WHAT MAKES FOOD SACRED?
A STUDY IN EIGHT DIMENSIONS

A report for the Sacred Food Project of
ALEPH: Alliance for Jewish Renewal

Under grants from the Kellogg Foundation
and the Schocken Foundation

Conference on Sacred Food, June 7- 8, 2006
At Garrison Institute

Debra Kolodny, Executive Director, ALEPH
Arlin Wasserman, Project Director
Rabbi Arthur Waskow, Editor

Advisory Council of the Sacred Food Project *

Rev. Clare Butterfield, Director, Faith in Place, interfaith environmental ministry in Chicago; Unitarian Universalist community minister.

Shireen Pishdadi, Faith in Place, Chicago

Scott Exo, Executive Director, Food Alliance, which works to create market incentives for sustainable agriculture. Portland, OR

Mohammad Mazhar Hussaini, M.S., L.D., Director of the Halal Certification Program of the Islamic Society of North America; Bolingbrook, IL

Brother David Andrews, CSC, Executive Director, National Catholic Rural Life Conference; Des Moines, IA

Andrew Kang Bartlett, Associate for National Hunger Concerns
Presbyterian Hunger Program, PC(USA) ; Louisville, KY

Cassandra Carmichael, Director, Eco-Justice Programs, National Council of Churches;
Washington, DC

Karen Galles, Eco-Justice Programs, National Council of Churches; Washington, DC

Deb Kolodny, Executive Director, ALEPH: Alliance for Jewish Renewal; Washington DC

Dr. Joe Regenstein, Professor of Food Science, Cornell University. Dr. Regenstein leads the Cornell Kosher Food Initiative, which provides services to the kosher and halal foods sector; Ithaca, NY

Rabbi Daniel Siegel (Advisory Council Chair), Director of Spiritual Resources, ALEPH: Alliance for Jewish Renewal ; Hornby Island, BC CANADA

Rabbi Arthur Waskow, Director, The Shalom Center; Author, Down-to-Earth Judaism: Food, Money, Sex, & the Rest of Life.; Philadelphia, PA

Arlin S. Wasserman, founder, Changing Tastes, a consultancy on issues of public health, food, environment, and community development.; St. Paul, MN

Table of Contents

Advisory Council of Sacred Food Project ----------------------------------------------- 2
Introduction to Eight Dimensions of Sacred Food ------------------------------------ 4

PART I: THE DIMENSIONS IN HEADLINE FORM:
Points of agreement and consensus --------------------------------------------- 6

PART II: THE DIMENSIONS IN LONGER FORM:
Strands of difference as well as points of agreement and consensus ---- 8

PART III. THE DIMENSIONS IN FULLER EXPLORATION:
With Texts & Commentary ------------------------------------------------------- 11

Preface: The Web of Life ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 11
Dimension 1. Growing Food in Ways that Protect and Heal the Web of Life --- 17
Dimension 2. Humane treatment of animals -------------------------------------------- 20
Dimension 3. Protecting the integrity and diversity of life --------------------------- 23
Dimension 4. No One Should Go Hungry ----------------------------------------------- 27
Dimension 5. Fairness toward and empowerment of workers --------------------- 32
Dimension 6: Responsible and ethical forms of business ----------------------------- 35
Dimension 7. Food as an Aspect of Spirituality ----------------------------------------- 37
Dimension 8. Reflection on our Actions and Impact ---------------------------------- 43
Coda: A New Era in Religious Life? ----------------------------------------------------------- 45

Introduction

This paper reviews the teachings of the three Abrahamic traditions in regard to the sacredness of food. It covers a wide spectrum of issues, organized by eight "dimensions" through which sacredness can be defined.

We use the word 'dimensions" deliberately in order to make clear that each "dimension" has its own expanse, embodying not a "Yes/No, On /Off" reality but a range of different views and teachings within each of the traditions, as well as differences between them.

Within some of these dimensions there is more disagreement than within others. Which of these dimensions should become the focus for action by the Sacred Foods Project, in what sequence and with what timing, is to be decided by the Project. This paper offers choices, not decisions.

The paper as a whole can best be imagined as a three-story house:

The first floor of the house is a presentation of the eight dimensions in their simplest form, with strong emphasis on the areas where the Council shared consensus.

On the second floor of the house, we make clear some areas in which within the religious traditions and among ourselves, there are some disagreements about where to stand, on one or another of the dimensions.

On the third floor, we quote directly from a number of the classic texts of the three Abrahamic traditions, interweaving our own comments. As befits the upper story, here there is the most complexity and we are the clearest about what differences of emphasis there may be as to how to apply the different dimensions.

In this section of the paper, additional commentators from the Council have added their views, set in a different type-face from those of the editor.

In each of the eight dimensions, we draw for now on four sets of sources from the classic texts of the three traditions:

One of these is the Hebrew Bible, which defined the life of Biblical Israel but then, beginning about two thousand years ago, came to have a broader religious significance than simply a text of the Jewish people or Jewish religious thought. It was radically reinterpreted and kept as sacred canon by Rabbinic Judaism. It was radically reinterpreted and kept as sacred canon by Christianity. And it played an important role in the cultural and to some extent the religious background of the community in which the prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, experienced the revelation of the Qur’an and lived the life described in the Sunnah (life example of prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him). We draw on it, therefore, not as the text of any single tradition but as an important pointer toward the ideas about sacred food that appear in all three Abrahamic traditions.

The other three classic texts of the three traditions are the Talmud and other rabbinic writings, which began about two thousand years ago to define a new version of Jewish life – Rabbinic Judaism; the Christian Scriptures or New Testament, which have defined Christianity; the Qur’an and Sunnah, which have defined Islam.

As this paper evolves, we may include also later teachings from the three Abrahamic traditions.

The preparation of this paper was a collective process in which the entire Advisory Council of the Sacred Foods Project played a part. All of its members helped shape this report, and they are listed below. Some members sent specific comments to appear in their own names. These are noted in the body of the paper with their initials, and in a different type-face. Rabbi Daniel Siegel, chair of the Advisory Council, played an especially important role in weaving together ways of focusing on major agreements while also expressing divergent views .

 Rabbi Arthur Waskow, editor


The Dimensions in Headline Form:
Points of agreement and consensus

Preface: The Web of Life.
Dimension 1. Growing Food in Ways that Protect and Heal the Web of Life Dimension 2. Humane Treatment of animals
Dimension 3. Protecting the integrity and diversity of life
Dimension 4. No One Should Go Hungry
Dimension 5. Fairness toward and empowerment of workers
Dimension 6: Responsible and ethical forms of business
Dimension 7. Food as an Aspect of Spirituality
Dimension 8. Reflection on our Actions and Impact
Coda: A New Era in Religious Life?

Preface: The Web of Life. We celebrate God's creation of a self-sustaining web of life in which plants, animals, land, water, air, and human beings are interwoven. There are many relationships in this web that can heal or damage the web itself. Among these, food production is one of the more significant forces. So we must choose ways of producing food that protect and heal the web of life.

Dimension 1. Growing Food in Ways that Protect and Heal the Web of Life. Food production, as one of the more significant forces in the natural world, affects the delicate balance of plants, animals, human beings, land, water and air – interdependent in seeking sustenance and survival. Farming and grazing together occupy one quarter of the world’s lands and are the leading cause of deforestation and loss of natural lands. In order to maintain this balance for future generations, we human beings must choose to produce our food in ways that protect the web of life, preserve the living spaces that other life-forms need, and learn to use methods that return vibrant health to our soil and water.

Dimension 2. Humane treatment of animals All our traditions agree that animals must be treated humanely and their suffering minimized.

Dimension 3. Protecting the integrity and diversity of life. The ways in which we produce food must respect the integrity and diversity of the world’s plants and animals, as well as taking active steps to prevent the extinction of animal species and plant varieties which produce seeds which can be saved.

Dimension 4. No One Should Go Hungry All our traditions share a strong commitment that no one should go hungry at the end of the day. This applies especially to the poor and times of famine. Everyone should have access to affordable, nutritious, and culturally customary food. Each local community and the world-wide human community acting in concert share the responsibility for ending hunger and famine.

Dimension 5. Fairness toward and empowerment of workers. All our traditions agree that workers must be treated fairly, justly and humanely. One out of every six people works to provide the food we eat – in the fields and in food transport, in restaurants and food preparation, and in food stores. We affirm their right to decent incomes, working conditions, and to organize themselves.

Dimension 6: Responsible and ethical forms of business. All our traditions require that we act honestly, fairly, to the benefit of others, and in accordance with the ethical teachings of our faith traditions when dealing with customers, employees, partners, and the communities in which we conduct business. These relationships must be accessible to public scrutiny and accountability.

Dimension 7. Food as an Aspect of Spirituality. All our traditions affirm that food is an element in spiritual celebration and experience. Whenever we eat, we consciously affirm that eating is a sacred spiritual practice which celebrates the delicate interplay of plants, animals and people, land, air, and water that makes this possible and we commit ourselves again to maintaining this creation.

Dimension 8. Reflection on our Actions and Impact. The rhythm of Action and Reflection, renewed Action and renewed Reflection, is encouraged in our traditions in such forms as Sabbaths, Ramadan, and Lent, as well as other holidays when we refrain from our daily work and reflect on our roles in the web of life. Meaningful observance of these occasions can be expanded to include reflection on and assessment of the impact of human activity on the integrity of the web of life. It seems desirable to apply this rhythm in making decisions about food. For example, there could be requirements that new departures in providing food be reviewed in the way "environmental impact assessments" operate –- with "social impact assessments" also required. Some version of what is called the "precautionary principle" (analogous to the medical code, "First do no harm") could be taken into account, so long as this does not prevent all development of new technology or new social arrangements.

Coda: A New Era of Religious Life? This Sacred Foods enterprise itself – because it is both interfaith, and inter-secular/faith -- signals something of a new era in religious life. At that level and in many other arenas, Modernity is having a major impact on the self-understanding of the religious traditions. Indeed, Modernity is affecting both technology and social structures in ways that may require us to rethink some of the teachings of the past. Major changes in previous religious wisdoms have often accompanied major social and technological upheavals (as in the impact of Roman/ Hellenistic civilization in opening hearts and minds to the new revelations of Rabbinic Judaism and Christianity about two thousand years ago, and the new revelations of Islam 1400 years ago). So we will need to keep that factor in mind as we draw on the religious and spiritual teachings of the past, seeking to distinguish eternal wisdom from temporally conditioned history.

