Until vitamin B12 was isolated in 1948, living without any animal food carried real risk.Jack Gavigan · CC BY-SA 3.0 · source The Academy's current position, in effect to 31 December 2032: for adults, appropriately planned vegetarian and vegan diets can be nutritionally adequate. By vegan it means a diet with no food from animals at all.
Academy of Nutrition & Dietetics, 2025 About this source
The 2025 paper covers only adults. It drops the 2016 paper's explicit endorsement for pregnancy, infancy and childhood. Those were not retracted; the review was simply limited to adults. The site uses the narrower claim. Its argument needs only this: the adult reading it can eat a healthy diet with no food from animals.Kosher is not enough
A rabbi who rules that the meat may be eaten has not ruled that the suffering is allowed.
Rabbi Shmuel Kamenetsky was sent a written description of factory farming. He agreed that it may well be forbidden cruelty to animals, and he still ruled that the meat may be eaten.
His ruling is the strongest source against this site's argument.
But his ruling is about the meat on the plate. It does not permit the cruelty on the farm, and no rabbi has ruled that you may keep supporting it. The Torah already forbids that cruelty.
See it
Bettencourt Dairies, Idaho, one of the largest dairies in the United States, photographed during Mercy For Animals' 2012 investigation. The cows stand over an alley flooded with their own liquid manure, and their legs are caked with it. Three workers were later charged with cruelty. The housing itself was legal, and it is ordinary in the industry.
Written for the Zelcers' article: the practices of factory farming may well constitute tza'ar ba'alei chayim, and the meat and poultry produced by them remain permitted to eat.
R. Shmuel Kamenetsky, Hakirah 24 About this source
This is the strongest source against this site's case. A senior posek was sent a written description of the practices, granted that they may well be tza'ar ba'alei chayim, and permitted the food anyway. On the usual explanation, the prohibition falls on the person doing the act, and halacha has no way to make the meat itself forbidden. Even on that view, the suffering he describes is still wrong; the ruling only says the meat may be eaten. The Zelcers also report Kamenetsky's view that Igrot Moshe's veal teshuvah in fact rejects the Terumat HaDeshen and the Rema who codified him, and that Rav Moshe simply declined to say so.Permitted, and not done
The Rema permits plucking feathers from a live goose. Then he writes that people refrain, because it is cruelty.
The same sentence gives the rule people quote most often: a human need permits causing an animal pain. They usually leave out the words that follow it.
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So the Rema himself says something can be permitted and still be so cruel that people refrain from doing it.
כָּל דָּבָר הַצָּרִיךְ לִרְפוּאָה אוֹ לִשְׁאָר דְּבָרִים לֵית בֵּיהּ מִשּׁוּם אִיסּוּר צַעַר בַּעֲלֵי חַיִּים... וְלָכֵן מוּתָּר לִמְרוֹט נוֹצוֹת מֵאֲוָזוֹת חַיּוֹת וְלֵיכָּא לְמֵיחַשׁ מִשּׁוּם צַעַר בַּעֲלֵי חַיִּים... הָעוֹלָם נִמְנָעִים דַּהֲוֵי אַכְזָרִיּוּת
“Anything needed for healing or for other purposes carries no prohibition of tza'ar ba'alei chayim... Therefore it is permitted to pluck feathers from live geese, and there is no concern of tza'ar ba'alei chayim... People refrain, because it is cruelty.”
Rema, EH 5:14 About this source
This line appears in a gloss on the laws of castration. The Rema codifies the Terumat HaDeshen (Pesakim uChtavim 105) and the Issur VeHeter HaAruch (59): causing an animal pain is permitted for a human need. Later rulings on animal pain, the Noda BiYehuda on hunting, Igrot Moshe on veal, and the debates over what counts as a need, all argue about this sentence. Read all three clauses. The permission depends on need. The example, plucking live geese, was a real practice in the Rema's day. The last clause opens in the original with 'nevertheless'. In it the Rema reports that people did not pluck live geese, and he gives the reason in his own word: cruelty.
The verdict
Without a real need, buying meat, milk or eggs is wrong, and the Torah forbids it. Go vegan, starting at your next meal.
