[Avodah] halakhot of ecology

[Zev Sero]

Eli Turkel wrote:

> The question is what you mean by "no one would want to do it"
> We live in an era of plenty. If there is a little piece of the steak,
> chicken or vegetables left then we throw it out.

Yes, because its value is tiny, and by the time you want it again
it won't be good any more.

It's also simply not worth saving.  Even the cost of the Glad wrap to
put over it, and the effort of putting in the fridge, and of washing
the plate in which it was stored, is more than the food itself is
worth.  Saving it is foolish.


>  In previous generations it would have been saved.

In previous generations the food itself would have cost more,
and therefore it would have cost more to replace, i.e. the food
one will eat next meal instead.  So one would finish it next
meal even if it didn't taste so good any more, so long as it wasn't
positively unhealthy.  One wouldn't bother with Glad wrap, and the
effort of washing the plate was minimal compared to the cost of the
food.

Also in previous generations people would lechatchila prepare less,
so that there would be fewer leftovers, thus denying themselves the
pleasure of knowing that there's more than enough to eat.



> At weddings especially smorgasbord people take huge portions
> and most of it is thrown out.

Once the food is out on the tables, if it's not eaten it has to
be thrown out.  Who would take it?

 
> R. Wosner has a teshuva in which he complains of the huge
> amount of food thrown out after catered affairs. In fact in
> Israel today there are organizations that collect the left overs
> from several halls and distribute them to the poor.

Not from the tables.  They get leftovers from the kitchen, that
never went out.  But what went out to the tables is thrown out
because nobody wants it.  No ani is going to willingly eat the
leftovers from your plate, and no responsible soup kitchen is
going to accept food that's been out where anyone could have done
anything to it.

 
> Instead of Zev's comparison one could compare it to the halachot
> of sheviit. There too one is not allowed to throw out usable
> shemitta food. That is usually interped that one can throw out
> small pieces of an orange attached to the peel but not a whole
> section of the orange that one no longer wishes to eat.
> 
> In fact one the rabbanin in our town said that he uses the occasion
> of shemitta to teach his family the value of food. One should only
> put on one's plate what he reasonably thinks he can eat rather
> than filling the plate and throwing out the leftovers

Sounds good, but I disagree with the lesson.  For one thing, one
should always leave shirayim - "achalnu vehotarnu kidvar Hashem";
"uma shehotarnu yihyeh livracha".  But more than that, it imbues
food with a spiritual significance more than its economic value,
and I don't think that has a valid basis.  Perot shevi'it have
kedusha; ordinary food has no more kedusha than an ordinary scrap
of paper or screw or plastic bag.

The bottom line is that reasonable people do things for reasons.
If you and I and everyone we know does something, it stands to reason
that it isn't pointless, or we wouldn't do it.  And if you ask
yourself the reason why you do it, it won't be hard to explain.
What you're trying to do here is the equivalent of squaring the
circle.  You point at something we do, assert that it is pointless,
and then say the fact that we do it shows that we do pointless
things and we shouldn't.  I say the fact that we do it shows that
it isn't pointless.

-- 
Zev Sero               Something has gone seriously awry with this Court's
zev at sero.name          interpretation of the Constitution.
                       	                          - Clarence Thomas