Reply To: Kosher Cruise

There’s also a big difference between cooking a goat in its mother’s milk (which is what the Torah said), and eating a cheeseburger.

Who hasn’t heard this before? And yet we know that the line means something much deeper. The bottom line is that we don’t do it just because. And when we go deeper in its significance, it speaks to the sensitivity of the Torah to living beings.

—-Regardless of the other sources and ways that dumping sewage in the ocean could be an issue (from not causing suffering to an animal and so on), it is possible to derive meaning from not wasting what we have and not dumping waste into the ocean.

Dumping waste into an ocean is a destruction. It destroys the ecosystems that are there. For many living beings, the ocean is a home, a medium of communication, a road for transportation, and a portal to absorb oxygen.

This destruction causes suffering. Death. Deformations. Distress.

We are not unaffected either. We humans also use the ocean as a resource. So it destroys what we have. Loss. Then it also puts our lives in danger when we’re exposed to those pollutants. Suffering. We rely on the ocean for so much. When we neglect to be considerate of our actions, it’s our loss.

Thank you