Repentance
In full: What does repentance ask of us? · 1 min →
The end of days
The prophet Yeshayahu says that at the end of days, even the lion will eat straw.
The Rambam reads the wolf and the lamb as a parable, and this site's argument does not depend on reading it literally. Either way, Yeshayahu describes a world where no creature hurts another.
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The Abarbanel explains why the lion will eat straw: eating flesh breeds cruelty, and in that time there will be no cruelty.
וְגָר זְאֵב עִם־כֶּבֶשׂ... לֹא־יָרֵעוּ וְלֹא־יַשְׁחִיתוּ בְּכׇל־הַר קׇדְשִׁי כִּי־מָלְאָה הָאָרֶץ דֵּעָה אֶת־ה׳
“The wolf shall dwell with the lamb... they shall not hurt nor destroy on all My holy mountain, for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of Hashem.”
Yeshayahu 11:6–9 Also cited · Rambam, Melachim 12:1
וְזֶה שֶׁנֶּאֱמַר בִּישַׁעְיָה... מָשָׁל וְחִידָה... וְלֹא יִגְזְלוּ וְלֹא יַשְׁחִיתוּ. אֶלָּא יֹאכְלוּ דָּבָר הַמֻּתָּר בְּנַחַת
“And that which is said in Yeshayahu ["the wolf shall dwell with the lamb"] is a parable and a riddle... they will not rob and will not destroy, but will eat what is permitted, peaceably.”
Rambam, Melachim 12:1 About this source
This is the strongest source against reading Yeshayahu 11 literally, and it comes from the Rambam, whom this site relies on throughout. He reads the wolf as the nations and the lamb as Israel. Read the halacha to the end, though. When he explains the parable, he keeps the eating in it: people stop taking by force and eat what is permitted. He bases that on 'the lion shall eat straw like the ox.'Also cited · Abarbanel on Yeshayahu 11
וענינו אצלי שאכילת הבשר לבעלי חיים, מוליד בו אכזריות חמה ותכונה רעה... כשנתן הקדוש ברוך הוא רשות לנח ולבניו לאכול בשר אמר... אך את דמכם לנפשותיכם אדרוש, מפני שחשש שמפאת האכזריות והזדון אשר יתילד בהם מאכילת הבשר יהרגו איש לאחיו
“And its meaning, to me, is that eating flesh breeds in a living creature cruelty, rage and a bad disposition... When the Holy One gave Noach and his sons leave to eat meat, He said, in the next verse, 'But your blood, of your lives, I will require', because He feared that from the cruelty and malice which eating meat would breed in them, a man would kill his brother.”
Abarbanel on Yeshayahu 11 About this source
Written on 'the lion shall eat straw like the ox.' The second set of dots skips only his verse reference (Bereishit 9:5). He draws his point from the order of the verses in Bereishit 9: first God permits meat, and right after that He forbids murder. He cites Chullin 84a for it. The Ramban and the Chinuch say the laws about animals are meant to shape our character. The Abarbanel says the same thing more strongly than either. He is not calling anyone who eats meat a murderer, and neither does this site.
What people say
The ones everyone has heard
“I know it’s wrong. I’ll keep eating it anyway.”Then you agree with the whole argument. What keeps you eating meat is a craving.
Nobody is asking you to stop wanting meat. The Talmud says it is better to sin without knowing than knowingly, and now you know. Go vegan at your next meal.
הַנַּח לָהֶם לְיִשְׂרָאֵל, מוּטָב שֶׁיִּהְיוּ שׁוֹגְגִין וְאַל יִהְיוּ מְזִידִין
“Leave Israel alone: better that they be unwitting than deliberate transgressors.”
About this source
Codified at Shulchan Aruch, Orach Chaim 608:2. The Rema limits it to prohibitions that are Torah-level but not explicit in the Torah, which is where tza'ar ba'alei chayim falls. The same gloss says the rule of staying silent applies only to the public. An individual must still be rebuked.“God gave us dominion.”Dominion means being in charge of animals, not owning them.
The Talmud says the dominion verse did not let Adam eat meat: he was to rule over animals, not eat them. The Torah also puts Adam in the garden to work it and to guard it.