The Dimensions in Longer Form: Our points of agreement and consensus as well as strands of difference

Preface: The Web of Life.

We celebrate God's creation of a self-sustaining web of life in which plants, animals, land, water, air, and human beings are interwoven. There are many relationships in this web that can heal or damage the web itself. Among these, food production is one of the more significant forces. So we must choose ways of producing food that protect and heal the web of life.

Dimension 1. Growing Food in Ways that Protect and Heal the Web of Life
Food production, as one of the more significant forces in the natural world, affects the delicate balance of plants, animals, human beings, land, water and air – interdependent in seeking sustenance and survival. Farming and grazing together occupy one quarter of the world’s lands and are the leading cause of deforestation and loss of natural lands. In order to maintain this balance for future generations, we human beings must choose to produce our food in ways that protect the web of life, preserve the living spaces that other life-forms need, and learn to use methods that return vibrant health to our soil and water. Some strands of our traditions focus on finding ways to produce food for an ever-growing human population without continuing to encroach on natural and sensitive areas, and others focus on limiting human populations.

Dimension 2. Humane Treatment of animals
All our traditions agree that animals must be treated humanely and their suffering minimized. Some strands of our traditions focus on using animals for food through methods of maintenance and slaughter that minimize suffering; others suggest vegetarianism.

Dimension 3. Protecting the integrity and diversity of life
The ways in which we produce food must respect the integrity and diversity of the world’s plants and animals, as well as taking active steps to prevent the extinction of animal species and plant Some strands of our traditions emphasize concern for the integrity of the genetic line of plants and animals; others strongly encourage putting considerable effort into increasing food production and developing the health-giving properties of foods. Even when these values may seem to conflict, our choices should be guided by the principles listed above.

Dimension 4. No One Should Go Hungry
All our traditions share a strong commitment that no one should go hungry at the end of the day. This applies especially to the poor and times of famine. Everyone should have access to affordable, nutritious, and culturally customary food. Each local community and the world-wide human community acting in concert share the responsibility for ending hunger and famine.

Our traditions present a range of opinions about how best to do this.

Most strands strongly encourage very localized and decentralized approaches (e.g. gleaning); some strands describe highly centralized approaches (e.g. Joseph's solution to famine in Egypt). It seems likely that both approaches will be taken in today's world, though the question remains whether it is better that we aim policy toward one over the other or strive for a balance between them.

Dimension 5. Fairness toward and empowerment of workers
All our traditions agree that workers must be treated fairly, justly and humanely. One out of every six people works to provide the food we eat – in the fields and in food transport, in restaurants and food preparation, and in food stores. We affirm their right to decent incomes, working conditions, and to organize themselves.

Dimension 6: Responsible and ethical forms of business
All our traditions require that we act honestly, fairly, to the benefit of others, and in accordance with the ethical teachings of our faith traditions when dealing with customers, employees, partners, and the communities in which we conduct business. These relationships must be accessible to public scrutiny and accountability.

The specifics of how we conduct responsible and ethical business relationships, as well as the meaning and implications of accountability to the public, may be reflected in different ways by the various strands in our traditions.

Dimension 7. Food as an Aspect of Spirituality
All our traditions affirm that food is an element in spiritual celebration and experience. Whenever we eat, we consciously affirm that eating is a sacred spiritual practice which celebrates the delicate interplay of plants, animals and people, land, air, and water that makes this possible and we commit ourselves again to maintaining this creation.

All our traditions affirm that specific times and practices of great religious significance, such as Passover, the Mass, and Eid al-Adha, include food as a central element. Some of our traditions affirm that for religious reasons, certain foods may be forbidden to eat and others encouraged, either all the time or at specific times.

Dimension 8. Reflection on our Actions and Impact
The rhythm of Action and Reflection, renewed Action and renewed Reflection, is encouraged in our traditions in such forms as Sabbaths, Ramadan, and Lent, as well as other holidays when we refrain from our daily work and reflect on our roles in the web of life.

Meaningful observance of these occasions can be expanded to include reflection on and assessment of the impact of human activity on the integrity of the web of life. In different ways, our traditions may choose to encourage reviews, similar to "environmental impact assessments," when considering whether to endorse new approaches to providing food.

Some version of what is called the "precautionary principle," analogous to the medical code’s, "First do no harm," could be taken into account, while still encouraging the development of new technologies and social arrangements.

Coda: New Era of Religious Life?
This Sacred Foods enterprise itself – because it draws strength from both interfaith, and inter-secular/faith interactions -- signals something of a new era in religious life.

At that level and in many other arenas, Modernity is having a major impact on the self-understanding of the religious traditions. Indeed, Modernity is affecting both technology and social structures in ways that may require us to rethink some of the teachings of the past.

Major changes in previous religious wisdoms have often accompanied major social and technological upheavals. That occurred when the impact of Roman/ Hellenistic civilization opened hearts and minds to the new revelations of Rabbinic Judaism and Christianity about two thousand years ago, and when social change in Arabia opened hearts and minds to the new revelations of Islam 1400 years ago. After the Sacred Foods project reaches agreement and establishes leadership in areas that the Eight Dimensions easily point us toward (like support for sustainably grown food, grown, packaged and distributed with fair labor standards), we might choose to tackle some larger and more complicated questions.

For example, one of the major ways in which Modernity challenges and is challenged by the traditional outlooks of our communities is that the traditions lean toward providing food mostly through decentral, local, and neighborly means. Modernity often looks toward global/ corporate ways of providing food. We face the question of whether to treat the focus on local means as a crucial and eternally wise teaching, or to treat it as historically conditioned, while absorbing global / corporate arrangements so long as they meet other traditional values.

On these and perhaps on other questions, we will need to keep seeking to distinguish eternal wisdom from temporally conditioned history, as we draw on the religious and spiritual teachings of the past.

THE EIGHT DIMENSIONS OF SACRED FOOD:
A FULLER EXPLORATION, WITH TEXTS & COMMENTARY

Preface: The Web of Life

AW: Our basic framework for understanding our religious traditions' view of food is that our communities see the entire God-created world, including the human race, as part of a rich weave of interconnection.

The Hebrew Bible's use of "adamah" as the word for earth and "adam" as the word for human signals this interconnection. Yet it also distinguishes the role of the human race as the species that can in the least time bring about the most change in the whole fabric, and is therefore the most responsible to protect the weave of which it is a part.

This outlook is itself an interweaving of outlooks on the human-earth relationship that are often described as if they were three mutually exclusive different modes: the mode of human rulership over the earth, using the earth as a tool for human benefit; the mode of stewardship, in which the human race is responsible to protect and heal the earth; and the mode of embeddedness, in which the human race is seen as simply part of the earth.

One important role of our traditions may be to affirm that all three of these modes have some truth in them, as part of a larger sense of sacred relationship. Sacred: that is, bespeaking the adam/adamah relationship as one of the most important aspects of the relationship between human beings and God.

CB: At the root of the religious impulse is the knowledge that all life is conducted in part with the cooperation of other life but also at the expense of other life. The religious dilemma may be seen as an attempt to deal with the fact that our existence comes at a cost to the flourishing of the life around us. While our faiths teach us that in some measure we are permitted to extract what we need in order to live from the earth, they also teach us that we must do so mindfully, minimally – knowing that our existence causes harm and that as religiously aware people we must act to mitigate that harm.

AW: Till recently, by far the strongest material connection between "adam" and "adamah." was the earth's role as source of food for human beings. There were other connections – the making of cloth; the use of clay, stone, metals, and wood as building materials; the use of firewood, wind, and water as sources of energy -- but these were considerably less important in the human economy, and less urgent than food in sustaining life. So how to shape the sacred relationship between the human race and other aspects of the earth often focused on how to treat food as a sacred substance.

In the last two centuries, and even more strongly in the last fifty years, the human race has learned to avail itself of many more aspects of the earth. Coal, water-power, oil, manufactured substances like plastics as artificial minerals -- all became consumables of enormous economic importance. How to consume them in a sacred way that enhances the sacred web of life on earth has not yet become a central issue of the religious communities – though some of them are beginning to explore the concept of "eco-kosher" consumption of these substances as well as food.

The great leap in the human use of non-food aspects of the earth has brought with it stark questions about the impact of human behavior on the web of life itself, including the strand of human life within the larger fabric. Though respect and caring for "adamah" has always been seen by our traditions as crucial, the question now operates in a much broader, planetary sphere.

Partly because of this new sense of heightened opportunity and heightened risk, we have felt drawn to look at this question in a multireligious discussion, rather than purely separately in each separate community. This itself may be evidence of a new era in human cultural and religious history.

At the end of this discussion, we will take up the implications of this sense of "new era" for what we are doing as we draw on the teachings of our traditions from ancient to recent times.

Though the importance and effect of non-food uses of the earth have grown a great deal, food remains a crucial part of the adam/adamah relationship. Though we recognize the need for our religious traditions to look beyond food in shaping our own era's sacred relationship with the earth, we will focus on food itself in this paper. We therefore affirm as sacred a process for growing food that celebrates the earth and seeks to heal it from pollution and exhaustion. The root of this outlook is the religious celebration of the earth itself as sacred, "very good," including a special concern for the way every creature takes food from and becomes food for the others. Thus the Hebrew Scriptures (Gen. 1: 29-31) teach:

"God also said, 'I give you [the human] all plants that bear seed everywhere on earth, and every tree bearing fruit which yields seed: they shall be yours for food. All green plants I give for food to the wild animals, to all the birds of heaven, and to all reptiles on earth, every living creature.' So it was; and God saw all that he had made, and it was very good."

