(21) When he arose in the morning, Balaam saddled his ass and departed with the Moabite dignitaries. (22) But God was incensed at his going; so a messenger of יהוה took a position in his way as an adversary. He was riding on his she-ass, with his two servants alongside, (23) when the ass caught sight of the messenger of יהוה standing in the way, with his drawn sword in his hand. The ass swerved from the road and went into the fields; and Balaam beat the ass to turn her back onto the road. (24) The messenger of יהוה then stationed himself in a lane between the vineyards, with a fence on either side. (25) The ass, seeing the messenger of יהוה, pressed herself against the wall and squeezed Balaam’s foot against the wall; so he beat her again. (26) Once more the messenger of יהוה moved forward and stationed himself on a spot so narrow that there was no room to swerve right or left. (27) When the ass now saw the messenger of יהוה, she lay down under Balaam; and Balaam was furious and beat the ass with his stick. (28) Then יהוה opened the ass’s mouth, and she said to Balaam, “What have I done to you that you have beaten me these three times?” (29) Balaam said to the ass, “You have made a mockery of me! If I had a sword with me, I’d kill you.” (30) The ass said to Balaam, “Look, I am the ass that you have been riding all along until this day! Have I been in the habit of doing thus to you?” And he answered, “No.” (31) Then יהוה uncovered Balaam’s eyes, and he saw the messenger of יהוה standing in the way, his drawn sword in his hand; thereupon he bowed right down to the ground.* Lit. “and prostrated himself to his nostrils.” (32) The messenger of יהוה said to him, “Why have you beaten your ass these three times? It is I who came out as an adversary, for the errand is offensive to me.
On another occasion I went to take a walk with some of my friends. It chanced that a goat lay in the way. I gave the goat some blows with my stick, and my friends blamed me for my cruelty. “What is the cruelty,” I replied. “Do you believe that this goat feels a pain, when I beat it? You are greatly mistaken; the goat is a mere machine.” This was the doctrine of Sturm[1] as a disciple of Descartes.
My friends laughed heartily at this, and said, “But don’t you hear that the goat cries, when you beat it?” “Yes,” I replied, “of course it cries; but if you beat a drum, it cries too.” They were amazed at my answer, and in a short time it went abroad over the whole town, that I had become mad, as I held that a goat is a drum.[2]
Animal Suffering in the Torah
...Many laws and regulations follow from this recognition, intended to prevent or minimize the suffering of animals, such as:
Unloading an overpacked animal (Exod 23:5)
כִּי תִרְאֶה חֲמוֹר שֹׂנַאֲךָ רֹבֵץ תַּחַת מַשָּׂאוֹ וְחָדַלְתָּ מֵעֲזֹב לוֹ עָזֹב תַּעֲזֹב עִמּוֹ.
When you see the donkey of your enemy lying under its burden and would refrain from assisting him, you must nevertheless assist him.
Giving animals rest (Exod 23:12)
שֵׁשֶׁת יָמִים תַּעֲשֶׂה מַעֲשֶׂיךָ וּבַיּוֹם הַשְּׁבִיעִי תִּשְׁבֹּת לְמַעַן יָנוּחַ שׁוֹרְךָ וַחֲמֹרֶךָ וְיִנָּפֵשׁ בֶּן אֲמָתְךָ וְהַגֵּר.
Six days you shall do your work, but on the seventh day you shall cease from labor, in order that your ox and your ass may rest, and that your bondman and the stranger may be refreshed.
Giving the mother a week with its baby (Lev 22:27)
שׁוֹר אוֹ כֶשֶׂב אוֹ עֵז כִּי יִוָּלֵד וְהָיָה שִׁבְעַת יָמִים תַּחַת אִמּוֹ וּמִיּוֹם הַשְּׁמִינִי וָהָלְאָה יֵרָצֶה לְקָרְבַּן אִשֶּׁה לַיהוָה.
When an ox or a sheep or a goat is born, it shall stay seven days with its mother, and from the eighth day on it shall be acceptable as an offering by fire to YHWH.
Not slaughtering baby and mother in one day (Lev 22:28)
וְשׁוֹר אוֹ שֶׂה אֹתוֹ וְאֶת בְּנוֹ לֹא תִשְׁחֲטוּ בְּיוֹם אֶחָד.
