Vegan Recipes & Jewish Ethics: A Theological Necessity

This site’s vegan commitment is no lifestyle trend; it is a theological, ethical, and ecological necessity — a secular continuation of Jewish law’s deepest call for compassion and restraint.

Introduction: Why Many Recipes Exist in Two Forms

The recipes you’ll find on this blog exist in a constant, fascinating paradox: On the one hand, there are the Traditional Recipes—the classics with deep historical and cultural meaning. On the other, you have their rigorous, Vegan Adaptations—versions created without any animal products.

This duality isn’t just an attempt to follow popular food trends or simply “cater to a bigger audience.” Instead, it is the natural, unavoidable result of a deeply personal and intellectual journey—a search that began with seeking absolute religious Law and ended with recognizing a moral imperative that should guide our choices, especially about what we eat and cook.

When you cook these dishes, you are doing more than just preparing food. You are actively staging the tension between memory and conscience. You are honoring the memory of the traditional dish (its history, flavor, and form) while simultaneously engaging with your conscience (your ethical beliefs about ingredients).

From Hasidic Observance to Plant-Based Practice: A Personal Transformation

As I’ve detailed in my essay, Atheist in a Shtreimel, I once sought refuge in the absolute rigor of Hasidism, finding a perverse jouissance in the totalizing demands of the Law. I was a devout meat-eater whose religious life was structured around the exacting, beautiful strictures of Kashrut (laws of kosher food). That life is gone. I’ve changed.

I no longer cook the meat recipes from this site, yet I still leave them online. They are a necessary form of memory, a kind of historical taxonomy of what was once believed, tasted, and built. Like a pantry full of substitutions, the past is in everything I make. My current obsession with documenting these dishes is a secularized attempt to master a traumatic history—to convert the absolute demand of The Law into the manageable, contextual demand of the Recipe.

The final, perhaps most uncomfortable, step in this transition was adopting an almost whole-food, plant-based (WFPB) diet. This was not a purely ethical awakening, but a cynical, clinical capitulation: after a serious health scare, I had to choose life over schmaltz. The decision, however, quickly revealed itself to be a convergence of necessity and ideology—a moment where the body’s demands perfectly aligned with the deepest, most difficult currents of Jewish thought.

The Ethical Imperative: Returning to Eden’s Original Diet

The standard defense of meat consumption within Judaism often rests on a post-diluvian concession—the allowance in Genesis 9:3–4 (Bereshit, בְּרֵאשִׁית). But to settle for the permission is to ignore the ideal and the core ethical obligations that precede it.

(To explore the historical, theological, and modern intellectual tradition supporting a plant-based ethic in Judaism, please see the dedicated section in the Books & Movies pages: Jewish Vegetarianism and even Veganism.)

The Original Ideal: Genesis 1:29

The primary textual evidence for a plant-based ideal is stunningly clear in Bereshit 1:29:

“And God said: Behold, I have given you every herb-yielding seed which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree that has seed-yielding fruit—to you it shall be for food.”

This passage is more than a permission slip; it is the establishment of the original, encouraged state for humankind. Crucially, a significant thread among the Rishonim (leading rabbis from the 11th to 15th centuries) seized on this, arguing that the Torah hereby presents vegetarianism as the ideal human state.

These commentators maintain a radical position: that Adam and Eve did not eat meat, and that all life—human and animal—was originally restricted to plant sustenance. They conclude that the initial intent of creation was an entirely herbivorous world, and that the allowance to consume meat granted later (in Genesis 9:1–17, after the flood) was a temporary concession—a post-diluvian leniency given only because the newly weakened, post-Edenic mankind was deemed too frail to sustain itself on plants alone.

The ideal was clean; the concession was a compromise to human weakness.

The Obligation of Compassion: Tza’ar Ba’alei Chayim and Rachamim

Beyond this textual ideal, the obligation of Tza’ar Ba’alei Chayim—the prohibition against causing pain to living creatures—is a core pillar of Jewish law. This principle is paired with the constant injunction of Rachamim—mercy or compassion—which is explicitly linked to animal welfare in scripture (Proverbs / Mishlei מִשְׁלֵי 12:10):

“The righteous one regards the life of his animal, but the mercy of the wicked is cruelty.”

This twin principle dictates a profound responsibility toward the non-human world.

Modern industrial animal agriculture, with its confinement, mutilation, and systemic cruelty, presents an ethical challenge that many Jewish thinkers cannot reconcile with this mandate. The suffering is no longer an unforeseen consequence but a calculated, inherent part of the production process.

To consume the product of such a system is, for those of us wrestling with a post-theological conscience, a fundamental betrayal of Rachamim. Reducing harm is not a virtuous option; it is the only available ethical command.

The Messianic Meal: Enacting the Future in the Present

Choosing the vegan meal is an act of Jewish eschatology. It is a refusal to abide by the flawed reality of Genesis 9 in favor of the ecstatic promise of Isaiah (יְשַׁעְיָהוּ‎) 11:6–9, where the world is returned to the state of Eden:

“The wolf shall dwell with the lamb… the lion shall eat straw like the ox.”

Choosing a plant-based diet is a private, quiet revolution enacted three times a day—a skeptical but hopeful performance of a messianic moment in the present. It doesn’t require God; it requires only conscience.