This celebration of the web of life rises to a high point of literary and spiritual power in Psalm 104

Bless YHWH [Breath of Life], O my breathing;
O YHWH, my God, You are very great;
You are cloaked in glory and majesty,
wrapped in a robe of light;
You spread the heavens like a tent,
In the world-wide waters You set the beams of Your planet-wide pavilions,
You make the clouds Your chariot,
move on the wings of the wind.
You make the winds Your messengers,
fiery flames Your servants.
You set the earth on its foundations,
so that it shall never totter.
You robed the earth with ocean waves,
the waters stood above the mountains.
They fled at Your blast,
rushed away at the sound of Your thunder,
Mountains rising, valleys sinking-
to the place You established for them.
You set bounds they must not pass
so that they never again cover the earth.
You make springs gush forth in torrents;
they make their way between the hills,
giving drink to all the wild beasts;
the wild donkeys quench their thirst.
The birds of the sky dwell beside them
and sing among the foliage.
You water the mountains from Your loftiest sources;
the earth is fulfilled with the fruit of Your work.
You make grass grow for the cattle,
and grain for human labor
that we may get food out of the earth-
wine that cheers the human heart,
oil that makes the face shine,
and bread that sustains a human life.
The trees of YHWH drink their fill --
the cedars of Lebanon, Your own planting,
where birds make their nests;
the stork has her home in the junipers.
The high mountains are for wild goats;
the crags are a refuge for rock-badgers.
…
The lions roar for prey,
seeking their food from God.
When the sun rises, they come home
and couch in their dens.
…
How many are the things You have made, O YHWH;
You have made them all with wisdom;
the earth is full of Your creations.
…
All of them look to You
to give them their food when it is due.

Give it to them, they gather it up;
open Your hand, they are well satisfied;
hide Your face, they are terrified;
take away their breath, they perish
and turn again into dust;
send back Your breath, they are created,
and You renew the face of the earth.
…
Bless YHWH, O my breathing.
Hallelu Yah!

AW: This poetic and philosophic outlook gives rise to a legal and economic structure in which the earth is entitled to its own celebration of God through its own rhythm of restful pause from work, then into work; then from work, then into work. This entitlement depends in part on human celebration of the rhythm; but if human beings reject it, the earth will reclaim it anyway. (Lev. 25)

Indeed, if the earth is ill-treated or God's teachings are ignored -- especially if the earth is denied the restfulness to which it is entitled or "other gods," mere parts of the whole, are worshipped in place of the One -- the earth will rebel through famine and drought, will force the human community into exile, and will thus achieve the restful pause to which it is entitled. (Lev 26: 34-35, 43; Deut.11: 13-21; II Chron. 36: 20-21)

We will look in more depth at this teaching as part of "Dimension 1" because it focuses on how the blessing of sufficient food blossoms and grows in the earth. Out of this spiritual teaching emerges a code of economic, ecological, and social behavior for the biblical community.

The celebration of this interwovenness takes three major forms, all focused on food: the code of kosher food, the use of food as the medium of offerings to God, and the rhythm of work and rest codified in both the weekly Sabbath and in the pattern of seventh-year and fiftieth-year cessation of organized agriculture.

In the larger framework of the earth as a whole, Rabbinic Judaism draws on and broadens the biblical outlook by citing what was originally a food-related rule: the Biblical prohibition on destroying fruit trees, even those belonging to an enemy, even in time of war.

The Rabbis broaden this by saying that all the more, in peacetime such fruitful aspects of the earth must not be wasted: "Bal tashchit, Do not waste/ destroy," they decree. Though they affirm human utilization of the earth, they oppose wasteful misuse.

Rabbinic Judaism takes as a framework the life of the Jewish people living in many different countries and regions, no longer responsible for or empowered to make decisions for any specific eco-system, as it was when it was centered in the Land of Israel.

So rabbinic concern for the web of life as a whole may have been weaker than that of biblical Israel because its way of life was far less broadly earth-connected. Connection with God continues to focus literally on the mouth, but now through words (of prayer and Torah-study), rather than food. Yet food continued to be religiously important: Rabbinic Judaism applied the fervor and focus of the Temple offerings of food to the daily dinner table, and (as we will see below) expanded the biblical rules of kashrut.

As the Christian Church emerges from its roots among Christian Jews and reaches out to the non-Jewish world, the Gospels tell many tales in which Jesus gives over his teachings in connection with food, meals, and eating. It is not the code of kosher food that becomes crucial to Christianity, but the desire to be able to share food across all barriers. The Gospels also reemphasize the sacredness of the web of life as a whole. In Mark 4: 26-29, they point out that although human beings are part of God's life-process, they are not in charge of it and may well find it a mystery:

"He said, 'The kingdom of God is like this: A man scatters seed on the land; he goes to bed at night and gets up in the morning, and the seed sprouts and grows – how, he does not know. The ground produces a crop by itself, first the blade, then the ear, then full-grown corn in the ear.'"

Here the spiritual meaning of the "kingdom of God" is so deeply intertwined with the material world that the Mystery that lies at the heart of each is suffused into the other.

MMH: In Islam there is no dichotomy between sacred and secular. It is the way of life. (Deen) Anything that is done in accordance with the Qur’anic teaching and done in the manner Prophet Muhammad (S) has done it (Sunnah), becomes sacred. Putting it in another way, anything that is not repugnant to the Qur’an and Sunnah is sacred.

The Quran teaches that the world and all its life-forms are God-centered, not human-centered. The web of life is defined by the connection of all its strands with the Divine Center:

"The All Merciful God! It is He who has taught the Quran. It is He who has created man. It is He who has taught him expression. The sun and the moon are in measured course. And to Him do the stars and the trees bow themselves down. And the heaven has He raised. And He has set the balance of all things, so that you do not transgress the just balance. So establish weights and measures with justice. And you shall not by fraud diminish the balance. And the earth has He laid down for all living creatures. Therein is abundant fruit and date-palms with plenteous sheaths, and grains with husk. And sweet-scented basil. Then which of your Lord's blessings will any of you deny?" (Al-Qur’an 55:1-13)

"And there is not a single thing in existence but that its treasures are in Our Providence. And We alone send it down for your benefit in accordance with a known measure by divine decree and We send the winds fecundating earth and clouds. Then We send down water from heaven. Then We give it to you to drink. And it is not you human beings that hold its stores." (Al-Qur’an)

After establishing God’s absolute ownership on the web of life, the Qur’an commands man to eat that which is lawful and wholesome.

“O mankind ! Eat of that which is lawful (halal) and wholesome (tayyab) in the earth and follow not the footsteps of the devil (Shaitan). Lo! He is an open enemy for you.”
(Al-Qur’an 2:168)

Dimension 1. Growing Food in Ways
that Protect and Heal the Web of Life

Food production, as one of the more significant forces in the natural world, affects the delicate balance of plants, animals, human beings, land, water and air – interdependent in seeking sustenance and survival. Farming and grazing together occupy one quarter of the world’s lands and are the leading cause of deforestation and loss of natural lands.

In order to maintain this balance for future generations, we human beings must choose to produce our food in ways that protect the web of life, preserve the living spaces that other life-forms need, and learn to use methods that return vibrant health to our soil and water.

CB: Religiously aware humans are required to take note that we are not the only living things on the earth. Our demand for more and more resources, even of the most meager kind, requires the sacrifice of millions of acres of arable soil and water – soil and water that are filled with non-human life and that could support other non-human life. Humans often assume that if a resource is not being used by humans it is not being used. But there is no such thing as an unused part of the ecosystem – something lives everywhere. We must limit our own behavior in acknowledgement that God has placed us here among many other living things all of which have value to God. They therefore should have value to us.

AW: Several strands of our traditions address this: One of these focuses on finding ways to produce food for a growing human population while protecting natural and sensitive areas. When Biblical, Rabbinic, Christian, and Muslim traditions were originally being formed, exponential increases in human population were not happening, resources seemed unrestricted, and the general ethical impulse was to increase human population. Thus: Genesis 1: 28: "Be fruitful and multiply, fill up the earth and subdue it."

Various strands within our Jewish, Christian, and Muslim communities today continue to affirm that this precept continues in force. Other strands raise the possibility that this precept has already been fulfilled: Is the earth already "filled" and "subdued" by the human race? Should the requirement therefore be reinterpreted to call for spiritual, emotional, and intellectual rather than arithmetical fruitfulness? Should the teaching be reexamined in the light of another teaching of Genesis (2: 15) -- "YHWH God took the human and set him in the Garden of Delight, to till it and tend it"?

Should this be taken to mean that our attention should turn to nourishing the species that may be extinguished by human monopolies over living space? One way of doing this might be to draw on the biblical call for the sabbatical/ Jubilee process of deliberately and rhythmically letting the earth lie fallow.

"YHWH spoke to Moshe at Mount Sinai, saying:
Speak to the children of Israel, and say to them:
When you enter the land that I am giving you,
The land is to pause, a Sabbath-pausing for YHWH.
For six years you are to sow your field, and its corollary:
For six years you are to prune your vineyard,
Then you are to gather in its produce,
but in the seventh year,
there shall be a Sabbath of Sabbath-pausing for the land,
a Sabbath to YHWH:
your field you are not to sow,
your vineyard you are not to prune ..." (Lev. 25: 1-4)

Some farmers today do leave selected parts of their land fallow in rotation, and find that it actually increases the agricultural yield. This may not be only a modern discovery: One part of the biblical passage on the sabbatical pause from cultivation actually asserts that if it is done, the earth will give forth more food, not less. (Lev 25: 20-21).

Indeed, the Bible also asserts that if human society denies the land its time of rest, the land will take its rest anyway through famine and exile: Less rest, less food. (Lev.26: 34-35) Another (a kind of spatial analogue to sabbatical time) may be to set aside uncultivated land. The Hebrew Scriptures require that the Levitical cities be surrounded by green space. In contemporary life, that might mean preventing the use of national parks and forests for any form of human utilization; it might mean encouraging green areas in cities and even encouraging small-scale urban gardening to replace blighted buildings and other forms of human over-use.

But conflicts over reserving uncultivated land sometimes emerge: Efforts to limit use of the Amazon tropical forest, for example, have run into vigorous efforts to grow food there for a burgeoning population, even though the forest is destroyed in that process.

Another is avoiding or minimizing the direct application of substances that kill or poison plants or animals and remain potent in the earth. But such pollutants have often in recent agricultural practice been encouraged in order to multiply the immediate results of food-growing and to make easier the feeding of everyone (another of the traditional religious precepts: see Dimension 4).

JMR: But we need to encourage science to develop more benign substances to replace those we currently use. And to also recognize that over half of the pesticides used in the US are used on home, office, golf course, parking lot and other non-agricultural lawns!

AW: Two other approaches to protecting ecosystems as a whole while feeding an ever-growing population have been genetic manipulation to make growing more food possible with more efficient use of energy, soil, and water; and the practice of vegetarianism or veganism, on the ground that larger amounts of protein for human use can be grown with more efficient use of land and energy as grain or beans than as meat or milk. (See Dimensions 2 and 3 for further exploration.)

