The Union of Orthodox Rabbis (OU), the world’s largest organization for certifying food as kosher, announced on Wednesday that it granted certification to SuperMeat, an Israeli startup company working to develop a “meal-ready” chicken cultured meat product created through the use of cell culture. “For 2,000 years, the world has existed without a Temple and look where we are today,” Rabbi Makover said. “Western culture is entirely given over to its animal nature. Men deny their own soul, deny how their actions should be sanctifying God’s name in the world. Men deny that God created them, that who they are in the world is determined by God. The intimacy with death reminds man who we are and who created us. Faced with this, God is undeniable.” Rabbi Makover referred to a teaching by Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook, the first Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi of British Mandatory Palestine who was hugely influential in Jewish thought of the 20th century. Rabbi Kook’s views on the Temple service as expressed in Olat Re’iyah seem to indicate that only grain offerings will be offered in the reinstated Temple service. “Rav Kook’s vision of a vegan Temple is prophetic,” Rabbi Makover said. “When we return to the Temple service, may it be soon, we return to bringing animal sacrifices. This is even more needed today than it was in the days when the Temple stood in Jerusalem. The Third Temple will raise us up to the level where our animal nature will no longer need fixing. At that point, the Temple service will become vegan.” Some rabbis suggest that the basis for lab-grown meat was described in the Talmud. In tractate Sanhedrin 59b, the rabbis discuss “meat that descended from heaven”. They tell of Rabbi Shimeon ben Chalafta, who was walking on the road when…(READ MORE)

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