Keeping up with the Goldbergers: May One Needlessly Destroy His Belongings?

Adapted from the writings of Dayan Yitzhak Grossman

June 29, 2023

The New York Jewish Week reports:

Dining out in New York City is expensive—especially at a kosher restaurant. But Mocha Burger Lux, a forthcoming Midtown restaurant, is upping the ante with its “24K Gold Plated Golden-Burger,” which has an eye-popping price: $175.

The 12-ounce short-rib burger is wrapped in leaves of real 24-karat gold. It’s grilled and topped with black Australian truffle, crunchy onions and chips, house-made sauce, and pickles. The dish is brought to the table in a custom hand-carved wood treasure chest, which will be opened at the table, triggering a smoke show and illuminating its contents.

“You’re not paying for the piece of meat,” proprietor Naftali Abenaim told the New York Jewish Week. “You’re paying for the experience.”[1]

Garnishing hamburgers with gold leaf is not a new idea. In 2014, the Honky Tonk restaurant in London introduced the “Glamburger,” with gold leaf and caviar. It billed the dish as the world’s most expensive hamburger and priced it at £1,100 ($1,770).[2] Other burger gilders followed.

We will not discuss here the question of whether this sort of self-indulgence and conspicuous consumption are compatible with Torah values;  we will rather focus on the question of whether eating gold violates various halachic imperatives against engaging in wanton destruction. In this article, we discuss the prohibition against feeding human food to animals, and in a follow-up, we will iy”H survey other halachic discussions of utilizing food and other resources in wasteful ways, and finally return to the case of gold-garnished hamburgers.

The Gemara relates:

Every Friday afternoon, Rav Huna would send an agent to the market, and any vegetables that remained, he would buy them and throw them into the river…Then let him throw them to animals? He held that food fit for human consumption should not be fed to animals.[3]

Rashi offers two explanations for why it is better to throw human food into the river than to feed it to animals:

• Feeding human food to animals constitutes denigration of foods (bizui ochlin)—“he appears to spurn the good that Hashem has provided to the world.”
• Feeding human food to animals constitutes waste, and “the Torah spares the money of the Jewish people,”[4] whereas this way, the food will be found and eaten by people living downriver.[5]

Rashi is interpreting the prohibition against feeding human food to animals in two very different ways. According to his first explanation, the problem is not waste (which is presumably not an issue here because the alternative, throwing the food into the river, would be even more wasteful) but bizui ochlin. According to the second approach, the problem is indeed waste, because even the productive utilization of property (e.g., feeding human food to animals) may be considered wasteful if a superior use of the property (e.g., feeding people) is available.

The halacha in this case is a matter of dispute. The Elyah Rabbah suggests that the prohibition, attributed by the Gemara to Rav Huna, may not actually be normative (although he is unsure of this);[6] the Magein Avraham apparently accepts the prohibition as understood by Rashi in his first approach;[7] and the Machatzis Hashekel, noting the common practice to feed human-grade bread to chickens, suggests that the minhag follows Rashi’s second approach, so in the absence of animal food, they may be fed human food.[8]

The Ksav Sofer maintains that the prohibition against feeding human food to animals applies only to animals that are not his, but one may feed human food to his own animals. He seems to distinguish between his own animals and others in two slightly different ways:

• Feeding other animals is not his responsibility, while feeding his own animals is (mezonoseihem alav).
• Feeding other animals does not provide him any benefit, while feeding his own does.

Feeding human food to a pet would certainly be permitted according to the first distinction of the Ksav Sofer, and perhaps even according to the second, if the value of the pet is somehow improved by being fed. (The Ksav Sofer does not seem to hold that keeping the animal alive and healthy, as opposed to improving its value, constitutes human benefit, although it is unclear why not).[9]

In light of the above, some contemporary authors oppose feeding human food to zoo animals, since there is certainly no need to do so, as the animals are provided with all the food they need by their caretakers.[10]

R’ Mordechai Kamenetsky relates:

[The students of Yeshiva Kfar Chassidim] scoured the rubbish piles of the city and brought a stray cat back to the campus. Every day it would play in the yard, and each evening they would bring it back to the basement, where it would earn its keep, receiving room and board simultaneously. Within a few weeks, there was not a rodent to be found. But the cat remained. The boys lapsed in their commitment to its welfare and even forgot to feed it.

One evening it scratched on the screen door of the aged Mashgiach Hagaon Reb Elya Lopian’s home…“Are there still mice?” asked Reb Elya. “No,” exclaimed [one of the younger students], “there hasn’t been a rodent in days!” Then he smiled while looking down at the cat and added, “Thanks to this fellow.” “And since there are no mice, what has he been eating?” The boy just shrugged. He simply did not know. “Ahh,” sighed the sage. “You have been lax in your responsibility and gratitude. I will show you how to feed a cat.” With that, Reb Elya, a man in his eighties, went into his kitchen, poured milk into a saucer, and placed it down for the hungry feline.

At that moment a young student named Kavinsky captured the moment on film. The picture of the white-bearded Torah giant bending down and feeding a cat remains one of the most popular pictures among thousands of youngsters in America and Israel.[11]

According to the Ksav Sofer, feeding the cat milk would have been justified on the grounds that the cat had become the property and responsibility of students.

[1]Risa Doherty. A new kosher restaurant in Midtown will sell a $175 gold-plated burger. New York Jewish Week. https://www.jta.org/2023/06/20/ny/a-new-kosher-restaurant-in-midtown-will-sell-a-175-gold-plated-burger.

[2]Arjun Kharpal. Chef creates ‘Glamburger’ for $1,770. CNBC. Oct. 7, 2014. https://www.cnbc.com/2014/10/07/chef-creates-glamburger-for-1770.html.

[3]Ta’anis 20b.

[4]Menachos 76b.

[5]Rashi ibid.

[6]Elyah Rabbah siman 171 ibid. s.k. 1. The Chida makes a similar suggestion in Pesach Einayim Ta’anis end of 20b. Hagahos Chasam Sofer to Shulchan Aruch ibid. se’if 1 inclines to this view as well.

[7]Magein Avraham ibid. s.k. 1, but see, however, Bais Yitzchak cited below, who concludes that even the Magein Avraham does not really consider this prohibition to be normative, but is merely recommending stringency when there is no need for leniency.

[8]Machatzis Hashekel ibid. Mishnah Brurah ibid. s.k. 11 mentions the comments of both Elyah Rabbah and Machatzis Hashekel. Cf. Shu”t Bais Yitzchak Y.D. cheilek 1 siman 79 osios 1-2.

[9]Shu”t Ksav Sofer O.C. siman 33. Cf. Shma’ata Amikta gilyon 238, Chayei Sarah 5776, Ha’im Mutar Leha’achil Ma’achal Adam Livheimah?; Nesinas Ochel Leva’alei Chaim Lesheim ‘Sha’ashua’ (Da’as–Limudei Yahadus Be’or HaChassidus).

[10]Piskei Teshuvos siman 171 n. 41 pp. 497-98; R’ Azariah Ariel, Ha’achalas Ba’alei Chaim Be’ochel Hara’ui Le’adam. Cf. Bizui Ochlin–Ha’achalas Ma’achal Adam Livheimah (Din–She’al Es HaRav).

[11]R’ Mordechai Kamenetsky, Animal House–Parshas Vayishlach, 5778/2017.