Thanks lesschumras, you took the words right out of my mouth. No human being in today’s world, no matter how much time he or she spends studying Torah, can possibly “happen to know what God says on the matter”. We were given the Torah, but the Torah is cryptic and unimaginably complex. Halacha is based on interpretations of passages in the Torah. In order to live a Torah-observant lifestyle, it is not only acceptable but absolutely necessary to have an opinion. Otherwise, how would one know what to do? The Torah is at times seemingly contradictory, and even the simplest pshat leaves plenty of room for disagreement. Elu V’Elu Divrei Elokim Chayim! (All this, of course, cannot justify murder or certain other extreme examples, but overall it is a working system.)
torahls1, you seem to have a mistaken impression of what it means to be a Jewish feminist. I do not take new morals from feminism and try to fit them into Judaism; rather, I believe that, far from being antithetical to it, the Torah itself advocates feminism. All I have done is to take basic Torah values and apply them under a different name. Feminism, after all, is a misnomer, and it is the name that scares most people off. They believe that feminism is about elevating the status of women above the status of men, which couldn’t be further from the truth. (If you would like a detailed explanation of what feminism actually is, please request it in the feminism thread, which can be found in the Beit Midrash forum.) I must ask you, however, to refrain from using derogatory terms in your posts. V’ahavta l’re’acha camocha- would you appreciate it if I called you a slummy, silly, agenda-driven wacko? (And by the way- where did I ever mention my age? How do you know that I am a “young lady?”)
Bentzy18, you have some good points. I will not deny that a great deal of the obesity epidemic in America is due to diets heavy in white flour and refined sugar just as much as red meat. However, there is no denying that chicken still contains a great deal of fat and cholesterol, and fish also contains high levels of mercury. While vegetarian diets are more difficult to maintain because they require one to consume several different types of food during the day to accumulate all of the essential amino acids, they are also healthier in this regard. One who consumes all of the amino acids from various sources is better off than one who consumes them all from one meal of chicken.