The messianic meal is not a prophecy — it’s lunch.

Health and Environment: The Secularized Tikkun Olam

Tikkun Olam—literally “repairing the world”—is a foundational Jewish concept calling us to heal and improve the broken world we inhabit. Traditionally rooted in mystical theology and social justice, it has become, in contemporary practice, a call to ethical action wherever we can effect change.

The contemporary rationale for veganism—health and environment—is not a displacement of the Jewish ethic, but its secular, scientific fulfillment of this repair work. Of course, this commitment arises from a place of relative privilege: access to abundance. The ethical demand, however, remains—to do what we can, where we are.

Guarding Life: U’Shmor Nafshecha and the Body’s Demands

My conversion to WFPB cooking was less a spiritual epiphany and more a cold, hard negotiation with my own mortality. After the diagnoses arrived—skyrocketing cholesterol, early atherosclerosis—the philosophical project of this blog was momentarily suspended by the simple, terrifying demand of the human body.

The subsequent recovery confirmed the necessity of following the rabbinic injunction of U’Shmor Nafshecha (and you shall guard your soul/life—Deuteronomy / Devarim דְּבָרִים 4:9). While this principle has been interpreted in various ways throughout Jewish tradition, for me it crystallized in the evidence-based approach to dietary health.

The research, rigorously compiled by figures like Dr. Michael Greger, who meticulously synthesizes and presents vast volumes of evidence-based medical literature, consistently links whole-food, plant-based diets to lower risks of cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and certain cancers. The emphasis on unrefined plant foods is an active, evidence-based strategy for longevity.

While I adhere to the WFPB framework, I do permit a small, cynical allowance for raw extra virgin olive oil, acknowledging that research suggests its inclusion can be beneficial for specific health markers, but it is also propitious to taste, offering a necessary, if minor, relief from the Law’s absolute demand.

This is the ultimate cynical triumph: I found the absolute, undeniable truth I once sought in the Law not in prayer, but in the data and the chemistry of my blood.

Environmental Stewardship: Bal Tashchit and Our Ecological Responsibility

In the modern context, Bal Tashchit (the prohibition against destruction or waste) is defined by the systemic, industrial waste of water, land, and clean air inherent in animal farming. The environmental footprint of meat production is globally destructive.

If we are called to be conscious stewards of the Earth, then minimizing our ecological burden through plant-based consumption is the most direct application of this principle.

A Critical Note on Ethics: The Political Vacuum of Compassion

I’ve found profound meaning in extending compassion to animals, an ethical commitment aligning with $Tza’ar\ Ba’alei\ Chayim$ (prohibition against causing pain to living creatures). Yet, ethical food movements never exist in a political vacuum.

For example, the global rise of veganism—and its impressive flourishing in places like Israel—can sometimes become entangled with national image-making. I’m troubled by instances where the attention given to animal welfare is celebrated more readily, and is politically less costly, than equivalent attention to human suffering. This selectivity allows for a form of ethical deflection, where a less demanding object (animal suffering) allows us to feel righteous while protecting us from the anxiety and political cost of engaging with a more difficult one (human suffering).

For instance, in the EU and the US, a focus on “ethical” and “sustainable” consumption often gains corporate and governmental support, allowing consumers to feel virtuous about their local or organic choices while remaining silent on the appalling labor conditions for migrant workers who harvest the food, or the vast racial and economic inequalities that define who can afford this ‘ethical’ consumption in the first place.

The plant-based adaptations on this site honor the ingenuity and resilience of Jewish cooks across continents. They must also serve as a reminder that every dish exists within larger systems of power and representation. We pursue $Rachamim$ (mercy and compassion) wherever we can, but we must do so with critical awareness—cooking with intention but never forgetting the political and human cost of convenience.

The Final Paradox: Memory and Redemption

I maintain the meat dishes on this site as a museum of memory, a historical taxonomy of a past that was brutally cut short. They are tied to people, cities, and a Jewish past that was, particularly in its urban and more affluent circles, once profoundly meat-centric—a painful remainder I cannot discard.

But the future of Jewish Viennese Food, as presented here, must be one of adaptation. The true beauty of our cuisine is not dependent on the animal; it is dependent on the wit and persistence of the cook in the face of constraint.

This is the record of that contradiction: a meticulous documentation of a traumatic past, redeemed by the hopeful, yet entirely secular, act of adaptation. The original recipes are the Gaze I am still trying to master; the vegan recipes are the new, plant-based Law I have finally chosen for myself.

This is not nostalgia. It is a secular act of redemption — through recipe, through memory, through choice.

The mission is clear: The original recipes are the memory we cannot discard; the vegan recipes are the new, plant-based Law we have chosen. This blog is a meticulous documentation of a traumatic past, redeemed by the hopeful, yet entirely secular, act of culinary adaptation. The true beauty of Jewish cuisine is not dependent on the animal; it is dependent on the wit and persistence of the cook in the face of constraint.

Navigating This Site

All vegan recipes are clearly tagged and can be filtered under the “Vegan” category in Recipes. Traditional recipes remain accessible for historical context and for those who cook them. My current work focuses exclusively on plant-based adaptations of Jewish Viennese classics.

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