The question remains whether support for unrestrained population growth can coexist with restraints on the human use of the earth for producing food. We will examine this dilemma further in Dimension 3. In any case, we may need to keep in mind the warning in the Christian Scriptures (Luke 12: 16–21) that the sheer piling up of abundant food is not a full religious response to God's gift:

"And he told them this parable:
'There was a rich man whose land yielded heavy crops. He debated with himself: "What am I to do? I have not the space to store my produce. This is what I will do," said he: "I will pull down my storehouses and build them bigger. I will collect in them all my corn and other goods, and then say to myself, 'Man, you have plenty of good things laid by, enough for many years: take life easy, eat, drink, and enjoy yourself.'" 'But God said to him, "You fool, this very night you must surrender your life; you have made your money—who will get it now?" That is how it is with the man who amasses wealth for himself and remains a pauper in the sight of God."

MMH: Man is delegated as a viceroy of God on earth. With this honor comes the responsibility of managing the affairs of the earth in a responsible manner.

"HE it is Who has placed you as viceroys (Khalaifah) of the earth and has exalted some of you in rank above others, that He may try you by (the test of) that which HE has given you. Lo! Your Lord is swift in prosecution, and Lo! He is Forgiving, Merciful". (Quran 6:165)

Islam discourages mankind from individual as well as collective pursuits of abundance beyond what is necessary to feed everyone. The Qur’an says:

"O children of Adam! Look at your adornment at every place of worship, and eat and drink, but be not prodigals. Lo! HE loves not the prodigals.” (Al-Qur'an 7:31)

Dimension 2. Humane treatment of animals.

All our traditions show strong concern for the welfare of animals, and within them are some urgings for a discipline of vegetarianism or veganism, for the sake of the animals (separately from the argument for cheaper and more abundant food, noted above).

The Hebrew Scriptures prohibited yoking an ox and a donkey together to pull a plow, presumably because their different strength and speed would make both animals suffer (Deut. 22: 11). The Bible also required that the ox not be muzzled to prevent his eating from the grain he threshes (Deut. 25: 4).

Rabbinic Judaism created a code of preventing pain and harm to animals, well-developed enough to have a categorical name: tza'ar baalei chayyim – the sufferings of those who bear life.

Traditional obligatory means of slaughter prohibited the eating of animals killed by shooting arrows, guns, etc., and reduced pain to the animal at the point of death by swiftly cutting off blood to the animal's brain.

JMR: The challenge of modern farm animal agricultural animal welfare is to improve the lot of animals, integrate animal agriculture into a sustainable future, and produce sufficient and balanced food for a world of possibly 9.5 billion people, hopefully leveling off, in this century. Modern science-based animal agricultural practices indicate in I believe almost every case that an unstressed animal is the most productive animal. But oftentimes, economics of scale justify practices that do stress the animal and it is these practices that modern science-based third party audited systems are meant to change. Animal agriculture needs to own the responsibility for a sound and scientifically based animal welfare and the rest of us need to push them through support of such buying programs for proper animal welfare concerns. It is important for consumers to recognize the contribution of animal agriculture to our food supply and to sustainability as the sole animal users of grass and as the recycling mechanism of choice for many food wastes.

CB: In this dimension we again affirm that forms of life other than human life have value and must be respected. Particularly if one is going to eat meat – survive by taking the life of other animals – one must do so respectfully, eating minimally, treating the animal well during its life, managing slaughter with dignity and respect, and not wasting any part of the thing which died to support our lives. Vegetarianism is a viable ethical option for people of most, if not all, religious faiths, but for those who eat meat for cultural or other reasons, it is incumbent on people of faith to treat the non-human animals as well as our human imaginations permit us to.

AW: The Quran (6:38) goes in some ways still further by analogizing the internal web of life in animals to that in human beings.

MMH: An animal, in essence, bears similarities to human being in that, it has a soul, perception, and can sense comfort and pain. The Qur’an says:

"And there is not a single beast on the earth, nor a bird flying with its two wings, but that they are communities like you…." (Al-Qur’an 6:38)

And the Hadith quotes the Prophet (peace and blessings upon him) as saying that whoever is kind and merciful towards animals, Allah will be kind and merciful towards him.

Human behavior towards the animals is regulated when Prophet Muhammad (S) warned:
“Be mindful of your duty to Allah in respect of these mute animals. Ride them when they are in good condition, and slay them and eat their meat when they are in good condition.” (Abu Dawud)

The killing of the animals for food is allowed and must be done with compassion:

Abu Yala Shaddad ibn Aws reported that the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, said, "Allah has prescribed good for everything. So when you kill, kill well. When you sacrifice, sacrifice well. Each of you should sharpen the edge of his knife and should calm down his sacrificial animal." (Hadith)

AW: Does the advent of new means of more effectively checking pain call into question the use of older means? If there should emerge a collision between the value of preventing pain in animals, and the value of continuing a community's uniqueness and its own tradition of sacred practice, how do we decide which is the deeper, crucial value?

Other than in the moment of slaughter, what provision might we make for reducing pain to an animal throughout its life? How does factory farming, for example, square with reducing the pain of living beings?

JMR: Judaism and Islam are both religions of law. The procedures used for growing and slaughtering animals are based on these laws. In addition, there are ethical principles expressed in the holy writings that deal with a generally strong ethical concern for humans treating animals with respect and care.

However, in the case of conflicts between broad general principles and specific legal requirements, the legal requirements generally take precedence. These legal requirements are meant to provide for a humane slaughter and were a tremendous leap forward in animal welfare.

However, in modern times the nature of slaughter has changed dramatically. Since the publication of Upton Sinclair’s “The Jungle” in 1906, large strides have been made in improving slaughter. The religious communities have had to adapt their laws to the new legal requirements. Now they will also need to work with the general community to further adapt to higher animal welfare concerns. The key is that these new requirements not conflict with the essential requirements of religious slaughter and that the religious communities accept that within their religious requirements they MUST select those approaches that give the highest level of animal welfare. Our experience still suggests that when religious slaughter is done right, it is the most humane slaughter.

Traditional provisions focused on birds and land animals. What about fish?

JMR: Currently work is being done to develop a set of animal welfare standards for salmon in the UK. One of my general goals would be to get Sacred Foods and many of the groups within it to strongly support the current scientific efforts to
create animal welfare standards based on sound science, so that they can be
supported by the widest possible group of consumers.

Dimension 3. Protecting the integrity and diversity of life

The ways in which we produce food must respect the integrity and diversity of the world’s plants and animals, as well as taking active steps to prevent the extinction of animal species and plant varieties which produce seeds which can be saved.

The question arises whether committing ourselves to feed all human beings adequately (see Dimension 4) in a period of continuing population growth can coexist with restraints on the human use of the earth for producing food. Can both be fulfilled? Can they be held in balance, modifying each to some extent in order to preserve them as a connected whole? Or do one or both of them need to be radically reinterpreted?

It may be useful to keep in mind an interesting remark of the Talmud. It urges that sheep and goats not be raised in the land of Israel, even though this was the prime livelihood of the Abrahamic family. Why the change? Because in a new ecological and economic situation, flocks had over-run and were ruining the land.

In this situation, the Talmud seems to have chosen the protection of the web of life as a whole over the sheer production of more food.

One hope for resolution of the dilemma is that technologically advanced food production might produce more food without damaging the earth. But some technologically advanced farming has invaded earth's web of life. Even in fishing, there is already evidence that technological advances in fishing has overfished the oceans, and that intensive animal and fish "factory farms" pollute the waters and soils around them.

JMR: Definitely needs to be addressed, but organic waste is generally easier to address than the non-organic waste put out by industrial and manufacturing sector, and the pollution generated in the home and office!

Much conventional modern farming depends on the widespread use of cheap petroleum. But burning fossil fuels is transforming global climate, already eroding the water supplies and undermining the climatic conditions that have shaped farming for millennia. So far, technological efforts have not resolved the riddle. And predictions of "Peak Oil" suggest that petroleum supplies may not remain cheap. If oil prices skyrocket, production and distribution of food through petro modes may be less cheap and feed fewer people than more traditional farming.

So we need to examine oil-dependent practices in growing, transporting, and packaging food (e..g. using up and paving over top soil, the impact of fuel for tractors, potential overuse of the water table, amount of waste channeled into air or water).

Some have expressed the hope that genetic manipulation of foods may magnify production without damaging the earth. Our religious traditions express some skepticism about such manipulation of the biological infrastructure that underlies all life.

Thus Leviticus (19:19): "Your animal, you shall not mate in two-species; your field, you are not to sow with two species." And Deuteronomy 22: 9-10 requires:

"You are not to sow your vineyard with two species,
lest you forfeit-as-holy the full-yield from the seed that you sow, and the produce of the vineyard."

These commands are elaborated by Rabbinic Judaism, so that Rabbi Norman Lamm summarizes the intention as follows:

"… respect for the inviolability of Nature extends not only to Nature as a whole but to its major segments as well. The original identity of species must be protected against artificial distortion and obliteration. This confirmation of the separateness and noninterchangeability of its various parts may be said to lie at the heart of some of the less rationally appreciated Pentateuchal commandments -- those prohibiting the mixing of different seeds in a field, of interbreeding diverse species of animals, of wearing garments of mixed wool and linen. "Here the Bible demands a symbolic affirmation of nature's original order in defiance of man's manipulative interference. Perhaps never before have these laws been as meaningful as in our times when the ecology of the entire planet is in such danger, when entire species are threatened with extinction, when man has become capable of 'ecocide.'"

MMH: To encourage man to produce food for the sustenance of the web of life, Prophet Muhammad declared:

“When a man plants a plant or cultivates a crop, no bird or human being eats from it without its being accounted as a rewardable charity from it “. (Sahih Bukhari)

And to establish economic and ecological behavior of the Islamic community to protect the integrity and diversity of life the Qur’an says:

“And the harvest that you reap, you shall leave them in the ear, except a little you shall eat”. (Al-Qur’an 12:47)

JMR: Breeders have been changing animals since the start of human interaction with their environment. The animals of today are not wild animals because of the long selective breeding that has taken place. In some cases, this classical breeding has brought us animals that are simply mal-adapted to survival even within the domesticated world they live in. The nature of selection criteria for breeding simply needs to adapt to a wider set of goals, not just the current emphasis on specific targeted traits.

