Here's an essay I wrote 5 Yom Kippurs ago (http://www.animalwritings.com/2005/10/for-yom-kippur-atone-to-animals.asp):

A day of atonement is of little value if the very next day you resume behaviors that ruin lives.

With rare exceptions, every time you eat an animal, you're consciously and unnecessarily contributing to the suffering of another creature. Often the suffering is prolonged and severe. Jews, of all people, should strenuously avoid causing other beings to suffer. Animals should not be the exception.

There is little doubt that animals have the capacity to suffer deeply. Factory farm hens live their entire lives in a space smaller then the computer screen on which you're reading this. They cannot even raise one wing. Is that not suffering? Their male chicks are taken away from them and crushed or suffocated, when one day old. Mothers -- is that not suffering? Who...

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