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A calf being led to slaughter hid his head under Rebbi's cloak. Rebbi told him, 'Go. For this you were created.' The Talmud says Heaven then punished Rebbi with thirteen years of pain, because he showed the calf no mercy.
לְעׇבְדָהּ וּלְשׇׁמְרָהּ
“God placed the human in the garden 'to work it and to guard it'. People are told to look after the world, not only to use it.”
“It’s natural.”When God created the world, He gave people only plants to eat.
Even if eating meat were natural, that would not make it right: disease is natural too. And nothing is natural about a battery cage, or about grinding male chicks alive on the day they hatch.
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People are not lions. We have other food, and we do not need meat to survive.
The first diet God gave people: plants, and no animals.
“Real men eat meat.”Who is mighty? The one who conquers his own impulse.
That is the sage Ben Zoma's answer in Ethics of the Fathers.
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By Ben Zoma's measure, a strong man is one who can say no to a craving.
אֵיזֶהוּ גִבּוֹר, הַכּוֹבֵשׁ אֶת יִצְרוֹ
“"Who is mighty? The one who conquers his own impulse." Ben Zoma's answer, brought on Mishlei 16:32: better to be slow to anger than mighty, and to rule your own spirit than to capture a city.”
About this source
Gibor, mighty, is the word the Torah uses for Nimrod the hunter in Bereishit 10:9. Ben Zoma is not using it as a figure of speech. He asks who really deserves to be called mighty, and answers: the man who can turn down something he wants.“So a chicken is worth the same as a person?”No. People are made in God's image, and animals are not.
To spare an animal pain, you may set aside a rabbinic rule on Shabbat. To save a human life, you may set aside the Torah's own rules. Both matter, and a person matters more.
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This argument does not need animals and people to be equal. It needs only an animal's suffering to count for something, and the Torah says it does.
בְּצֶלֶם אֱלֹהִים בָּרָא אֹתוֹ
“"in the image of God He created him", said only of human beings. Because of this verse, this site does not claim that animals and people are equal.”
“It’s our tradition.”Earlier generations of Jews had no safe way to live without animal foods. You do.
Vitamin B12 was first isolated in 1948. The Torah permitted meat because people craved it, and it never permitted the cruelty of factory farms.
The first diet God gave people: plants, and no animals.
“An animal's end is slaughter.”The saying is about death coming to everyone. It does not say animals exist to be slaughtered.
Rabbi Yochanan said it whenever he finished the book of Iyov (Job): a person's end is to die, an animal's end is to be slaughtered, so happy is the one who leaves a good name. The whole saying is a lesson about how people should live.
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The saying describes what happens to animals where people slaughter them. It does not approve of it. When Rebbi told a frightened calf that he was created for slaughter, the Talmud says Rebbi suffered for years because of it.
סוֹף אָדָם לָמוּת וְסוֹף בְּהֵמָה לִשְׁחִיטָה, וְהַכֹּל לְמִיתָה הֵם עוֹמְדִים. אַשְׁרֵי מִי שֶׁגָּדֵל בַּתּוֹרָה
“The end of a person is to die, and the end of an animal is to be slaughtered, and all stand ready for death. Happy is the one who grew up in Torah.”
About this source
R. Yochanan said this whenever he finished the book of Iyov. Read whole, it is about death, not about food: everything dies, so what matters is the good name a person leaves. People often quote one half of it at the table: 'an animal's end is slaughter'. That half describes what happens to animals where people slaughter them. It does not say what animals are for, and the Talmud never uses it that way.The ones that sound like Jewish law
“Kosher slaughter is humane.”Kosher slaughter rules cover only the last seconds of an animal's life.
They say nothing about the calf taken from his mother on his first day, or about the crate, the shed and the truck in the months before the knife.
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A senior posek, a rabbi who decides Jewish law, granted that those practices may well be forbidden cruelty, and ruled the meat permitted anyway.
Written for the Zelcers' article: the practices of factory farming may well constitute tza'ar ba'alei chayim, and the meat and poultry produced by them remain permitted to eat.