Part of the problem with classical breeding is that one selects for chromosomes -- a large number of different traits all “attached” to each other. Another concern with classical breeding is the fact that they often cause mutations randomly using chemicals or irradiation and then depend on selection to assure that no detrimental changes enter the food supply. Alternatively, the modern genetic breeding systems are based on selecting and moving a single gene, a known trait, into new species. This is more targeted, highly specific, and allows us to tackle hard problems.

In the plant kingdom we are looking towards plants that will grow in high salt environments, plants that control their water loss better, plants with higher nutrient content, plants that survive cold temperatures better, and plants that survive insect attacks without polluting chemicals being needed to stop them. In the microbial arena we are seeing a lot of gene products already making a major contribution to the modern food supply. Almost all cheese made “commercially” uses the enzyme Chymosin derived by use of biotechnology.

The advantage of bacteria is that the product being sought can be isolated without containing any genetic material. With animals we are looking to create animals that can produce (generally in their milk) compounds of interest either nutritionally or more likely as “health and medical” ingredients. With time we will also most likely be able to target animal disease traits. Thus genetics is a very powerful technology and is one that offers major opportunities for creating a more sustainable world.

The proper regulation of these materials remains critical, but a regime that stymies growth is going to be costly to the short and long-term sustainability goals. In a separate comment I will address the “precautionary principle.”

MMH: GMO will be considered on a case by case basis depending upon the intention of the undertaking, means and methods employed, and the ultimate yield of the end product. Allah knows best.

AW: Yet contemporary halakhic analysis in Rabbinic Judaism has not applied this outlook to what cannot be seen by the naked eye -- including microscopic manipulation of genes, etc. . The original assumption seems to have been that what was invisible to the naked eye was not important in the fabric of the world. But today, when modern technology makes it possible to "see" and manipulate primordial molecular, genetic, atomic, and nuclear materials, how would we assess this question?

Beyond the question of direct genetic manipulation, some food businesses have sought to reduce the number of plant or animal varieties, presumably for the sake of ease of production and distribution – and therefore greater abundance.

The side effects include facilitating greater commercial control and profit. Here all our traditions would seem to lean in the direction of doubting the value of deliberately eliminating some of God's creation.

Thus the Qur’an : "Do not these unbelievers see that the heavens and the earth were an integrated mass, then We [God] split them and made every living thing from water?"

And the eleventh century Spanish rabbi, Jonah ibn Janah of Saragossa

"A man is held responsible for everything he receives in this world, and his children are responsible too.... The fact is nothing belongs to him, everything is the Lord's and whatever he received he received only on credit and the Lord will exact payment for it. This may be compared to a person who entered a city and found no one there. He walked into a house and there found a table set with all kinds of food and drink. So he began to eat and drink thinking, "I deserve all of this, all of it is mine, I shall do with it what I please." He didn't even notice that the owners were watching him from the side! He will yet have to pay for everything he ate and drank, for he is in a spot from which he will not be able to escape."

Dimension 4. No One Should Go Hungry

All our traditions share a strong commitment that no one should go hungry at the end of the day. This applies especially to the poor and times of famine. Everyone should have access to affordable, nutritious, and culturally customary food. Each local community and the world-wide human community acting in concert share the responsibility for ending hunger and famine.

AW: The traditions strongly agree that the poor must be fed. On how to do so there is some ambivalence. The usual view is one that encourages families, clans, and individuals - not a central king or treasury -- to make sure the poor get fed. There is only one text - but that is a major one -- that looks toward a central granary and central control of food in time of famine.

That is Joseph's plan and the actual result for dealing with the Great Famine in Egypt. Does Torah recommend this as a way of dealing with famine? On the surface, yes. But the Torah also makes clear that a Pharaoh arose who had so much centralized power and so little compassion for the Israelites that he could enslave them. Is the Torah suggesting that top-down, unaccountable power might feed people in the short run but starve them in the long run?

Note that the Ten Plagues (a number of which invade Egypt's food supply) are a direct consequence of Pharaoh's oppressive over-used power.

Let us begin with looking at the provisions requiring that everyone be adequately fed:

In the Hebrew Scriptures: (Lev 25:35,37): If your kin fall into difficulty and become dependent on you, you shall support them... You shall not lend them your money at interest or provide them food at a profit. (Lev 23:22☺

When you gather the harvest in your country, you are not to gather the gleanings... Leave them to the poor and the stranger.

AW: Gleaning and "peah" (corners of the field) are direct and decentralized ways of making sure the poor get fed. Notice that this is not a food "giveaway": the poor work in order to eat; notice also that this kind of work is not demeaning in the biblical culture: it is the kind of work many people did, including those who were not poor and owned the land they worked. Notice further that in the story of Ruth, Boaz goes out of his way to make sure the landless foreigner from a despised nation, Ruth is not harassed or humiliated by others in the fields.

AW: This provision of food for the poor is not left as an emergency provision. Permanent social practices try to reduce or ideally eliminate the poverty that would require gleaning:

Deuteronomy 15: 1-17:
"Every seventh year you shall practice remission of debts. This shall be the nature of the remission: every creditor shall remit the due that he claims from his fellow; he shall not dun his fellow or kinsman, for the remission proclaimed is of the Lord. You may dun the foreigner; but you must remit whatever is due you from your kinsmen.

"There shall be no needy among you - since YHWH your God will bless you in the land that YHWH your God is giving you as a hereditary portion -- if only you heed YHWH your God and take care to keep all this Instruction that I enjoin upon you this day. ...

"If, however, there is a needy person among you, one of your kinsmen in any of your settlements in the land that YHWH your God is giving you, do not harden your heart and shut your hand against your needy kinsmen. Rather you must open your hand and lend him sufficient for whatever he needs. Beware lest you harbor the base thought, "The seventh year, the year of remission, is approaching," so that you are mean to your needy kinsmen and give him nothing. He will cry out to YHWH against you, and you will incur guilt.

"Give to him readily and have no regrets when you do so, for in return YHWH your God will bless you in all your efforts and in all your undertakings. For there will never cease to be needy ones in your land, which is why I command you: open your hand to the poor and needy kinsmen in your land."

Deuteronomy 14: 28-29:
"At the end of three years, you are to bring out all the tithing of your produce, in that year, and you are to deposit (it) within your gates.
And when he comes, the Levite —for he does not have a portion or an inheritance beside you— and the sojourner, the orphan and the widow that are within they will eat and be-satisfied, in order that YHWH your God may bless you in all the doings of your hand that you do."

Both the practice of the present and the vision of the future look toward self-sufficient food production

Isaiah envisions: "And they shall sit, every one under his own vine and fig tree; and none shall make them afraid."

And in the immediate present, even on the most sacred day of fasting, Isaiah 57:14-58:14 speaks God's command (in a passage that was originally spoken on Yom Kippur and was assigned by the Rabbis to be read then, every year):

"This is the kind of fast that I desire:

"Share your bread with the hungry.
Bring the poor, the outcasts, to your house.
When you see them naked, clothe them;
And from your own flesh and blood don't hide yourself.

"Then your light will burst through like the dawn;
Then when you need healing it will spring up quickly;
Then your own righteousness will march ahead to guard you.
And a radiance from YHWH will reach out behind to guard you."

AW: Rabbinic Judaism, Christianity, and Islam all continue this insistence on feeding the hungry: :

From Rabbinic Judaism, we have from the ancient midrash (The Book of Legends, page 309: 21: 12):

"R. Hisda replied: How shall I refrain from sighing?
"Here is a house in which there were once sixty bakers by day and sixty bakers by night, who baked for everyone who was in need. Nor did R. Hana ever take his hand away from his purse, thinking that perhaps a poor man of good family might come and be put to shame as R. Hana was reaching for his purse. Moreover, the house had four doors, opening to the four cardinal points, and whoever came in hungry went out full. In years of scarcity, wheat and barley were piled outside, so that anyone who was ashamed to take some by day might come and take some by night. Now that this house has
fallen into ruins, shall I not sigh?"

And in the Christian Gospels, Matthew 25: 31- 40:
"When the Son of Man comes in his glory ... the King will say to those on his right hand,

"'You have my Father's blessing; come enter and possess the kingdom that has been ready for you since the world was made. For when I was hungry, you gave me food; when thirsty you gave me drink; when I was a stranger you took me to your home; when naked you clothed me; when I was ill you came to my help, when in prison you visited me.'

"Then the righteous will reply, 'Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry and fed you, or thirsty and gave you a drink, a stranger and took you home, or naked and clothed you? When we did we see you ill or in prison, and come to visit you?'

"And the King will answer: 'I tell you this; anything you did for one of my brothers here, however humble, you did for Me.' "(Mark 2: 23 – 27)

"One Sabbath he was going through the grain fields; and his disciples, as they went, began to pluck ears of grain. The Pharisees said to him, 'Look, why are they doing what is forbidden on the Sabbath?' He answered, 'Have you never read what David did when he and his men were hungry and had nothing to eat? He went into the House of God, in the time of Abiathar the High Priest, and ate the sacred bread, though no one but a priest is allowed to eat it, and even gave it to his men.'"

Now let us turn to our traditions' greatest story about a centralized response to feed the hungry, through the advice of Joseph to Pharaoh. It appears in Genesis 41: 30-36 and 47: 13-26; through this appearance it is brought into both Rabbinic Jewish and Christian sacred text. Independently, the Quran devotes an entire chapter to Joseph , whom it considers a prophet.

"After [seven years of plenty] will come seven years of famine … Let all the food of these good years that are coming be gathered, and let the grain be collected under Pharaoh's authority as food to be stored in the cities. Let that food be a reserve for the land for the seven years of famine which will come upon the land Egypt, so that the land may not perish in the famine."

"Joseph gathered in all the money that was to be found in the land of Egypt and in the land of Canaan, as payment for the rations that were being procured, and Joseph brought the money into Pharaoh's palace. …

"So Joseph gained possession of all the farm land of Egypt for Pharaoh, every Egyptian having sold his field because the famine was too much for them; thus the land passed over to Pharaoh …

"Then Joseph said to the people, 'Whereas I have this day acquired you and your land for Pharaoh, here is seed for you to sow the land. And when the harvest comes, you shall give one-fifth to Pharaoh, and four-fifths shall be yours as seed for the fields and as food for you and those in your households, and as nourishment for your children.' And they said, 'You have saved our lives! We are grateful to my lord, and we shall be serfs to Pharaoh.'"

