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the practice of kosher slaughter or shehcita has been passed down in the jewish world
for hundreds of generations
shechita requires that you completely severe the trachea and
esophagus of an animal which cause it to bleed out and die quickly
for this you need specialized knife that's extremely sharp and free of any
nicks or roughness
when i was twenty seven I shechted first chicken
i felt nothing
i grew up in a kibbutz in northern israel
and lived there until I was eight years old it was a communal farming and manufacturing
kibbutz
they had everything there
a board game factory a sock factory
we grew cotton corn watermelon
anything you can imagine we grew it
but my favorite were the milking cattle and meat chickens
I've always been obsessed with different animals
blue whales snakes white tigers squirrels
the only thing i loved as much as learning about animals was eating them
I didn't even eat a vegetable until i was fourteen
but as i went through high school i started to learn about the horrors of
factory farming
after becoming a vegetarian for several years I learned that the egg and dairy
industry inflicted just as much if not more suffering and animals as the meat business
i realized that in order to be ethical i would have to become a vegan
but i wasn't ready for a step like that and my carnal side won out
at twenty four i decided that i would only eat the products of what i deem to
be ethically raised animals
knowing where everything i eat comes from
I also decided not to eat meat until I had killed it myself
for the first time in twenty years i'm living near farm again. At the jewish farm
co-op across the street from my house
we raise chickens goats and bees
for eggs and milk and honey
many of animals have been around for over two years
it's more for me than simply giving grain and alfalfa to the goats and
collecting the chickens eggs. I've spent the past two years building a
relationship with our animals
I have grown to love each and every one of them
after starting the farm co-op I truly knew where my milk and eggs came from
but I still hadn't eaten meat in years
so i decided to learn shechita
when i started shechting it surprised me to realize that during slaughter i wasn't
actually thinking much about the individual animal
instead i was making sure to hold the chicken correctly, to preform the kosher cut swiftly
and decisively
what started as my heart's pursuit
to engage in authentic relationship with the animals i was eating
was actually just the cold and exacting science of kosher slaughter. i wanted it to be
this lofty thing but it wasn't
i was simply killing animals
even now when i try hard to open my heart to the animals I'm eating
there isn't much connection there
flip my wrist
put the bird in the cone and it's gone in seconds
i'm alive and it's dead
but at the end the day I feel the death
it's in my bones and coursing through my veins
after a day of shecting I often have dreams about that animals, the slaughter
the blood and knives
and feelings of guilt and sadness come up
i feel what i did
practicing shechita has changed how i relate to death
I used to feel so much fear and discomfort around the idea of dying
fear of witnessing and experiencing it myself
shechting has brought me face-to-face with death
i spent the year before i started shechting taking care my mom when she was
dying of cancer
well it was one of the most painful and heartbreaking experiences of my life
it was the same time one of the most beautiful and intimate as well
in much the same way
killing animals is painful and sad but at the same time intimate and filled with love
i now realize that much of my fear of death was because all i could see was
the darkness
fear and pain
but the experiences of losing my mom and now of shechting have helped me see that while
death holds darkness
pain and sadness
it also holds intimacy and beauty and light
when i was twenty eight I shechted a chicken
i felt everything