No animal from the herd or from the flock shall be slaughtered on the same day with its young.
Shooing the mother bird (Deut 22:6-7)[8]
כִּי יִקָּרֵא קַן צִפּוֹר לְפָנֶיךָ בַּדֶּרֶךְ בְּכָל עֵץ אוֹ עַל הָאָרֶץ אֶפְרֹחִים אוֹ בֵיצִים וְהָאֵם רֹבֶצֶת עַל הָאֶפְרֹחִים אוֹ עַל הַבֵּיצִים לֹא תִקַּח הָאֵם עַל הַבָּנִים. שַׁלֵּחַ תְּשַׁלַּח אֶת הָאֵם וְאֶת הַבָּנִים תִּקַּח לָךְ לְמַעַן יִיטַב לָךְ וְהַאֲרַכְתָּ יָמִים.
If, along the road, you chance upon a bird’s nest, in any tree or on the ground, with fledglings or eggs and the mother sitting over the fledglings or on the eggs, do not take the mother together with her young. Let the mother go, and take only the young, in order that you may fare well and have a long life.
No muzzling while plowing (Deut 25:4)
לֹא תַחְסֹם שׁוֹר בְּדִישׁוֹ.
You shall not muzzle an ox while it is threshing.
The rabbis legislated additional laws protecting animals from suffering, beyond those mentioned explicitly in the Torah, such as,
- Shechitah – the requirement to slaughter animals by cutting the windpipe and carotid arteries in one motion, which causes the animal to die quickly;
- Ever min ha-chai – the prohibition to consume flesh taken off a living animal;
- Feeding – the requirement to feed one’s animals before eating (b. Berakhot 40a).[9]
The Gemara asks: And according to Rabbi Shimon, who holds that even loading is performed for free, what is the reason that the Torah writes the mitzva of unloading? The Gemara answers: It is because the verses are not clearly defined, and it is unclear which of the verses refers to loading and which refers to unloading. Had the Torah written one verse, it would have been interpreted with regard to unloading, and there would be no source that one needs to load an animal. And the Rabbis could ask: Why does Rabbi Shimon say that the verses are not clearly defined? Here it is written: “Collapsed under its burden” (Exodus 23:5), clearly referring to the case of a burden that needs unloading, and there it is written: “Fallen down by the way” (Deuteronomy 22:4), indicating that both the animals and their burdens are lying on the way and are in need of loading. And Rabbi Shimon explains that the verses are not defined because the phrase “fallen down by the way” could be understood as indicating that the animals are fallen with their burdens upon them, and referring to unloading. Rava says:
מִדִּבְרֵי שְׁנֵיהֶם נִלְמַד צַעַר בַּעֲלֵי חַיִּים דְּאוֹרָיְיתָא. וַאֲפִילּוּ רַבִּי שִׁמְעוֹן לָא קָאָמַר, אֶלָּא מִשּׁוּם דְּלָא מְסַיְּימִי קְרָאֵי. אֲבָל מְסַיְּימִי קְרָאֵי דָּרְשִׁינַן קַל וָחוֹמֶר...
From the statements of both of these tanna’im it can be learned that the requirement to prevent suffering to animals is by Torah law. As even Rabbi Shimon says that he disagreed with the opinion of the Rabbis only because the verses are not clearly defined; but had the verses been clearly defined, we would have learned the same a fortiori inference...
על ידי מעשה באו מאי היא? דההוא עגלא דהוו קא ממטו ליה לשחיטה, אזל תליא לרישיה בכנפיה דרבי, וקא בכי. אמר ליה: זיל, לכך נוצרת. אמרי: הואיל ולא קא מרחם – ליתו עליה יסורין.
[The suffering] came about because of an act – what was it? A calf was being brought to be slaughtered. It ran off and hid under the corner of Rabbi [Yehudah HaNasi]’s cloak and was crying. He said to it: “Go, for this is the reason you were created.” The [heavenly angels] said: “Since he has no mercy, let us cast suffering upon him.”
ועל ידי מעשה הלכו – יומא חד הוה קא כנשא אמתיה דרבי ביתא, הוה שדיא בני כרכושתא וקא כנשא להו, אמר לה: שבקינהו, כתיב ורחמיו על כל מעשיו. אמרו: הואיל ומרחם – נרחם עליה.
