The Short Vort by Rabbi Eisenman

Based on the vantage point from my side of the desk, it seems to me that many people dread the Nine Days.

The thought of becoming non-carnivorous and adopting a modified herbivore (a true herbivore does not eat fish) lifestyle is so traumatic for some people that I have had to transform myself into a culinary expert on various meat analogue delicacies to properly guide people.

I have learned and advised those who are card-carrying members of BA (Burgers Anonymous) that they can fulfill their craving for fleishigs with burgers made from pea protein isolates, rice protein, mung bean protein, canola oil, coconut oil, potato starch, apple extract, sunflower lecithin, and pomegranate powder.

I try my best to offer them words of solace and comfort by assuring them that immediately after they consume the meat alternative, they can assuage their deprived souls with milkshakes and ice cream sundaes without waiting even one hour!

Alas, my words of Chizuk and of pleading with them to attempt to feel the seriousness of the destruction of the Beis HaMikdash too often fall on deaf ears.

The urgency and the outright “need” to consume red meat becomes obsessive.

Indeed, many carnos have succeeded in creating the most concocted and outrageous reasons a rabbi has ever heard in their petitioning me to issue that valued and precious “heter” to allow them to satisfy their craving for meat.

(Of course, those who have verified real health issues or are grappling with diagnosed eating disorders MUST follow reliable medical advice and, if need be, eat meat- even on Yom Kippur)

Here are some reasons for eating meat that have come across my desk.

1.      I am addicted to meat, and I will go through “withdrawal” if I don’t have meat. This is a danger to my life.

2.      When I was seven years old, my Rebbe made me eat my lunch which was a bagel with cream cheese, and ever since then, I hated cheese, and I have flashbacks just by looking at anything which is not meat.

3.      I will go off the Derech if I don’t have meat, so since you must love me unconditionally, and I was once traumatized by non-meat, you must give me a heter for eating meat.

4.       Suppose you don’t give me a heter? In that case, I’ll write an article in the NY Times telling all how Orthodox Jews don’t allow their children to eat protein for nine days and deny them a secular education.

5.      “Ein Simcha E’la B’Basar”- there is no joy in life without meat. And it also says, “Ivdo Es Hashem B’Simcha”- serve Hashem with joy. If you don’t let me eat meat, I will have a joyless life, join a carnivorous cult, and be lost to  Judaism forever.

6.      Rabbi, today’s meat is not the same meat at the time of Chazal. Our meat is different as the human body has changed. We now need meat to live. Chazal recognized the concept of “Nishtanu HaTeva”- human nature has changed- and nowadays, we will all die without meat.

7.      SHalaom Bayis. My wife has leftover meat from Tuesday. It will negatively impact our Shalom Bayis if I don’t eat her leftovers.

These are just a potpourri of the different attempts to elicit a heter from me to eat meat.

Think about the lost Beis HaMikdash.

Feel the pain of Klal Yisroel.

By doing so, you will not ‘want’ to eat meat.

Wishing all of us a return to better times very soon,