Blood on Our Hands
Friends,
Incredibly, there is something holy and powerful about watching life swiftly leave a living creature. I was awed.
Today, a small band of Beth El and Adath Jeshurun representatives visited the home of Noah’s Ark Processors in Dawson, Minnesota. We made the trek to Dawson and were pleasantly surprised by the product distributed under the Solomon’s Finest Glatt Kosher Meats label. Owner Ilan Parente was open to all of our questions and very forthcoming and sincere in his answers. For a small slaughterhouse outfit, the production output rate is quite superb. The staff and workers seemed to receive great support and care from their employers. Their product is free range, organic and free of antibiotics and growth hormones. Noah’s Ark Processors slaughters and distributes a variety of kosher mammals, including bison, beef, lamb and elk. In fact, 70% of their product is determined glatt following the slaughter.
Some of you might be surprised to learn that glatt does not mean strict, but in fact smooth. It is a term to describe the condition of the animal’s lungs at death. If those lungs were smooth without defect, then the animal was a healthy, sprightly animal. At many slaughterhouses, the glatt rate is closer to below 30%. Glatt was never meant to dictate and indicate stringency in kashrut. It was meant as an indicator of the life the animal led and the health and condition of that animal. Noah’s Ark Processors’ kosher product consists only of animals that lived a robust and favorable life.
With the exception of the fluids that one might expect in a slaughterhouse and on the killing floor, the facility was quite clean. In the roughly two hours I spent at the Dawson outfit, I observed a single fly.
But I write not only because I look forward to seeing the Solomon’s label in the Twin Cities. I write not only because I was moved by the care and commitment to good business ethics and proper service I witnessed. I write not only because I was relieved that a wholly wholesome local operation exists, with the potential to remove the tarnish that has scorned the Kosher community.
I write because of what I witnessed today.
I stood with one of the shochatim (ritual butchers) as he prepared his knife for the shechitah (slaughter). Slowly he examined both planes of the blade, and sharpened it several times. With each pass, I saw the humility in his eyes and watched as he unassumingly cared for an instrument of death. Although the shochet took what seemed to me like five or ten minutes to sharpen his blade, it was a mere five seconds after for the blood to first spill out of the beast and life to pour forth with it. I was nearly moved to tears. Not because of the pain I felt for the animal, but because of the beauty of the process and the tradition.
Before the kill, a berakhah (blessing) is recited: Barukh Atah Adonai, Elohenu Melekh haolam, asher kidshanu b’mitzvotav v’tzivanu al ha-shechitah – Praised are You, Adonai our God, Ruler of the universe, who sanctified us with God’s commandments, and commanded us with regard to the ritual slaughter. Blessings with that formula are only recited when we are commanded to do the act (i.e., we are not commanded to eat bread; thus, hamotzi is of a shorter formula, but Shabbat candles are not). I thought to myself, are we really commanded to perform shechitah? Need we really slaughter the animals?
When I returned home today I turned to my Tanakh. I reached Genesis 1:29: “And God said, Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, on which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for food.” On that verse specifically, as if calling out to the vegetarian in me, Ramban indicates in his commentary that we are prohibited biblically (as referenced in BT Bava Metzia 32b) against showing cruelty to animals (Tza’ar Ba’alei Chayyim), and therefore, the berakhah recited over shechitah acknowledges not a commandment to slaughter, but a commandment to care for the animal and prevent its suffering during the shechitah. Again, I was humbled.
After each kill, the shochet would check the slaughter-spot (m’kom shechitah) to see that it was thorough, rinse the blood from his hands – blood that I once thought would blemish the hands but instead seemed to bless his – and return to sharpening and cleaning his blade.
To many, this might have seemed robotic and cold. But I heard the shochet mutter the berakhah. I saw the trepidation the shochet had in his eyes, that should he err, he might take this animal’s life unwarrantedly. I witnessed the beast succumb almost instantly to the final blow. The mechanical draining of the beef is somewhat jarring, but it was appropriately practical.
I watched a living creature become a holy and pure sacrifice to sustain humanity.
Humbled and daunted, alas, I will remain a vegetarian, but I do not condemn the consumption of meat, nor is it my goal that all of us turn vegetarian. In fact, I must concede, I would not feel guilty eating the meat produced by Noah’s Ark Processors. I, myself, do not intend to do so any time soon, but the thought of future training as a shochet – the conduit to bridge the circuit of life – is something that I now will entertain. And the goal to bring to the masses kosher meat free of cruelty and superfluous suffering, untainted by mistreatment of workers and poor business ethics, is hopefully one we will soon realize as here-and-now.
May we all come to deeply appreciate the life with which God blessed every living thing, human and animal alike.
Faithfully yours,
Rabbi Avi S. Olitzky
