Parashat Re'eh

This week's parashah presents the prohibition against eating over the blood and the command to cover the blood with earth after slaughter. Rav Kook explains this mitzvah as a kind of 'protest' – perhaps a divine reminder that in the very fact that we eat meat there is a flaw. In his lengthy essay 'A Vision of Vegetarianism and Peace,' Rav Kook explains why, in our world, it is right to permit the eating of meat (in short – otherwise we would devour one another), yet alongside this he explains that it is important for us to remember what is the ideal and what is a concession.