About this source
This is the strongest source against this site's case. A senior posek was sent a written description of the practices, granted that they may well be tza'ar ba'alei chayim, and permitted the food anyway. On the usual explanation, the prohibition falls on the person doing the act, and halacha has no way to make the meat itself forbidden. Even on that view, the suffering he describes is still wrong; the ruling only says the meat may be eaten. The Zelcers also report Kamenetsky's view that Igrot Moshe's veal teshuvah in fact rejects the Terumat HaDeshen and the Rema who codified him, and that Rav Moshe simply declined to say so.“There’s a mitzvah to eat meat on festivals.”The commandment is to rejoice on the festival. The Torah does not say you must eat meat.
The Talmud's saying about meat meant the festival offering, eaten from the altar in Jerusalem.
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The same sage says that since the Temple was destroyed, people rejoice with wine.
The Magen Avraham, a leading authority on Jewish law, rules that even on Shabbat a man who does not want meat need not eat it, and that the obligation belonged to the Temple.
בִּזְמַן שֶׁבֵּית הַמִּקְדָּשׁ קַיָּים אֵין שִׂמְחָה אֶלָּא בְּבָשָׂר... וְעַכְשָׁיו שֶׁאֵין בֵּית הַמִּקְדָּשׁ קַיָּים אֵין שִׂמְחָה אֶלָּא בְּיַיִן
“R. Yehuda ben Beteira: when the Temple stood, there is no joy except with meat, the shelamim offering, 'you shall slaughter peace-offerings and eat there and rejoice' (Devarim 27:7); and now that the Temple does not stand, there is no joy except with wine, 'wine gladdens the heart of man' (Tehillim 104:15).”
“It has a kosher certificate.”A kosher certificate is about the meat, not about how the animal lived.
A senior rabbi was sent a description of factory-farm practices. He granted that they may well be forbidden cruelty, and ruled that the meat stays permitted to eat.
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So the certificate tells you the meat may be eaten. It does not tell you that you may support how the animal was raised. The Torah's own laws forbid that.
Written for the Zelcers' article: the practices of factory farming may well constitute tza'ar ba'alei chayim, and the meat and poultry produced by them remain permitted to eat.
About this source
This is the strongest source against this site's case. A senior posek was sent a written description of the practices, granted that they may well be tza'ar ba'alei chayim, and permitted the food anyway. On the usual explanation, the prohibition falls on the person doing the act, and halacha has no way to make the meat itself forbidden. Even on that view, the suffering he describes is still wrong; the ruling only says the meat may be eaten. The Zelcers also report Kamenetsky's view that Igrot Moshe's veal teshuvah in fact rejects the Terumat HaDeshen and the Rema who codified him, and that Rav Moshe simply declined to say so.“My rabbi would have said so.”Ask him whether the farm is fine, not only whether the meat is kosher.
A ruling that the meat is permitted is not a ruling that the suffering is fine.
No rabbi alive can forbid meat to every Jew: that would take the Great Sanhedrin, the high court of Temple times, and there is none today. He does not need to forbid anything new. The law against needless suffering is already in the Torah.
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When you ask him in person, Jewish law says he may not stay silent.
Written for the Zelcers' article: the practices of factory farming may well constitute tza'ar ba'alei chayim, and the meat and poultry produced by them remain permitted to eat.
About this source
This is the strongest source against this site's case. A senior posek was sent a written description of the practices, granted that they may well be tza'ar ba'alei chayim, and permitted the food anyway. On the usual explanation, the prohibition falls on the person doing the act, and halacha has no way to make the meat itself forbidden. Even on that view, the suffering he describes is still wrong; the ruling only says the meat may be eaten. The Zelcers also report Kamenetsky's view that Igrot Moshe's veal teshuvah in fact rejects the Terumat HaDeshen and the Rema who codified him, and that Rav Moshe simply declined to say so.“It’s a personal choice.”It is your choice, but an animal suffers because of it.
Every purchase tells the farm to raise another animal. Other people do the work, and your money keeps them doing it.
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The Talmud says all Jews are responsible for one another. One buyer among millions still has a share in the wrong.
כָּל יִשְׂרָאֵל עֲרֵבִים זֶה בָּזֶה
“All Israel are guarantors for one another.”