AW: Is this story to be taken as advice for how to deal with an eco-disaster that brings on a catastrophic famine?

Given the sequel in which a later Pharaoh enslaves Joseph's people, ought we to take it as a cautionary tale, warning us that if other measures are not taken beforehand to hearten the rhythms of the earth, a society can be turned into serfs? Is the double-sided picture aimed only at the values and dangers of what we call "governmental" centralization, or should we take it as a teaching about large "private" corporate structures as well?

CB: While religious communities are often mindful of the need to insure that some food is available to the poor, our attention is often not directed to the causes of poverty or to the mismatch between the food that is available and the food that is culturally appropriate. For people to be truly secure in their access to food they must have available the types of food that are nourishing, healthy, fresh and preferred by their culture. The food that is often offered through food banks is not the kind that most of us would prefer to eat in our own homes. Religious people should not limit their concern to acts of charity, but work to insure that long-term food security is gained for every person in our society.

MMH: Hunger can be effectively eradicated at the grass root level by personal involvement and at micro and macro level through institutions:

(1)Individual responsibility of earning one’s livelihood:

Prophet Muhammad (S) said: “Trying to earn a lawful livelihood is an obligatory duty in addition to the duties which are obligatory”. (Hadith)

He(S) said: “No one eats better food than what he eats out of the works of his hand”. (Sahih Bukhari)

2) Consumption pattern: Prophet Muhammad said: “One person’s food is enough for two, two person’s food is enough for four, and four person’s food is enough for eight”. (Sahih Muslim)

(3) Sharing: The Qur’an says:
“Give the kinman his due, and the needy, and the wayfarer, and squander not (your wealth) in wantonness. Lo! the Squanders were ever brothers of devils, and the devil was an ingrate to His Lord”. (Al-Qur’an 17:26-27)

(4) Zakat –Obligatory charity (Annual welfare-due)

The Qur’an says: “Sadaqat (charities) are for the poor and needy.” (Al-Qur’an 9:60)

(5) Sawm – Obligatory fasting in the month of Ramadan to create ampathy for the hungry.

(6) Sacrificial meat at the occasion of Eid ul Adha.

Dimension 5. Fairness toward and empowerment of
workers and farmers

All our traditions agree that workers and farmers must be treated with respect, fairly, justly, and humanely. One out of every six people works to provide the food we eat – cultivating, sowing, tending and harvesting in the fields and in food transport, in restaurants and food preparation, and in food stores. We affirm the right of workers to decent incomes and working conditions, and their right to organize themselves.

AKB: We affirm the desire of farmers to remain on their land, which often has passed from generation to generation, and to produce food and security for their family and surrounding communities.

While economists may see family farmers as an inefficient anachronism that should disappear with export-oriented development, those recognizing the sacredness of food see them as essential to the provision of healthy food and one basis of local economies. Smaller-scale farming creates more jobs than highly- mechanized forms of agriculture, and tends to generate local prosperity, which supports national economic development. Respect, backing and protection for farmers also can prove critical in times of food insecurity and famine in a region or country.

Almost everywhere farmers are struggling to make ends meet, and millions have become contract farmers or farm workers, so the protections in a set of laws from Deuteronomy applies equally well to farmers and workers:

AW: In a set of laws in Deuteronomy, various protections are provided for workers:

"You are not to hand over to his master a serf who has sought-rescue by you from his master. Beside you let him dwell, among you, in the place that he chooses, within one of your gates (that) seems good for him; you are not to maltreat him!" (Deut. 23: 16 – 17)

"You are not to withhold from a hired-hand, an afflicted and needy-one, (whether) from your brothers or from your sojourner that is within your land, within your gates.

"On his payday you are to give his wage, you are not to let the sun come in upon him, for he is afflicted, for it he lifts his life-breath – that he not call out against you to YHWH, and there be sin upon you!" (Deut. 24: 14-15)

"When your brother is sold to you, Hebrew-male or Hebrew-female, and serves you for six years:, now in the seventh year you are to send-him-free, at liberty, from beside you.

\"Now when you send-him-free, at liberty, from beside you, you are not to send-him-free empty-handed; you are to adorn, yes, adorn him from your flock, from your threshing-floor and from your vat, (from) that which YHWH your God has blessed you, you are to give to him.

"You must bear-in-mind that a serf were you in the land of Egypt, and YHWH your God redeemed you, therefore I command you this word today!" (Deut. 15:12-15)

And in a grand rebuke that Rabbinic Judaism required be read into the moment most likely to hold the attention of the people, the morning of Yom Kippur, The prophet Isaiah (57:14-58:14) cries out:

"Look! On the very day you fast you keep scrabbling for wealth;
On the very day you fast you keep oppressing all your workers.

"Look! You fast in strife and contention.
You strike with a wicked fist.

"You are not fasting today in such a way
As to make your voices heard on high."

And the Christian Scriptures echo and even intensify the Prophetic outcry:

"Next, a word to you who have great possessions. Weep and wail over the miserable fate descending on you. Your riches have rotted; your fine clothes are moth-eaten, your silver and gold have rusted away, and their very rust will be evidence against you and consume your flesh like fire. You have piled up wealth in an age that is near its close. "The wages you never paid to the men who mowed your fields are loud against you, and the outcry of the reapers has reached the ears of the Lord of Hosts. You have lived on earth in wanton luxury, fattening yourselves like cattle—and the day for slaughter has come. You have condemned the innocent and murdered him; he offers no resistance." (James 5: 1-6)

CB: Even as we work to insure that people of limited means have access to healthy, fresh food we must also be attentive to the pricing structures that tend to artificially depress food prices. Our insistence on cheap food (rather than on subsidizing the ability of low-income people to purchase it) means that we don’t pay a living wage to the people who grow or process it.

When farmers calculate the price they charge for food they grow, they often do so only with a view to covering direct expenses, and even then the market may barely allow them to break even on the food they produce. Such a pricing structure does not allow any income – any wage – to the farmer for his time and energy in insuring that the foods we love are available to us.

Cheap food comes at a high cost to those on the production end – we should not expect our farmers, who are often low-income themselves, and who are a tiny part of our population, to bear the burden for feeding all the hungry through low prices. If a society is judged by how it cares for its widows and orphans, then the burden to care for them must surely be on all of us together.

Religious people have a duty of inquiry – we may not continue to oppress people simply by refusing to know that we are doing so.

MMH:
Honest earning with dignity is encouraged when Prophet Muhammad (S) quoted the example of Prophet Moses (AS) to be followed:

“Moses (AS) hired himself for 8 or 10 years in return for preserving his chastity and receiving his food”. (Ahmed & Ibn-Majah)

The rights of the workers are protected when Prophet Muhammad (S) recommended:

“Give the hireling his wages before his sweat dries”. (Ibn-Majah)

Dimension 6: Responsible and ethical forms of business

All our traditions require that we act honestly, fairly, to the benefit of others, and in accordance with the ethical teachings of our faith traditions when dealing with customers, employees, partners, and the communities in which we conduct business. These relationships must be accessible to public scrutiny and accountability.

Thus the Hebrew Bible (Lev. 19: 35) demands that --

You shall not falsify measurers of length, weight, or volume. You shall have an honest balance, honest weights, an honest ephah, and an honest hin.

Rabbinic law (Book of Legends p. 656.) made clear that rules of business fairness applied to everyone:

When Scripture says, 'thou shalt not take advantage of thy neighbor, nor cheat him [Lev. 19:13], it means that your neighbor [whether Jew or foreigner] should be treated like your brother. For blessed is the One Who is everywhere, in whose presence there is no show of favor. Hence you know that cheating a heathen is still cheating."

And as the Christian community became more institutionalized, Acts 6: 1-6 moved to make sure that specific commands of justice would be carried out:

"During this period, when disciples were growing in number, there was disagreement between those of them who spoke Greek and those who spoke the language of the Jews. The former party complained that their widows were being overlooked in the daily [food] distribution.

"So the Twelve called the whole body of disciples together and said, 'It would be a grave mistake for us to neglect the word of God in order to wait at table. Therefore, friends, look out seven men of good reputation from your number, men full of the Spirit and of wisdom, and we will appoint them to deal with these matters, while we devote ourselves to prayer and to the ministry of the Word.' This proposal proved acceptable to the whole body.

"They elected Stephen, a man full of faith and of the Holy Spirit, Philip, Prochorus, Nicanor, Timon, Parmenas, and Nicolas of Antioch, a former convert to Judaism. These they presented to the apostles, who prayed and laid their hands on them.

And the Hadith makes clear that for Muslims, honesty in business is as central to religious life:

Prophet Muhammad (S) said:
"An honest and trustworthy merchant will be with the Prophets, the truthful, and the martyrs". (At-Tirmidhi)

The Qur’an says:

“But many do mislead (men) by their appetite unchecked by knowledge. Your Lord knows best those who transgress.” (Al-Qur’an 6:119)

CB: There is a permanent tension between food as a commodity and food as a necessity for life. Religious people are obliged to be troubled by the commodification of anything required for our survival (food, water, medical care, etc.). Current policies both nationally and at most state levels are designed to support agricultural commodities and do not address themselves well to small-scale production of food for human consumption. Small-scale production of food for humans delivered to a local market is the most nutritious and least environmentally pernicious method of supplying food to people. Small-scale and local-scale food systems are also the most subject to verification on responsible and ethical practices. Congregations should support the development of local food systems wherever they can.

Dimension 7. Food as an Aspect of Spirituality

All our traditions affirm that food is an element in spiritual celebration and experience. Whenever we eat, we consciously affirm that eating is a sacred spiritual practice which celebrates the delicate interplay of plants, animals and people, land, air, and water that makes this possible and we commit ourselves again to maintaining this creation.

All our traditions also affirm that specific times and practices of great religious significance, such as Passover, the Mass, and Eid al-Adha, include food as a central element. Some of our traditions affirm that for religious reasons, certain foods may be forbidden to eat and others encouraged, either all the time or at specific times.

AW: The Hebrew Scriptures treat relationships with the earth through food as the crucial way of making relationship with God. Bringing food (mutton, beef, bread, grain, fruit, water, wine) to God's holy shrines becomes a key part of everyday life as well festivals.

