Rabbi Michael Leo Samuel

A recent article appeared in the Israeli newspapers about a stray dog that was hanging out in the Mea Shearim district of Jerusalem. For those unfamiliar with Mea Shearim, this vicinity is inhabited by Jerusalem’s most Ultra-Orthodox Hassidic Jews.

The story is a peculiar one, and what exactly happened remains to be clarified. But here are two versions as to what happened.

First version:

Some rabbis of a local rabbinical court met and decided to talk about the problem of the straying dog. Rather than call the SPCA to take the animal to the local animal shelter, the rabbis remembered a certain attorney to be reincarnated as a dog for having sued the rabbis in a secular court! The fact the dog walked by the entrance of the esteemed rabbinic court could only mean that God had indeed punished the deceased attorney! They then issued a rule that the local children should stone the animal to death because this would allow the soul to find a “tikkun” a “spiritual correction” for the evil this former attorney committed while he was alive.

Lurianic Kabbalah in particular is replete with this kind of superstition and folklore . For example, people who use God’s Name in vain are reincarnated as cats, while anyone cutting off his side-curls (peyot), will be incarnated as an ox. Those guilty of homosexuality are incarnated as bats, while those guilty of making love by candlelight, will be reincarnated as a female goat. Luria believed that black dogs are especially viewed as demonic beings-and the dog the children attacked was a black dog! (See Y. Luria’s Shaar HaGilgalim). Of course this is all errant nonsense, but the people who live in Mea Shearim really take Lurianic superstition quite seriously!

The grandiosity and arrogance of the rabbis disturbs us. The Torah emphatically teaches us to respect the spiritual limits of our knowledge, “Secret things belong to the LORD our God, but those that are revealed belong to us and our descendants forever, so that we might obey all the words of this law” (Deut 29:29), i.e., worry about what you can do to better our world now first! Do not obsess about the hidden and metaphysical ways of God, which no mortal can ever expect to truly know-not even a famous Kabbalist like Rabbi Isaac Luria!!

Second Version:

A different version of the story asserts that Rabbi Levin never made such a claim that it was mere hearsay. Nobody told the children to stone the dog, but they did. Fortunately, the dog managed to escape. Is the rabbi lying? Inquiring minds really wanna know!

Regardless of how the story unfolded, stoning a dog is certainly a violation tsa’r ba’ale hayim (preventing cruelty toward animals). The bottom line is very simple: Children will not learn compassion, unless their parents start teaching them. Had these parents reared their children with a loving pet, I think such violent incidents might not have ever occurred.

Possible Philosophical Antecedents for Discussion

There is an ancient fragment of a philosophical teaching of the great pre-Socratic philosopher known as Xenophanes that invites comparison to the Mea Shearim story. Fragment 7 records how the celebrated philosopher Pythagoras, who believed in reincarnation, once found somebody beating a puppy and ordered him to stop. He said to the assailant, “Stop! Do not strike it, for it is the soul of a man who is dear to me. I recognized it when I heard it screaming.”

The story is intriguing. It would appear that Pythagoras felt that the belief in reincarnation ought to teach people how to avoid displays of cruelty—especially since one never knows whether that animal might be a former best friend! Pythagoras considered all animals as brothers and sisters of humankind. Accordingly, a young pup deserves kindness for no reason other than the fact it is a sentient being like we are, then surely all animals ought to be treated with sentience and respect. Frankly, this seems to be the most plausible explanation.

The whole point is merely to illustrate that the belief in reincarnation need not make people act more cruelly toward the pathetic creature, quite the opposite!

Philo and Maimonides: Animal Sentience as a Basis for Human Empathy

Philo of Alexandria explains that the Mosaic proscription prohibiting the boiling of a kid in its mother’s milk aims to teach Israel that mercy and self-restraint should govern people’s relations with animals no less than with each other.[1] According to biblical law, a person may not satisfy his or her appetite with disregard for the feelings of animals, especially where mothers and their young are concerned. A worshiper in ancient times, for example, is barred from sacrificing a newborn animal until it is at least eight days old (Exod. 22:28–29; Lev 22:27).

The rational for this precept is obvious, “Nothing could be more brutal,” writes Philo, “than to add to the mother’s birth pangs the pain of being separated from her young immediately after giving birth, for it is at this time that her maternal instincts are strongest.” In other respects, too, the Law calls for self-restraint. Thus, it would be an act of unnatural excess, Philo argues, to cook a young animal in the very substance with which nature intended it to be sustained. In a similar vein, the Law prohibits one from sacrificing an animal together with its young (Lev 22:28), since this would again involve an unnatural combination of that which gives life and that which receives it.[2]

Pursuing a similar approach found in Philo, Maimonides comments on a number of biblical precepts dealing with preventing cruelty towards animals in his Guide:

“It is also prohibited to kill an animal with its young on the same day (Lev. 22:28), the reason being, is so that people should be restrained and prevented from killing the two together in such a manner that the young is slain in plain sight of the mother; the pain of the animals under such circumstances is very great. There can be no difference in this case between the pain of man and the pain of other sentient beings, since the love and tenderness of the mother for her young ones is not produced by reasoning, but is a matter determined by instinct and this faculty exists not only in man but in most living beings. This law applies only to ox and lamb, because of the domestic animals used as food these alone are permitted to us, and in these cases the mother recognizes her young. . . . If the Torah provides that such grief should not be caused to cattle or birds, how much more careful must we be that we should not cause grief to our fellow human beings!“[3] Continue Reading