“Someone else will buy it anyway.”Others would buy from a robber too, and the Rambam still forbids buying from him.
Buying from the robber helps him rob again. The Rema adds that anyone who takes his soul seriously should be strict with himself.
אָסוּר לִקְנוֹת דָּבָר הַגָּזוּל מִן הַגַּזְלָן... שֶׁכָּל הָעוֹשֶׂה דְּבָרִים אֵלּוּ וְכַיּוֹצֵא בָּהֶן מְחַזֵּק יְדֵי עוֹבְרֵי עֲבֵרָה וְעוֹבֵר עַל... וְלִפְנֵי עִוֵּר לֹא תִתֵּן מִכְשׁל
“It is forbidden to buy a stolen thing from the robber... for whoever does these things and the like strengthens the hands of transgressors and violates 'you shall not place a stumbling block before the blind'.”
About this source
The second set of dots skips only the verse reference. The robbery is already over when the buyer comes, and the Rambam still forbids buying, because it strengthens the robber's hands for the next robbery.“The farmer isn’t Jewish.”This argument is about what you do as the buyer, not about the farmer.
The farm hurts animals to supply what you buy, and the Torah forbids you to help anyone do wrong.
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That ban covers helping a non-Jew too. One of the Talmud’s first examples is handing a non-Jew a limb from a living animal.
מִנַּיִן שֶׁלֹּא יוֹשִׁיט אָדָם כּוֹס שֶׁל יַיִן לְנָזִיר, וְאֵבֶר מִן הַחַי לִבְנֵי נֹחַ? תַּלְמוּד לוֹמַר: ״וְלִפְנֵי עִוֵּר לֹא תִתֵּן מִכְשֹׁל״
“From where is it derived that a person may not extend a cup of wine to a nazirite, who is prohibited from drinking wine, and that he may not extend a limb severed from a living animal to descendants of Noah? The verse states: “And you shall not put a stumbling block before the blind””
About this source
This is the opening line of the passage, in full. The translation is Sefaria's (William Davidson, Koren-Steinsaltz). One of the Talmud's first examples of lifnei iver is handing a non-Jew a limb severed from a living animal, which the laws given to Noah's descendants forbid him to eat. So the ban on helping someone do wrong also covers helping a non-Jew break a law that binds him. Checked against Sefaria's text, Hebrew and English, on 10 October 2026.“The Torah commands animal offerings.”Torah law forbids causing an animal needless pain. It does not forbid slaughter.
Even for an offering, a newborn calf had to stay seven days with his mother. A dairy farm takes him from her within one day.
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We do not dispute that the Torah commands offerings and permits slaughter.
שׁוֹר אוֹ־כֶשֶׂב אוֹ־עֵז כִּי יִוָּלֵד וְהָיָה שִׁבְעַת יָמִים תַּחַת אִמּוֹ
“An ox or a sheep or a goat, when it is born, shall stay seven days under its mother.”
About this source
The verse sets the earliest day a newborn animal may be brought as an offering: the eighth day. It is not a law about raising animals, and this site does not read it as a ban on taking a calf from a cow. Asa Keisar's book reads it that way; this site does not repeat that reading. The plain facts are enough without it. The Torah does not allow a calf on the altar until he has spent a week with his mother. The dairy takes him from her within a day (EFSA, calves (2023)).Going only part of the way
“I’ll cut out meat.”Going vegetarian is not enough. Eggs and milk cause suffering too.
The egg industry kills most male chicks on the day they hatch. Dairy farms take each calf from his mother, and she calls for him for hours.
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Your money funds the hatchery and the dairy, even if you never eat meat.
צער בעלי חיים דאורייתא
“The Talmud debates whether the ban on causing animals suffering comes from the Torah itself.”
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The Talmud records a dispute; most later authorities, the Rif and the Rosh among them, treat it as Torah law. On every view, the prohibition is binding. No opinion in the tradition permits needless animal suffering.“I’ll keep only fish.”The Torah calls a fish a living soul too, and fish feel pain.
A fish injected with an irritant rubs the spot, rocks, and stops eating.
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Fish are the first creatures the Torah calls a living soul.
