Souls, Sin & Slaughter: Eating Animals in Kabbala (Part I)
This post is the first part of a two-part series on eating animals in Kabbala. Find part two here.
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| A 15th Century depiction of shechita, Jewish ritual slaughter |
One area in which this is particularly true is with concerns about gilgul (reincarnation) and animals. In Section II, Chapter 34 of Avodat haQodesh, ibn Gabbai discusses the metaphysical and mystical concerns behind the slaughter and eating of animals. Below are several excerpts from this chapter, beginning with ibn Gabbai's introduction to gilgul:
Like in the laws of Gehinnom, this [gilgul] is also upright and true, as every single person among the wicked is judged and punished according to their sin - if light or if heavy...for reincarnation acts as a punishment... For there are transgressions which the transgressor does which bring them to judgement and cause them to be reincarnated ‘inside’, that is, among Israel. And there are other transgressions which the transgressor does that bring them to judgement and cause them to be reincarnated ‘outside’, that is, among the nations of the world. And there are transgressions which the transgressor does which bring them to judgement and cause them to be reincarnated as an animal, and all of it is a true and righteous judgement known to the True Knower, the Blessed One.Clearly, the most important thing to know upfront is that gilgul is a closed system that adheres to righteous divine rules. He also wants you to know that there is the possibility of returning as an animal. He stresses this because the idea was somewhat controversial - many other Kabbalists believed humans could only return as other humans. Thus he says at one point:
And surely this is the correct opinion - that the soul is reincarnated in an animal - which we have received through the True Sages.Once we establish that our souls can indeed be reincarnated in the bodies of animals after death, it requires us to revisit how we view animals - and especially how we view their slaughter and consumption. He brings a bizarre parable from Sefer haQana which tells us that while we sacrificed animals in the ancient Temple, there was a parallel Heavenly Temple in which angels sacrificed human souls. The Sefer haQana reads this as stating that there was an equivalence between the two - even more so, that they were identical. That is, that there were human souls in the animals sacrificed in the Temple and when we killed the animal the angels in the Temple above slaughtered the soul and released it. He connects this to the statement of the Sefer haQana when it says:
Thus the one who eats an animal lifts away its sin [the sin of the soul reincarnated in the animal]This is the beginning of a common Kabbalistic idea - that by eating meat we 'raise the sparks' of the souls that had been embedded in it. The Ari will teach this and every subsequent Kabbalistic approach tends toward this viewpoint. Yet, the work in front of us does not yet know about the doctrine of the Ari, and so ibn Gabbai takes a different tact toward this idea. He acknowledges the tremendous responsibility this places on us - that what we eat and how is literally an issue of life and death. He derives from this a stringency, rather than a leniency:
Only one who knows the principles of eating and the secret order behind what the Tora says, “only due the great lust of your soul may you sacrifice and eat meat…” [Deut. 12:15] - they are the only ones permitted to eat meat. Don’t you see that our Sages have awakened us to his when they said: “a simpleton is prohibited to eat meat” [BT Pesachim 49b]He takes this understanding of reincarnation into animals very seriously, and its implications very seriously, and as a result sees the venture of eating meat as a dangerous one, fraught with potential error. Surely if eating meat carries such danger, then slaughtering animals does as well! Thus he writes about shechita (slaughter):
...We must repair the souls of the righteous [who are reincarnated in animals] so that they won’t experience pain, for they are deserving of life, thus we must improve so that we slaughter this beast with no pain.... It is necessary that the slaughter be beautiful and precise since it is written, “and you shall love your fellow as yourself.” And it is necessary that this beast be slaughtered through the hand of one who is upright and who won’t invalidate the slaughter, and about this it is said, ‘woe upon us for we have sinned!’ The wise will stand quiet, and woe upon the slaughterers!Clearly, just like meat-eating, animal slaughter is a dangerous business. Because there are human souls within the animal, improperly performed slaughter violates the biblical commandment to 'love your fellow as yourself.' It's easy to understate the radical nature of this interpretation! R' ibn Gabbai is saying that animals are to be treated as humans, for they may contain the soul of a human, and thus true shechita, which causes no pain to the animal is impossible. So he concludes, 'the wise stand quiet' (that is, they don't slaughter animals), and 'woe upon the slaughterers!' for they can never slaughter in a totally painless fashion and thus one way or another bring harm unto the human soul buried within.
In conclusion, it seems that R' ibn Gabbai is teaching us two primary principles here: 1) a person who wishes to avoid transgressing 'love your fellow as yourself' by causing pain to the reincarnated soul within an animal must avoid killing animals at all costs and 2) only someone who knows the intricacies of how to extricate the human souls embedded within animals should eat meat, for the danger of entrenching the human soul further is potent. Thus, "it is better to eat the grasses of the Earth rather than something which may cause the soul this great evil." [Sefer haTemuna]
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