The centrality of food as sacred is encoded in one of the central origin-stories of the Hebrew Scriptures: The great mis-take in Eden was an act of eating that transgressed right relationship with God and the earth, though -- or perhaps because – or perhaps both -- it increased human knowledge.

Is this an ironic story of how technological advance, especially in regard to food and the land, can bring alienation?

The results include war between human and humus, earth and earthling, so that human beings can get to eat only through sweaty toil EVERY day, while earth gives forth only thorn and thistle.

Yet the results also include deeper knowledge of all the contradictions in life – a painful ascent from adolescence to hardworking adulthood. The first step toward healing of the wounded aspect of this ascent – healing toward maturity and a knowledgeable, peaceful, joyful relationship with food, earth, and God -- comes when manna descends on the people as pure gift, requiring no work. It comes as part of the tale in which Shabbat also first comes into human ken, reversing the "work every day" rule after Eden. So eating and redemption are deeply connected. (Exod. 16: 14-36)

There are three areas in which our traditions point strongly to the sacredness of food: the special food-offerings for festivals and major ceremonies; the requirement of fasting for specific times of the year; and prohibitions on specific foods, which in a sense are limited fasts and underline the importance of turning awareness to food as a sacred process. .

Food in Festival

The Hebrew Scriptures locate the beginning of food as an offering to be given God at supernal moments of communal life when it recounts the Exodus from slavery in Egypt and requires that it be remembered through the Passover festival (Exod. 12: 14 -21):

"This day shall be for you a memorial; you are to celebrate it as a pilgrimage-celebration for YHWH, throughout your generations, as a law for the ages you are to celebrate it!

"For seven days, matzot you are to eat; already on the first day you are to get rid of leaven from houses, for anyone who eats what is fermented—from the first day to the seventh day— that person shall be cut off from Israel!

… "And keep the (Festival of) matzot! For on this same day I have brought out your forces from the land of Egypt. Keep this day throughout your generations as a law for the ages.

… "Moshe had all the elders of Israel called and said to them:
'Pick out, take yourselves a sheep for your clans, and slay the Passover-animal. Then take a band of hyssop, dip (it) in the blood which is in the basin, and touch the lintel and the two posts with some of the blood which is in the basin.' … "You are to keep this word as a law for you and for your children, into the ages! Now it will be, when you come to the land which YHWH will give you, as he has spoken, you are to keep this service!

"And it will be, when your children say to you: What does this service (mean) to you? then say: It is the slaughter-meal of Passover to YHWH, who passed over the houses of the Children of Israel in Egypt, when he dealt-the-blow to Egypt and our houses he rescued. The people did homage and bowed low."

Out of the evolution of the Passover offerings into a family meal, classical Christian tradition made that meal into its central ritual act, focused on food: The Last Supper gave rise to the Mass, in which bread and wine become the flesh and blood of Christ:

"During supper he took bread, and having said the blessing he broke it and gave it to them, with the words: 'Take this; this is my body.' Then he took a cup, and having offered thanks to God he gave it to them; and they all drank from it. And he said, 'this is my blood, the blood of the covenant, shed for many. I tell you this: never again shall I drink from the fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new in the kingdom of God.'" (Mark 14: 17 – 25)

And I Corinthians 11: 27-34 makes this sacred food the ethical as well as communal heart of Christian life:

"Anyone who eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord unworthily will be guilty of desecrating the body and blood of the Lord. A man must test himself before eating his share of the bread and drinking from the cup. For he who eats and drinks eats and drinks judgment on himself if he does not discern the Body. ... Therefore, my brothers, when you meet for a meal, wait for one another. If you are hungry, eat at home, so that in meeting together you may not fall under judgment."

CB: In the Christian tradition, out of which modern Unitarian Universalism arises, the central act of religious celebration is the act of communion – a ceremonial meal. Through this eating the body of the church is brought together and through this meal the presence of God is made known to the body of the church. If eating is the means by which we know God then we’d do well to be careful what we eat! Even for communion to be celebrated with integrity (or the closest thing to it that humans can produce) we ought to consider celebrating with organic grape juice or wine, and with bread baked from organic flour produced from local grain, so that the farmer is not poisoned or underpaid in order that the church might be brought together in sacrament. Embodiment is at its most clear in this sacrament, where the literal, the physical, the metaphorical and the metaphysical blend. It is a perfect place to help illustrate the importance of paying attention to the literal, physical dimensions of our actions, and not sweeping away actual physical harm by metaphorical gesture.

MMH: Muslim’s, every meal begins with a blessing (Du'a):

"O Allah! Bless the food You have bestowed upon us and protect us from the torment of hell. In the name of Allah, we begin (eating)."

And every meal ends with a prayer (Du'a):

"Praise be to Allah, the One Who gave us the food and drinks. Praise be to Him Who made us Muslims". (At-Tirmidhi & Abu-Dawud)

The celebration of food in Islam has two in-built elements:

(a) Thankfulness to Allah by praising and exalting Him, and (b) Sharing the food with family, friends, neighbors, poor and needy segment of the society.

On the occasion of Eid ul Fitr (Feast of Thanksgiving at the culmination of the month of Fasting in the month of Ramadan) every Muslim is required to pay Zakat ul Fitr (charity in cash or in actual food) to the poor and needy of the community so that they would enjoy the happiness of the festival.

On the occasion of the Eid ul Adha (Feast of Sacrifice) it is a tradition among the Muslims to share the sacrificial meat with the relatives, friends, and the poor and needy of the community.

A similar tradition of sharing the food with the poor and needy in the community is practiced at the harvest of the crop, the festivity of wedding (Walima), the festivity of the new born (Aqeeqa), and many other social functions.

Forbidden foods

The biblical tradition defines what foods may be eaten by Israelites. The rationale of the specifics on the list has baffled commentators for thousands of years. Medical health has been proposed as the criterion; anthropologists have pointed to the correspondence of Creation's "earth, sea, and heaven" to the cataloguing the kinds of food, as evidence of a priestly effort to involve the whole people in celebrating / imitating God's creation at every meal; some have argued that predatory animals, birds, and fish were excluded as a way of making humans into "vegetarians-by-proxy." One of the biblical lists is found in Deuteronomy 14: 3-10:

"You are not to eat any abominable thing!
These are the animals that you may eat:
ox, lamb-of-sheep and lamb-of-goats,
deer, gazelle, and roebuck,
wild-goat, ibex, antelope, and mountain-sheep,
and every (other) animal having a hoof or cleaving in a cleft two hooves,
"Bringing-up cud, among animals, it you may eat.
However, these you are not to eat among those that bring-up
cud, among those that have a hoof, that is cleft:
the camel, the hare, and the daman,
for they bring-up cud, but a hoof they do not have—
they are tamei for you!
And the pig— for it has a hoof but does not (bring-up) cud—it is tamei for you;
from their flesh you are not to eat, their carcass you are not to touch!
"These you may eat from all that is in the sea:
every one that has fins and scales, you may eat.
But every one that does not have fins and scales, you are not to eat, it is tamei for you."

The early Christian church refocused attention from the foods themselves to the nature of the relationships among those who shared a meal (Corinthians 10: 25 – 33):

You may eat anything sold in the meat-market without raising questions of conscience; for the earth is the Lord's and everything in it. If an unbeliever invites you to a meal and you care to go, eat whatever is put before you, without raising questions of conscience. But if somebody says to you, ' This food has been offered in sacrifice', then, out of consideration for him, and for conscience' sake, do not eat it - not your conscience, I mean, but the other man's.

''What?' you say, ' is my freedom to be called in question by another man's conscience? If I partake with thankfulness, why am I blamed for eating food over which I have said grace?' Well, whether you eat of drink, or whatever you are doing, do all for the honor of God: give no offense to Jews, or Greeks, or to the church of God."

Islam upholds some of the same prohibitions on food that are listed in the Hebrew scriptures, and adds a prohibition on alcoholic drinks:

"O believers, eat what is good of the food We have given you, and be grateful to God if indeed you are obedient to Him. Forbidden to you are carrion and blood, and the flesh of the swine, and that which has been consecrated in the name of any other than God. If one is obliged of necessity to eat it without intending to transgress, or reverting to it, he is not guilty of sin; for God is forgiving and kind. (Quran 2: 172-174)"

"O believers, this wine and gambling, these idols, and these arrows you use for divinations, are all acts of Satan; so keep away from them. . . . Satan only wishes to create among you enmity and hatred through wine and gambling, and to divert you from the remembrance of God and prayer. Will you therefore not desist?" (Quran 5: 90-91)

Fasting

Fasting from some foods (during Lent among many Christians), from all foods during daylight hours (during Ramadan for Muslims and a number of days through the year for Jews) has become a marker of sacred attitudes toward food.

The Hebrew Bible names Yom Kippur, the tenth day of the festival-filled "sabbatical" seventh lunar month (counting from the spring month of Passover) as a day for "pressing down your identity" [or "ego" or "soul" or "breathing-spirit"].

The oral tradition of Rabbinic Judaism defined this command as requiring a fast from food, water, and other pleasures from sundown to sundown. This has been broadly understood as penitential, capping ten or even forty days of "turning" one's life in a new direction.

Yet one of the great Hassidic rebbes of the 19th century took a different view, seeing the Yom Kippur fast as ecstatic rather than penitential: "If it were up to me, I would abolish all the fasts except two: the one that recalls the destruction of the Holy Temple – for who can bear to eat on that day? – and Yom Kippur, for who needs to eat on that day?"

Classical Christianity called for a penitential fast of self-reflection – not from all foods but from meat and other luxurious foods -- for the forty days before Easter.

And Islam focused on a month-long dawn-to-dusk fast from all foods
and drinks. As the Quran : 2: 183-185 teaches:

"O believers, fasting is enjoined on you
as it was on those before you,
so that you might become righteous.
Fast a (fixed) number of days,
but if someone is ill or is traveling
(he should complete) the number of days (he had missed);
and those who find it hard to fast
should expiate by feeding a poor person.
For the good they do with a little hardship is better for men.
And if you fast it is good for you, if you knew.