יִשְׁרְצוּ הַמַּיִם שֶׁרֶץ נֶפֶשׁ חַיָּה... וְאֵת כׇּל־נֶפֶשׁ הַחַיָּה הָרֹמֶשֶׂת אֲשֶׁר שָׁרְצוּ הַמַּיִם
“Let the waters swarm with living souls... and God created every living soul that swarms in the waters. The Torah's word for a fish is nefesh chayah, a living soul, the same phrase it uses for people.”
“I only buy humane.”A humane label does not change how eggs and milk are made.
You cared enough to look for a better farm. However kindly a hen is kept, her brothers were killed the day they hatched. And a cow gives milk only because she has had a calf.
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The only way to fund none of this is to stop buying meat, milk and eggs.
People eat grass-fed steak because they want it, not because they need it. The Torah allows causing an animal pain only for a real need.
Rabbi Yehuda HeChasid's will told his family not to raise chicks at all, because nobody can watch closely enough to spare them pain.
יוֹדֵעַ צַדִּיק נֶפֶשׁ בְּהֶמְתּוֹ וְרַחֲמֵי רְשָׁעִים אַכְזָרִי
“The righteous one knows the soul of his animal; the mercies of the wicked are cruelty.”
“I’ve cut back.”Eating less still causes needless suffering.
The Torah forbids needless suffering, not too much of it. Each time you buy meat, milk or eggs, your money funds the next animal's suffering.
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You have already started. Go vegan from your next meal.
כִּי־תְאַוֶּה נַפְשְׁךָ לֶאֱכֹל בָּשָׂר... בְּכׇל־אַוַּת נַפְשְׁךָ תֹּאכַל בָּשָׂר
“When your soul craves to eat meat... according to the craving of your soul you may eat meat.”
About this source
The Sages call ordinary meat “meat of craving,” because this verse permits meat when a person craves it.The practical ones
“I need the protein, and it’s expensive.”Well-planned vegan eating can give adults enough of every nutrient.
That is the current position of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics. You will need one supplement, B12.
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If you truly cannot afford other food, that is a real need. If you can afford beans and lentils, cost is not a need.
The Academy's current position, in effect to 31 December 2032: for adults, appropriately planned vegetarian and vegan diets can be nutritionally adequate. By vegan it means a diet with no food from animals at all.
About this source
The 2025 paper covers only adults. It drops the 2016 paper's explicit endorsement for pregnancy, infancy and childhood. Those were not retracted; the review was simply limited to adults. The site uses the narrower claim. Its argument needs only this: the adult reading it can eat a healthy diet with no food from animals.“Plants feel pain.”If plants count, eating animals harms more of them.
Animals raised for food eat crops. Feeding them crops and then eating them takes more crops, more land and more deaths than eating the crops yourself.
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A hundred grams of protein from beef takes about 164 square meters of land. From tofu, about two.
Meat, aquaculture, eggs and dairy use ~83% of the world's farmland and provide 18% of humanity's calories and 37% of its protein. The study covers 38,700 farms in 119 countries.
About this source
Two sentences of its abstract matter for how every figure drawn from it should be read. First, the caveat: "Impact can vary 50-fold among producers of the same product", so an average says very little about any one farm. Second, what the authors concluded once they had accounted for that: "Most strikingly, impacts of the lowest-impact animal products typically exceed those of vegetable substitutes, providing new evidence for the importance of dietary change."“My family would never go along with it.”Keeping peace at home can limit shared meals. It does not decide what you eat yourself.
Peace at home outranks the Chanukah lamp and kiddush, so nobody is asking you to fight your family. Ask your rabbi which conflicts peace at home covers, and start with your own food without changing anyone else's.
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You may miss some of the food, and that is a real loss, but the candles and the kiddush stay, and so do the people.
נֵר בֵּיתוֹ וְנֵר חֲנוּכָּה — נֵר בֵּיתוֹ עָדִיף, מִשּׁוּם שְׁלוֹם בֵּיתוֹ
“His household lamp against the Chanukah lamp, the household lamp takes precedence, because of the peace of his home.”
