A SACRED DUTY – Applying Jewish Values To Help Heal The World
The powerful, influential film, A Sacred Duty, features leading Orthodox, Conservative, Reform, Reconstructionist, and secular leaders, many Jewish leaders and activists, along with leading Israeli and American environmental, health, and vegetarian advocates to address the growing challenge of climate change and the increasing threat of environmental degradation and destruction—by one primary culprit—animal agriculture—looking to the historical teachings of Judaism and the Torah for answers.
Emmy-Award-winning producer, director, writer, and cinematographer Lionel Friedberg in collaboration with Professor Richard Schwartz, president of Jewish Vegetarians of North America, underscore the severe problems we are facing today with climate change, water and air pollution, starvation, hunger, land and forest destruction, and chronic disease—and how all of these problems are linked to animal agriculture and humans eating an animal-based diet.
Those interviewed in the film suggest one of the most viable solutions that will address and reduce the impact of these myriad devastating global problems—is by our transitioning to eating a plant-based vegetarian diet. With this one change in our lifestyle, we can reduce the devastating impacts of climate change; reduce carbon, methane and greenhouse gas pollution; reduce the pollution of our waterways and oceans; will conserve water; reduce the rate of human disease—heart disease, cancer and chronic diseases plaguing the West; and will reduce hunger and starvation; reduce deforestation and land degradation; and cause significantly less suffering, cruelty and death to industrial farm animals.
A Sacred Duty calls all religious communities to join together to address facing these global problems and threats with a plant-based diet solution.
Quotes By Rabbis & Experts in the Film
“Over 100 plants and animal species become extinct every single day.”
“Using valuable land for raising meat is not only wasteful, it’s immoral.”
“Almost 1/3 of the earth’s arable surface is being used for grazing cattle and raising crops to feed to cattle.”
“Vast tracks of forestland in the Amazon have already been destroyed to make way for pastures for cattle and for crops to feed cattle.”
“Meat production also wastes another precious resources—it takes between 2400 – 5000 gallons of water to produce just (1) pound of beef.”
“The environmental destruction caused by the animal agriculture industry—by the amount of dung produced and sewage that gets poured into our waterways, there’s no doubt it’s damaging the world. And it’s in violation of the Jewish mandate to Protect, Preserve and Care For the Earth.”
“Meat consumption is not only harmful to the environment, it’s harmful to human health. Taking care of the body is a sacred duty in Judaism.”
“If you’re pure physically, there’s a better chance that you’ll be pure spiritually as well. With God, you have to be pure. You start with the body–then you get to the heart. A man who has a clean heart and clean conscience is a righteous person that can worship God.”
“As long as humans crave the flesh of animal meat, eggs and dairy, the misery imposed on animals in factory farming today will continue to exist. Suffering of animals is rife. It’s an inevitable by-product of a massive industry in which over 50 billion animals are slaughtered every year.”
“Long gone are family farms. Today’s animal products come from Intensive Confinement Facilities or factory farms. Egg-laying hens are crammed together and baby chicks are de-beaked painfully, unwanted male babies are discarded fully conscious and alive; they are pumped with antibiotics, their final journey to slaughter is full of suffering. The kill rate is staggering, over 300 every second.”
“Calves are taken away from their mothers at birth. The calves are tied up in confining crates to produce meat for the dairy industry. There are gross violations and cruelty in slaughterhouses. Pigs are overcrowded and ill treated. Babies have their tails docked and teeth are cut out with painkillers. Transport brings out the most inhumane methods of the meat industry.”
“From an ideal point of view this world should have been a vegetarian world. It was only after the flood with Noah and after humankind came lower on a moral base, and its ethical values were lower, only then was meat permitted to human beings. There’s no doubt vegetarianism is a much better, more calculated way to manage the world. There is indeed a direct ideological connection between responsible stewardship and vegetarianism.”
“A number of prominent Jews including Rabbis, adopted a vegetarian diet long before it began to gain popularity. Rabbi Kook strongly praised vegetarianism.”
“There is profound moral dimension in eating meat. The raising of ducks and geese for foie gras was deemed so cruel that in April 2005 Israel’s Supreme Court imposed an outright ban on foie gras.”
“God is merciful, we should try to imitate His ways, we should not be cruel.”
“I believe health and religious reasons to be vegetarian — are intertwined. Being healthy is what God wants us to be, by obeying this and by being ethical and moral, is also what He wants us to be so you can do this by being vegetarian.”
“I’m a vegetarian because I am a believing Jew who strives to live in accordance with the ethical teachings of my heritage. I believe if you do follow the most sublime and noble values in our tradition, and in this day and age, then there is an imperative to lead a vegetarian lifestyle. Looking after one’s health is a spiritual imperative. Compassion for animals is a Jewish spiritual imperative. Being responsible for your environment and for your globe, which have ramifications from meat consumption and the meat industry, are fundamental Jewish imperatives.”
