1 Dec
“The Just Man Knows the Soul of His Beast” — Proverbs 12:10 — (Part 1)
- The just man knows the soul of his beast, but the heart of the wicked is merciless.
—Proverbs 12:10
The author of Proverbs stresses an important ethical lesson: a humane person considers the needs of his animals and acts kindly towards them.[1] The world of Creation is full of sentient beings, which also experience many of the joys and blessings that people commonly enjoy: like humankind, these creatures also experience pain. Suffering is a common language that links humanity with other species of animal life. Therefore, Jewish ethics take sharp issue with French philosopher Rene Descartes (ca. 1596–1650), who compares animals to machines that service people, stating that their suffering “means nothing more than the creaking of a wheel.”[2] In physiological terms, according to Descartes, what human beings and animals share is that their bodies function by the laws of mechanics. One might respond: How then do human beings differ from animals? Descartes argues that the Creator endows human beings with a divine soul and a moral conscience—qualities that are lacking in animals. In addition, unlike animals, human beings possess the ability to conceptualize and verbalize ideas. Most importantly, only human beings are capable of conscious and rational thought since they are uniquely endowed with the ability to be self-reflective. Only a human being is capable of exclaiming, “Cogito ergo sum.”
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.[3] According to biblical law, a person may not satisfy his or her appetite disregarding the feelings of animals, especially where mothers and their young are concerned. A worshipper 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). “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.[4]
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![5]
According to Maimonides, an animal’s ability to feel emotional pain gives it moral standing; it is for this reason that the Torah prohibits these acts. Not all Jewish thinkers concur with Maimonides. Ramban claims that the prohibitions against cruelty to animals are not so much for the animal’s benefit, but for the sole moral development of humankind. Cruelty towards animals is desensitizing (commenting on Deuteronomy 22:6 and Leviticus 22:28), which will eventually produce brutality and insensitivity to the pain and suffering of others.
- The ruling on the mother bird is not predicated upon the Almighty’s “pity” for the animal. Otherwise, God would have forbidden their slaughter altogether! The reason, however, for the prohibition is to instill within us compassion and the avoidance of cruelty; butchers and slaughterers often become insensitive to the suffering on account of their occupation. Therefore, to avoid engendering these negative traits, the Torah proscribed precepts that a person should not slaughter the mother and its young on the same day (Lev. 22:28) and sending away the mother bird (Deut. 22:6). Such laws are not inspired by feelings of consideration for their suffering but are decrees to inculcate humanity in us. [6]
[1] R. Yehuda HaHasid of Regensburg notes: “The cruel person is he who gives his animal a great amount of straw to eat and on the morrow requires that it climb up high mountains. Should the animal, however, be unable to run quickly enough in accordance with its master’s desires, his master beats it mercilessly. Mercy and kindness have in this instance evolved into cruelty.” Quoted from Noah Cohen’s Tsa’ar Ba’ale Hayim — The Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (New York: Feldheim Publishers, 1959), 45–46.
[2] Discourse on the Method of Rightly Conducting the Reason, and Seeking the Truth in the Sciences, ch. 5, 92-93.
[3] Philo, Virtues 125-44.
[4] Philo’s explanation is later found in the commentaries of Ibn Ezra, Rashbam, Ramban, Bechor Shor, Abarbanel, Aharon Eliyahu and S. Luzzato. On the other hand, Bechor Shor supposes that it also refers to the cooking of the kid, before it has been weaned from its mother’s milk.
[5] Maimonides elsewhere explains his position: “Some scholars think the precepts have no objective at all, and exist only as arbitrary decrees of God. Others say that all the precepts—both negative and positive—are dictated by Divine wisdom, and contain a basic telos. Ergo, there is a reason for each precept, they are enjoined because they serve a purpose” (Guide 3:26).
[6] Ramban’s position bears an almost uncanny likeness to his contemporary, Thomas Aquinas, who writes:
- Affection in man is twofold: it may be an affection of reason, or it may be an affection of passion. If a man’s affection be one of reason, it matters not how man behaves to animals, because God has subjected all things to man’s power, according to Psalm 8:8, “Thou hast subjected all things under his feet”: and it is in this sense that the Apostle says that “God has no care for oxen”; because God does not ask of man what he does with oxen or other animals. But if man’s affection be one of passion, then it is moved also in regard to other animals: for since the passion of pity is caused by the afflictions of others; and since it happens that even irrational animals are sensible to pain, it is possible for the affection of pity to arise in a man with regard to the sufferings of animals. Now it is evident that if a man practices a pitiful affection for animals, he is all the more disposed to take pity on his fellowmen: wherefore it is written (Prov. 11:10). (Summa 2 Q. 102 Art. 6).
Aquinas’s theological position regarding animals eventually became part of the canon of the Roman Catholic Church. Even as late as the mid-18th century, Pope Pius IX refused to allow a society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals to be established in Rome on the grounds that to do so, would imply that human beings have duties towards animals. Such a view is diametrically different from Judaism with respect to the rights of animals.
Posted by Yochanan Lavie on 01.12.11 at 6:03 am
Unlike Pope Not-so-pious, the Rev. Wilberforce founded the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, on the principle that pain is pain, whether in man or beast. He was also a great abolitionist. Contrast him to Rubashkin, who caused suffering to both man and beast, yet is the Meat Messiah to many.