For all those carnivores toughing out the 9-Days

Finally sat down and read Simcha’s post about Vegetarianism. It reminded me of my foray into NCSY Juniors. They kind of twisted my arm to get me to come as an advisor (I was up to my ears in schoolwork), but once I committed to it, I was filled with the I-can-make-a-difference spirit.  Sof kol sof, I think it was a worthwhile experience, but suffice it to say I left with mixed feelings.  (This is totally unrelated to NCSY, but I was saddened to see little 10 year old girls who had their youth prematurely stolen from them.  Let’s just say that I heard “American Pie” quoted one too many times over Shabbos…) One of the things that bothered me was the dvar torah given.  A precocious 12-year old girl gave a lengthy speech on the halachic mandate to be a vegetarian.  On the one hand, I liked that the kids were encouraged to give divrei torah, and I admit that it can usually be safely assumed that most divrei torah will be pretty benign.  Yet, I was upset that her speech was coming off as the official view of Orthodoxy, and that no one would dare counter it as such.  As an advisor, I had to stifle the rebuttals that kept bubbling up in my brain and sit idly by as these middle-school kids easily ingested every word.  I swallowed it somehow.  Food for thought I guess.     
Granted this was a very minor thing.  Fear not, I didn’t harp on such and was simply reminded of it when I first noticed the post on Hirhurim.  Honestly, I was much more disturbed by the bigger issues, such as the fact that only ONE male advisor was shomer negiah, um, er, etc... NOT a good thing.  For starters, it certainly helps perpetuate the offensive Negiah Can Save Yiddishkeit cracks…