[Avodah] ecology

[Zev Sero]

Eli Turkel wrote:
> <<Not from the tables.  They get leftovers from the kitchen, that
> never went out. >>
> 
> If you order more than you can eat it goes out from the kitchen to
> the table to the waste basket

When do you control the quantity of what you order?  The restaurant
or caterer provides a set portion.  And if it's too small for most
people they get complaints.  Also, the satisfaction of having enough
on your plate that you can leave something over is also worth
something, and is far better than the disappointment of a too-small
portion (again, leaving over is seen in Torah as a positive thing).



> Sorry I still agree with my rabbi that our generation needs to learn
> more about the value of food

The value of food is exactly what it costs.  Ascribing it a higher
value than that is pure mysticism, and needs a makor.


> and not throwing it out but using
> it carefully as we learn from hilchot shemitta.
> I agree that halachically there is a difference because of
> the kedusha but the moral of shemitta is more general

Is it?  Where is this written?   And what lesson do we learn from
the mitzvah to destroy notar?  Why couldn't the Torah give us an
extra day to eat the Pesach, the Todah, or the Eil Nazir?  How
about the fact that *every* korban Pesach has notar, no matter how
frugal the owners, not just because lambs and households only come
in certain sizes, but because the marrow in the bones can't be got
at, because one isn't allowed to break them.  So the Torah forces
us to leave over good marrow, and then orders us to burn it.
I don't claim there's a moral to be learned from that; I'm happy with
"kach ala birtzono" -- notar must be wasted and perot shvi'it must
be conserved.  But you do claim that we learn a moral from shmita, so
you must deal with the counterexample of notar.

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