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Originally Posted by VEGANGELICA
Thanks, Geddy, for responding. I agree with you that the intent of a religious law and its practice should be bound up together. When people seem to follow a law for its own sake without considering the intent, then I feel worried.
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It's a Jewish belief that you should not, in any aspect of faith, whether it be following a specific mitvot or reciting the daily prayers or anything like this. For this reason Torah readings in the earliest synagogues were often followed by study and the Levites explaining passages to the people publicly. Even now study of Torah law and the reasons for it are encouraged.
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I read the essay you recommended about Judaism and vegetarianism...thank you! It was interesting to read the Rabbi's views on this debate about whether vegetarianism best matches what people within Judaism interpret as the deepest desires of God:
While I realize that the Old Testament does clearly state that God allowed humans to eat other animals after the Fall, I've often felt an argument could be made that the apparent vegetarianism *before* the Fall was what the Judeo-Christian god originally intended and envisioned...so that *would* be the ideal.
I assume a god would not *want* people to sin such that the rules had to be changed for them, allowing meat-eating. Therefore, I would think that trying to fulfill the original vision for humanity would seem the way to most thoroughly follow whatever intent was behind the original dietary law that gave all animals (including humans) "the herbs of the field for their food" and prohibited them from preying on one another.
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Yeah, I understand what you're trying to say.
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Trying to figure out what religious rules to observe, and how deeply, can get very tricky since not only are religious laws open to interpretation, but also the intent behind the laws are open to interpretation, too, and some laws come from human traditions separate from any godly mandate. This is one reason your thread question that opened the thread interested me. I'm curious how people who think of themselves as religious think through these issues.
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It's always good to make people think!
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I've been impressed with the tradition of questioning and debate that I think is an important part of the Jewish tradition for many of the Jewish people I've known and loved, most of whom are secular and follow Jewish traditions as part of their heritage and not out of a belief in a deity. It sounds like you appreciate the openness to questioning that you've experienced within Judaism, too. One of the scariest situations to be in among humans, I feel, is when they do not welcome questioning and debate!
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One of the things which put me off my old church, and indeed Christianity, was that those people who wished to ask questions or debate matters were often looked down upon or openly criticized. Most of the churches I've attended seemed to want people to learn answers by rote, withiout even really learning or understanding the reasoning behind them.