“The more sentient the being is, the greater the responsibility is upon humanity to be caring for it. That is precisely the meaning of Genesis, when we are told to go and assume our responsibility over the animal kingdom. That responsibility must be understood first and foremost, the compassion and care for animals, and there are fundamental prohibitions under the category of preventing the suffering of animals. Being compassionate toward animal life, is not just being responsible for animal life, it’s a matter of imbuing ourselves with the right values. If we are insensitive to animal life then we desensitize ourselves as human beings.”
“Judaism has much to say about the similarity between people and animals. Man has no superiority over animals. All go to the same place.”
“We are only one species in the world among millions of species. We need to cultivate that humility. It’s about a humble role relative to nature, because we are all in it together.”
“Can we really stand by and commit this horrific widespread mistreatment of animals? It’s really completely contrary to so many beautiful teachings about the proper treatment of animals. Judaism teaches we have to be compassionate; God’s compassion extends to all living creatures. We need to imitate God’s attributes and be compassionate to all animals. Out of sight may be out of mind for many people, but if we permit these horrible atrocities, then we are equally responsible by eating the food.”
“We have a responsibility to all humanity on the planet, to our neighbors who are the non-human creations—the endangered species that are on the verge of being pushed out of their habitat by climate change. We need to address climate change for the poorest among us, and for the rest of creation, and above all for our own future.”
“Much of our greenhouse gasses (GHG’s) spewing into the atmosphere comes from a surprising source—18% of GHG’s come from agriculture. Farm animals produce more GHG’s than all the trucks, cars, trains, ships, and airplanes than all the nations of the world – combined. This is one of the least known, and most seldom discussed aspects of global warming.”
“There are other ramifications of animal agriculture, if all the crops and cereal grains that are grown and fed to farm animals were instead fed to people, we could feed the world’s hungry. Only a very small portion of the crop is converted to protein for humans. It takes 10 pounds of grain to produce (1) pound of beef.”
“Soybeans are one of the richest sources of vegetable protein. 10 acres of this crop can provide sufficient nutrition to feed 60 people. The same acreage of land devoted to raising cattle will provide enough protein to feed only two people.”
“That same land—if it were used for growing food for vegan and vegetarian diets, would feed many, many more people. Therefore, Judaism would say that in this modern age, this is something that we should very, very carefully consider.”
“15% of the world’s population is considered severely malnourished. About 30,000 children die from hunger every single day.”
“Half of all American’s die from heart attacks and strokes. About 30% of adults die of cancer as well. These are diseases predominantly of nutritional extravagance and nutritional stupidity. No one has to have a heart attack. Americans are eating a diet of all animal and processed foods. It needs to be a majority of nuts, beans, lentils and seeds, not animal products.” (Dr. Joel Fuhrman)
“American’s eat fast food, full of fat, has excessive protein, is fried or produced in other damaging ways. No one should have a heart attack. American’s are eating a unhealthy diet.” (Jonathan Wolf, Author, Jewish Activist)
“We are ignoring things that are essential and critical to the character of Judaism, in order to meet our selfish desires and wants.”
“We have to be respectful. We have to be respectful to ourselves, the animals, and our environment.”
“We need to take up in our Kosher lifestyles, those things that lead us to be compassionate, to be moral, and to be responsible in caring for this planet.”
Film Length: 1 Hour / 15 Minutes
Originally Produced: 2007
Film Credits
- Written, directed, photographed and narrated by Lionel Friedberg
- In collaboration with Professor Richard Schwartz, president of Jewish Vegetarians of North America
- A production of JVNA, Jewish Vegetarians of North America
Including
- Rabbi Shear Yashuv Cohen—Ashkenazic Chief Rabbi of Haifa
- Rabbi David Rosen—Former Chief Rabbi of Ireland; International Director of Interreligious Affairs of the American Jewish Committee
- Rabbi Michael Cohen – Co-founder of the Green Zionist Alliance (GZA) and a teacher at the Arava Institute in Israel
- Rabbi Fred Scherlinder Dobb, Adat Shalom Reconstructionist Congregation; environmental activist, and co-founder of the Green Zionist Alliance
- Rabbi Adam Frank – Congregation Moreshet Yisrael, Jerusalem, the largest Conservative synagogue in Israel
- Rabbi Yonassan Gershom – A Breslov Chassid and author
- Rabbi Simchah Roth – Torat Hayyim, Herzili
- Rabbi Warren Stone – Temple Emanuel, greater Washington, D.C.; Chair, Central Conference of American Rabbis’ Environmental Committee
Israeli Environmentalists
- Dr. Yeshayahu Bar-Or – Chief Scientist: Israel Environmental Ministry
- Raanan Boral – Director: Environmental Protection Division of the Society of Protection of Nature in Israel (SPNI)
- Samuel Chayen – Israeli environmental activist
- Yael Cohen Paran, Yair Cohen and Eren Ben Yaminy – Leaders of Green Course, an Israeli university-based environmental group
- Eli Groner – Teacher of environmental studies at the Arava Institute
- Dr. Alon Tal – Leading Israeli environmentalist; founder of the Israel Union for Environmental Defense; co-founder of the Green Zionist Alliance; author of Pollution in a Promised Land.
- Yael Ukeles – Director: Derech Hateva, Jerusalem