About this source
Rava says this, and the next line rules the same way when the household lamp competes with kiddush. Shalom bayit, peace in the home, carries real weight in halacha: here it comes before both the Chanukah lamp and kiddush. The site cites it to show that weight, not as a ruling on what anyone should cook. It does not say which conflicts at home it covers. Ask a rav that question.Your decision
Almost none of us chose to eat animals.
We were born into it and raised on it, and most of us lived that way for years. Nobody here is accusing you.
Now you know how meat, milk and eggs are made.
From now on, buying them is a choice you make knowing what happens to the animals.
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Putting off the decision is also a decision: to keep buying them.
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You would not pay a man to kick a dog and call yourself a bystander.
When you buy meat, milk or eggs, the farm raises another animal to replace what you bought.
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Meat, milk and eggs come from the same industry and the same suffering. Go vegan.
If what you saw here moved you, decide today.
Most people change how they eat only after something moves them. The feeling fades if you wait.
Something can be permitted and still be wrong to do.
Asking whether you may is a question about the rules. Asking whether you should is about the kind of person you want to be.
'His mercy is upon all His works.' All His works includes the animals.
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Also cited · Tehillim 145:9
וְרַחֲמָיו עַל־כׇּל־מַעֲשָׂיו
“His mercy is upon all His works.”
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Recited three times a day, every day, in Ashrei.As He is compassionate, so you be compassionate.
God's compassion reaches animals as well as people. He asks you to be compassionate the way He is.
הֱוֵי דּוֹמֶה לוֹ, מָה הוּא חַנּוּן וְרַחוּם — אַף אַתָּה הֱיֵה חַנּוּן וְרַחוּם
“Be like Him: as He is gracious and compassionate, so you be gracious and compassionate.”
In Eden, nobody ate animals. The prophets describe a future where even the lion eats straw.
We live between those two times, and what you eat now is your decision.
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The prophet Hoshea describes a covenant for that future, made with the beasts of the field, the birds of the sky and the creeping things of the earth.
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Also cited · Yeshayahu 11:6–9
וְגָר זְאֵב עִם־כֶּבֶשׂ... לֹא־יָרֵעוּ וְלֹא־יַשְׁחִיתוּ בְּכׇל־הַר קׇדְשִׁי כִּי־מָלְאָה הָאָרֶץ דֵּעָה אֶת־ה׳
“The wolf shall dwell with the lamb... they shall not hurt nor destroy on all My holy mountain, for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of Hashem.”
Also cited · Hoshea 2:20
וְכָרַתִּי לָהֶם בְּרִית בַּיּוֹם הַהוּא עִם־חַיַּת הַשָּׂדֶה וְעִם־עוֹף הַשָּׁמַיִם וְרֶמֶשׂ הָאֲדָמָה
“And on that day I will make a covenant for them with the beast of the field, and with the bird of the sky, and the creeping things of the ground.”
About this source
A covenant is an agreement between two sides. Here God makes one for Israel with the animals. The same verse goes on to say that God will break the bow and the sword and remove war from the land. The covenant with the animals and the end of war come in one sentence.How animals suffer for our food is not a side issue in Judaism.
It is a question of what a Jew may buy and eat, and you answer it at every meal.
Now the decision is yours.
Nobody else can decide what you eat. You can decide today.
Start now
Your next meal.
The Rambam says repentance is complete when you face the same choice again and hold back. Your next meal is that choice. Name the dish now, even if you can choose only your own food.
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Then do the same at every meal after it, with no end date.
Start taking B12 this week. It is the supplement every vegan needs.
אֵי זוֹ הִיא תְּשׁוּבָה גְּמוּרָה? זֶה שֶׁבָּא לְיָדוֹ דָּבָר שֶׁעָבַר בּוֹ, וְאֶפְשָׁר בְּיָדוֹ לַעֲשׂוֹתוֹ, וּפֵרַשׁ וְלֹא עָשָׂה מִפְּנֵי הַתְּשׁוּבָה
“What is complete teshuvah? One who encounters the very same opportunity in which he transgressed, and it is within his power to do it again, and he refrains, because of his return.”
Every source on this site, linked to the original wherever a link exists.
The full argument, chapter by chapter, starts at step one, the law. The same case is also made without scripture, and in Hebrew, with or without scripture.