Should We Be Carnivores?
In the Torah, we are first told we can eat the plants (Gen. 1:29-30). But eating meat is only allowed after the flood.
Every creature that lives shall be yours to eat; as with the green grasses, I give you all these. (Gen. 9:3)
Why specifically then? Reading the text, it seems that the answer is that Noach had saved the animals (which suggests the animals owe a debt to humanity), and Noach offered an elevation-offering (Gen. 8:20) – the very first in the Torah. Elevating to – connecting with – G-d is explicitly linked to eating the “elevatable” animals (cloven hoofs making a break with the ground, etc.) that Noach uses for the offering. Things that are tahor are capable of elevating, of making an Aliyah.
On its face, this suggests that since Noach uses elevatable animals to make an elevation-offering – and then G-d permits the eating of meat – cooking and eating meat is thus linked to getting closer to G-d.
Does Eating Meat Unify Us?
But perhaps there is another reason as well? Later in the Torah, we are encouraged to eat meat.
But whenever you desire, you may slaughter and eat meat in any of your cities, according to the blessing that your G-d has granted you. The un-elevatable and the elevatable alike are to partake of it, as of the ram and the deer. (Deut. 12:15)
Eat [meat], however, as the ram and the deer are eaten: the un-elevatable are to eat it together with the elevatable. (Deut. 12:22)
Eat [meat] in your cities, the un-elevatable together with the elevatable, just like the ram and the deer. (Deut. 15:22)
This is strange, is it not? Why combine tamei and tahor, elevatable and un-elevatable? And what does that have to do with a ram and a deer – which are both technically kosher animals?! Indeed, the text seems to suggest that there is a parallel: ram = elevatable and deer = un-elevatable.
Perhaps this is because even within kosher animals, some animals can be grown domestically, and can be offered as sacrifices (e.g. cows, sheep and goats) while other animals, while kosher, are not domesticatable, and cannot be offered (e.g. deer and related animals). Perhaps these refer to kinds of people?
The ram is the quintessential Jew: a ram is sacrificed in place of Isaac in an elevation offering, the sound of the ram’s horn pierces the air at the giving of the Torah at Sinai, and during Rosh Hashanah, the coronation of G-d as King. The ram is not merely a kosher animal. It is perhaps the very elite kosher animal. The ram is explicitly linked to Avraham and Isaac – and Jacob is also a very successful shepherd.
Wild deer can symbolize a person who lives an unrestrained life, a free spirit, a person who may well be more focused on physical existence and physical pleasure than on climbing spiritual heights.
The Torah tells us of people who did not play nicely with others: we learn of Lot and Ishmael and Esau. All three were, one way or another, sent away. All three were uninterested in a relationship with G-d.
And all three, Lot, Ishmael and Esau are physically focused. Lot is interested in green, well-watered fields above all else; Ishmael, who became a hunter, is compared to a wild ass, and Esau is described as a “man of the fields.” All three were loners.
Could the Torah be making a much bigger point: that when we eat meat in Jerusalem, we are to do it together as a people: including those who are tahor (elevatable) and those who are tamei (un-elevatable), the domesticated ram along with the wild deer, the Avrahams and Lots, Isaacs and Ishmaels, Jacobs and Esaus?
It might seem far-fetched. And I welcome other proposed answers. But before dismissing it out of hand, consider this: in all three cases, there was a limit on resources:
The first case, Ishmael, is when Sarah does not want Ishmael to share in Avraham’s inheritance of the Land of Israel. Ishmael is cast out so that Isaac’s inheritance would not be diluted.
The other two examples are even more explicitly about limited resources –for the flocks.
Lot, who went with Abram, also had flocks and herds and tents, so that the land could not support them staying together; for their possessions were so great that they could not remain together. (Gen 13:5)
…
Esau took his wives, his sons and daughters, and all the members of his household, his cattle and all his livestock, and all the property that he had acquired in the land of Canaan, and went to another land because of his brother Jacob. For their possessions were too many for them to dwell together, and the land where they sojourned could not support them because of their livestock. (Gen. 36)
Lot and Esau are sent away because there were not enough resources to support all the livestock. If Avraham and Lot, and Jacob and Esau had decided to eat some of their animals in order to stay together, all of history could have been different!
And, given the later reference to the Ram being together with the Deer, is the Torah possibly suggesting that perhaps that might have been a good idea? Specifically, that if people had been less concerned about their physical possessions, and more concerned about their familial relationships, that in fact things might have played out differently? Indeed, that it might have been a good thing if they had?
P.S. The “ram and the deer” are mentioned three times in the above verses – matching the 3 pairs of people.
P.P.S. Within the initial three verses, the word “as one” or “together”, yachdav, appears only two times. This corresponds to the two times the word is used later – with Avram and Lot being unable to live together, and the same with Jacob and Esau. Ishmael was not rejected for the same reason, which could explain why yachdav is not mentioned in all three verses.