[The suffering] went away because of an act – what was it? One day, Rabbi [Yehudah HaNasi]’s maid was sweeping the house, and [she saw] baby weasels on the floor and was about to sweep them away. He said to her: “Leave them, for scripture says (Ps 145:9), ‘His mercy is upon all creatures.’” The [heavenly angels] said: “Since he is being merciful, let us have mercy on him.”
Animals Feel Pain Like Humans (Maimonides)
In his Guide of the Perplexed, Moses Maimonides (1135-1204) struggles with defining the difference between humans and animals, without denying the reality of animal feelings. Thus, in his discussion of divine providence (3:17), he denies that God watches over individual animals. And yet, at the same time, he asserts:
As for their dictum: “[To avoid causing] suffering to animals is [an injunction to be found] in the Torah” – which they learn from the verse (Num 22:32) “Why have you struck your donkey” – it is set down with a view to perfecting us so that we should not acquire moral habits of cruelty and should not inflect pain gratuitously without any utility, but that we should intend to be kind and merciful even with a chance animal individual except in case of need “because your soul desires to eat flesh” (Deut 12:20), for we must not kill out of cruelty or for sport.[11]
Using the angel’s rebuke as the source of the law seems to be Maimonides’ own invention; it does not appear in either Talmud or the standard midrashim.[12]
In a later discussion (3:26), Maimonides responds to the dictum in Genesis Rabbah 44, that implies that laws have no moral purpose, and uses shechitah as its example:
רב אמר לא נתנו המצוות אלא לצרוף את הביריות בהם, וכי מה איכפת לו להקב”ה מי ששוחט מן הצואר ומי ששוחט מן העורף, הוי לצרוף את הביריות,
Rav said: “The commandments were only given to purify the people with them, for what does it matter to the Holy One, blessed be He, if the person slaughtering an animal does so from the front of the neck or the back of the neck? This [command to slaughter from the front] is only to purify the people. (Genesis Rabbah 44)
Although he tries to explain the philosophical point of this “strange and unparalleled dictum” as arguing that commandments are there to make humans obedient to God, he is unsatisfied with this as a full explanation of this law:
If one studies the truth of the matter, one finds it to be as follows: As necessity occasions the eating of animals, the commandment was intended to bring about the easiest death in an easy manner.
Maimonides expands on this point at length in the section of the Guide dedicated to explaining the point of the commandments (3:48):
Now since the necessity to have good food requires that animals be killed, the aim was to kill them in the easiest manner, and it was forbidden to torment them through killing them in a reprehensible manner by piercing the lower part of their throat or by cutting off one of their members…
It is likewise forbidden to slaughter “it and its young on the same day” this being a precautionary measure in order to avoid slaughtering the young animal in front of its mother. For in these cases, animals feel very great pain, there being no difference regarding this pain between man and the other animals. For the love and the tenderness of a mother for her child is not consequent upon reason, but upon the activity of the imaginative faculty, which is found in most animals just as it is found in man... This is also the reason for the commandment “to let [the mother] go from the nest… If then the mother is let go and escapes of her own accord, she will not be pained by seeing that the young are taken away.
It is sinful to cause pain to animals. Therefore, don’t place too heavy a burden on an animal, don’t beat it ruthlessly, and don’t pull a cat’s ears to make it scream. According to the Sages, this thought is implied by the verse, “In that day—declares God—I will strike every horse with panic and its rider with madness” (Zechariah 12:4). They expound this to mean that in the future God will punish horsemen for goading their horses with their spurs.
There are probably no creatures that require more the protective Divine word against the presumption of man than the animals, which like man have sensations and instincts, but whose body and powers are nevertheless subservient to man. In relation to them man so easily forgets that injured animal muscle twitches just like human muscle, that the maltreated nerves of an animal sicken like human nerves, that the animal being is just as sensitive to cuts, blows, and beatings as man.
Thus man becomes the torturer of the animal soul—which has been subjected to him only for the fulfillment of humane and wise purposes—sometimes out of self-interest, at other times in order to satisfy a whim, sometimes out of thoughtlessness, yes, even for the satisfaction of crude satanic desire.