Animal Rights Archives - Vegetating with Leslie

What would you do?

On: November 9, 2022November 9, 2022 By: Leslie Cook

What would you do if you were making breakfast and looked up and saw this little face peering at you over the pass-through?

Walking Between the Raindrops

On: March 29, 2020March 6, 2021 By: Leslie Cook

Yesterday morning I had the opportunity to share in services and Torah discussion on Zoom with a group from my synagogue. Our Torah discussion crystallized some thoughts I have about a set of themes that seem to compete in the Torah. The

On: March 1, 2020June 16, 2020 By: Leslie Cook

In The More Beautiful World Our Hearts Know Is Possible, Charles Eisenstein coins the word, “Interbeing,” a knowledge “that my being partakes of your being and that of all beings. This goes beyond interdependency—our very existence is relational . . . that

On: February 20, 2020December 26, 2022 By: Leslie Cook

The sixth day of creation, God made wild beasts…cattle…all kinds of creeping things…And God said, Let us make man in our image.

The Power of A Story

On: January 21, 2020July 10, 2020 By: Leslie Cook

I began my current journey in biblical studies six years ago on a walk with my violence-averse husband. A dead and partially mutilated rabbit ended our stroll around the neighborhood with his exclamation of dismay. I asked why “these kinds of things,”

On: January 15, 2020June 16, 2020 By: Leslie Cook

The idea of the universe as an interconnected whole is not new; for millennia it’s been one of the core assumptions of Eastern philosophies. What is new is that Western science is slowly beginning to realize that some elements of that ancient

On: March 25, 2019March 1, 2020 By: Leslie Cook

I haven’t written as much on the Torah portions after two years of working pretty steadily at them. With my focus on the relationship between human beings and other animals, it was inevitable that I would have to struggle with the “meaning”

On: March 10, 2019March 2, 2020 By: Leslie Cook

I’m interested these days in the relationship between human beings and other animals, how we fit into the fabric of nature, how we managed to get from a mediocre position in the food chain to top spot, and what we have done

On: December 7, 2018December 24, 2018 By: Leslie Cook

I read an article today in The Conversation that started me thinking. It talked about a demonstrable psychological link between those who believe in “creationism” and those who believe in conspiracy theories. The article reports that “The new study takes the role

On: December 5, 2018December 6, 2018 By: Leslie Cook

Yuval Noah Harari says there is no objective evidence to support any moral system much less one system over another. He also says the unique feature of human beings, Sapiens, is our ability to create fictions and persuade others to believe them.