The Torah permits meat. It does not permit causing animals needless suffering.

1. Step 1 · The law

   An animal's pain matters to God. The Torah forbids causing an animal needless suffering.

   צער בעלי חיים דאורייתא

   The Talmud debates whether the ban on causing animals suffering comes from the Torah itself. (Bava Metzia 32b)

   Ask: How much of the pain our food causes animals is really needed?

2. 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.

   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)

   Ask: The Torah calls ordinary meat “meat of craving.” Is my reason for eating it a need, or a craving?

3. Step 3 · Complicity

   A hen's suffering counts as much as a dog's, and when I buy, I share in it.

   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)

   Ask: The Rambam forbids buying from a robber because it helps him rob again. What does buying from a factory farm help the farm do?

4. 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.

   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)

   “The great majority of dairy farms separate dam and calf immediately after birth.” (EFSA, calves (2023))

   Ask: The Torah would not accept a calf as an offering until he had spent seven days with his mother. The dairy takes him from her within a day. Was the milk on our table taken from a cow whose calf was left with her?

5. Step 5 · The need

   I don't need meat, milk or eggs. I can live well without supporting that suffering.

   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)

   Ask: Can anyone at this table name a real need for meat, milk or eggs tonight? If not, the only reason left is taste. Is taste a reason to cause an animal pain?

Therefore: without a real need, buying meat, milk or eggs is wrong, and the Torah forbids it. Go vegan, starting at your next meal.

One leading rabbi was asked, and he permitted the meat

In 2018 Rabbi Shmuel Kamenetsky was sent a description of factory-farm practices. He answered that they may well be forbidden cruelty, and that the meat and poultry remain permitted to eat. His answer is the strongest source against this site.

He ruled only on eating the meat. He did not address whether buying it strengthens the farms that cause the pain. The Rambam answers that question: he forbids buying from a robber, because each sale helps the robber rob again.

R. Shmuel Kamenetsky, teshuvah printed in Hakirah 24 (Spring 2018), pp. 189–190; Rambam, Gezeilah 5:1.

The question for your rabbi

Causing an animal needless suffering is forbidden by the Torah (Bava Metzia 32b), and we may not help another person do wrong (Vayikra 19:14; Rambam, Hilchot Rotzeach 12:14). 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. And a well-planned kosher diet without animal products can be nutritionally adequate for adults. I have two questions. May I keep buying meat, milk and eggs when I have no real need for them, such as illness or poverty with no other food? And if it is permitted, as Rabbi Shmuel Kamenetsky wrote of factory-farmed meat and poultry while granting that the practices may well be forbidden cruelty to animals (tza'ar ba'alei chayim), is it the right thing for me to do?

Go vegan now; you do not need to wait for his answer. The objections he may raise, each answered from the sources, are at hapardes.org/rabbi.

For Shabbat: cholent without meat

1 cup dried beans, soaked overnight · ½ cup pearl barley · 4 potatoes, in chunks · 250 g mushrooms · 2 onions · 3 cloves garlic · 2 tbsp oil · 1 tbsp sweet paprika · 2 tsp salt · water to cover.

Brown the onions in the oil, add the garlic and mushrooms, then everything else in the pot with water two fingers above. Bring to a boil before Shabbat and leave it on the blech or in a slow cooker on low until lunch.