"Ramadan is the month in which the Qur’an was revealed
as guidance to man and clear proof of the guidance,
and criterion (of falsehood and truth).
So when you see the new moon you should fast the whole
month;
but a person who is ill or traveling
(and fails to do so) should fast on other days,
as God wishes ease and not hardship for you,
so that you complete the (fixed) number (of fasts),
and give glory to God
for the guidance, and be grateful.

Dimension 8. Reflection on our Actions and Impact

The rhythm of Action and Reflection, renewed Action and renewed Reflection, is encouraged in our traditions in such forms as Sabbaths, Ramadan, and Lent, as well as other holidays when we refrain from our daily work and reflect on our roles in the web of life. Meaningful observance of these occasions can be expanded to include reflection on and assessment of the impact of human activity on the integrity of the web of life.

In different ways, our traditions may choose to encourage reviews, similar to "environmental impact assessments," when considering whether to endorse new approaches to providing food. Some version of what is called the "precautionary principle," analogous to the medical code’s, "First do no harm," could be taken into account, while still encouraging the development of new technologies and social arrangements.

The Hebrew Bible (Lev. 18: 30) says, "You shall keep my charge" with language that could be read, "You shall safeguard my safeguardings." The oral tradition and then the Rabbis interpreted this to urge that the community should "make a fence for the Torah" – that is, in doubtful cases act more stringently than the words of torah specifically command. This notion of the 'fence" ias itself a fence; that is, is not specifically commanded by Torah.

MMH: Muslims observe the month of Ramadan, fasting during the day and praying, meditating, and contemplating during the night. Reading, listening and reflecting on the holy Scripture (Al-Qur’an). Consequently reflecting upon their actions and their role in the web of life in this world and in the hereafter:

“O you who believe! Fasting is prescribed to you as it was prescribed to those before you, that you may (learn) self restraint.

In Islam halal (lawful) is clear and haram (forbidden) is clear. In between these two there is a gray area (doubtful things). Prophet Mohammad (S) has recommended to avoid doubtful things.

"The Halal (permitted) is clear and the Haram (forbidden) is clear; in between these two are doubtful matters concerning which people do not know whether they are halal or haram. One who avoids them, in order to safeguard his religion and his honor, is safe. Anyone who gets involved in any of these doubtful items, he may fall into the haram. This case is similar to the one who wishes to raise his animals next to a restricted area, he may step into it. Indeed for every landlord there is a restricted area. Indeed the restriction of Allah are the Haram." (Sahih Bukhari).

CB: Religious people do not have the luxury of pretending that the manner in which they conduct their lives is not harmful to others. We must dig deeply into the true costs that our being here at all imposes on others. We are here by grace, and we are here at a cost to other living things. Therefore we are obliged to know, to reflect, to act, and to reflect again, so that we may give as much as possible, and take as little as possible.

JR: Regulators are normally very conservative. It is much easier for a regulator to say no, than to allow a process to move forward. In some cases the cost of not doing something can be a lot higher than the cost of doing it. This is the role served by professionally-done risk assessment, coupled with a cost/benefit analysis. Both must be used.

Risk assessment itself only suggests the worst POSSIBLE situation -- not necessarily what may actually happen. The precautionary principle tends to increase the chances of the regulator saying no -- and do we want this to apply to producing new drugs via biotechnology? Or how about salt-tolerant crops that might make more marginal land usable for food production?

Note that the AIDS community has realized that the negative attitude of regulators and the excessive use of the precautionary principle is letting a lot of people needlessly die of AIDS. Are we doing the same for the starving poor of the world? So I think that we need to think in terms of legitimate regulatory schemes knowing that no technology can ever be proven to be totally safe.

AW: Perhaps one way of reconciling these approaches would be to encourage serious reflective consideration of proposed new practices and set a time limit for making a decision. In a sense, the practices of Ramadan, Lent, and the Ten Days of Repentance, and of days like Shabbat for pausing from "Doing" provide for reflection and reevaluation and assume that action will pick up again after a period of "precaution."

Coda: A New Era in Religious Life?

This Sacred Foods enterprise itself – because it draws strength from both interfaith and inter-secular/faith interactions -- signals something of a new era in religious life. This willingness of people in the various religious communities to open themselves to other communities is in itself a perhaps unexpected result of Modernity – perhaps an aspect that carries some sacred significance.

Indeed, Modernity is affecting both technology and social structures in ways that may also require us to rethink other ideas and practices from the teachings of the past.

Major changes in previous religious wisdoms have often accompanied major social and technological upheavals. This occurred when Sumerian civilization affected the Western Semitic peoples about 3500 years ago, when the impact of Roman/ Hellenistic civilization opened hearts and minds to the new revelations of Rabbinic Judaism and Christianity about two thousand years ago, and when the impact of social change in Arabia opened hearts and minds to the new revelations of Islam 1400 years ago.

As we seek to discern how to deal with issues of food in the Modern Age, we may need to keep that factor in mind. As we draw on the religious and spiritual teachings of the past, we must seek to distinguish eternal wisdom from temporally conditioned history.

We have been examining the traditional values, teachings, and wisdoms of the Abrahamic religious communities in order to draw on their teachings to influence our contemporary decisions about the relationship of the earth, the human race, and food. Sometimes these traditional teachings may challenge or contradict the ethical assumptions and practices of the Modern world.

This is especially true where the religious traditions counsel self-control in exercising unchecked power over the earth or over human society – and the Modern Age seems to encourage more and more powerful interventions. But on the other hand, sometimes we may realize that we may need to remake some temporally limited aspects of some of our religious teachings, in the light of the new powers that human beings can exert upon the earth and upon each other -- powers that may to some of us seem God’s own intervention to increase the power of human action, and thus God's call to shape a new paradigm of our traditions.

Two examples of change in patterns of growing and eating food that we might note as teachings of process, not only of content:

1) The rabbis of the Talmud warned that people who lived in the Land of Israel should not grow sheep and goats. Since that is exactly what the Abrahamic clan did, how did the rabbis dare to proscribe it? They saw that the world had changed. There were now so many shepherds and goatherds that their animals were ruining grass and tree buds; the land for growing crops was disappearing. Should we be learning from this teaching at the process, not only content, level?

2) As Christianity arose and addressed itself to the non-Jewish communities of Europe and the Near East, one choice by which it distinguished itself from Rabbinic Judaism was dropping many of the rules of kashrut in favor of the broadest possibilities of the sharing of food by people of different cultures.

Rabbinic Judaism, during the same time period, was actually intensifying and elaborating the restrictions that in the Hebrew Bible defined kosher foods.

And Islam, on the other hand, in the midst of profound religious outreach and transformation found its own revelation reaffirmng some (not all) of the Biblical rules and adding a prohibition on alcohol.

One approach shaped community by accepting the food patterns of many cultures; one chose to reemphasize its own uniqueness among other cultures; and one chose to remake the other cultures in the image of its own food patterns. What do we learn from these different approaches to denoting the sacredness of food in times of great religious upheaval?

What are the practical implications of these choices in relation to community and culture -- in regard to the specific question of sacred food today? In shaping the whole system of growing and distributing food, our religious traditions lean toward the local, the culturally conservative, the decentral -- toward uses of power that are accountable and responsible. Yet some views expressed by some members of the Council lean toward support for a much more corporate and global version of sacred agriculture than our three traditions mostly support. Should we be reaffirming traditional localism, or reconsidering it in the light of the Modern transformation of our planet?

Let us look at a specific example: Given the numbers of human beings that now need to be fed (and the desire many of them have for foods that grow only in distant regions of the world) , is corporate/ global agriculture essential? Some of us argue that it is; others, not.

The religious traditions as they already exist seem to lean strongly toward the local, grass-roots, community-based provision of food (with the important exception of the Joseph story). But perhaps those aspects of the tradition are historically conditioned, and need to be revised.

Two examples of such transformations from the past:

When the ancient Semitic communities faced the invention of mono-crop centralized agriculture in Sumeria and Egypt, according to Evan Eisenberg's The Ecology of Eden, they -- or some of them, the ones we know as Biblical Israel -- responded by incorporating some of the new agro-economics and the transformed sense of God they entailed into their own practice. At the same time, they also invented new ways of renewing their older spiritual sense of the world, grounded in small farms, small orchards, and semi-nomadic herding.

Thus the sabbatical year was, Eisenberg says, a God-given way of preserving the older spiritual / economic culture while perhaps allowing more "modern" methods to be used in the other six years.

When Biblical Israel faced the economic / philosophical/ religious transformation wrought by Imperial Hellenistic Rome, they absorbed some Hellenistic practices and integrated them into the older spiritual life. In fact, both Rabbinic Judaism and Christianity did this.

Is Modernity today the same kind of volcanic eruption that the Roman Empire was, that Sumeria and Egypt were? If so, what in the new modes can be accepted and integrated into sacred societies – especially into sacred ways of eating – and what from the older traditions are irreducibly necessary if we are going to continue walking sacred paths?

In our own world upheaval, we may need to keep an eye out for the possibility that the more global / corporate agro-business world might be incorporated into religious traditions that do not as they stand lean in this direction, while the traditions still affirm other values and practices to which they invite the newer economic forms to adhere.

Imagine these possibilities:

 We affirm the profound and basic traditional value of making sure no one goes hungry, and impose this value on global-corporate agriculture instead of depending on local neighborly relations to make it real.

 We affirm the basic traditional value of making sure that farmers and food workers are paid well and treated well and are empowered to protect these values by organizing themselves, and require global-corporate agriculture and food institutions to embody this value, instead of depending on local neighborly relations to make it real.

 We affirm the basic traditional value of making sure that the earth receives the healing restfulness and protection taught by our traditions, and require global-corporate agriculture and food institutions to embody this value, instead of depending on local neighborly relations to make it real.

By noting these possibilities, we do not intend to foreclose different possible conclusions:

 We affirm that growing and sharing food through decentralized, local neighborly relations is itself a basic, crucial value today as in the past of our traditions.

 Or even that (as Eisenberg sees the Biblical sabbatical rhythm as a way of affirming older spiritual life-paths while partially incorporating more "modern" practice), we might use rhythms in time or space as ways of both changing the old and renewing its values.

In any case, we are sure to find that in the sacred texts of the past as in the debates of the present, religious teachers within each community disagree with each other about what is permissible, desirable, and necessary to change, and not to change.

We will need to keep seeking to distinguish eternal wisdom from temporally conditioned history, as we draw on the religious and spiritual teachings of the past.