Bal Taschit

(19) When in your war against a city you have to besiege it a long time in order to capture it, you must not destroy its trees, wielding the ax against them. You may eat of them, but you must not cut them down. Are trees of the field human to withdraw before you into the besieged city?

(8) Fruit-bearing trees must not be cut down outside of the city⁴³Under siege in order to pain them. nor do we block their irrigation water causing the trees to dry up, as it says, “do not destroy her trees” (Deut. 20:19). Anyone who cuts down a tree receives lashes. This is not only at times of a siege, but anyone at anytime who chops down a fruit-bearing tree by for destructive purposes receives stripes. The tree may be cut down if it is damaging other trees or it is damaging another’s field, or because the tree is more valuable for its wood than its fruit. The Torah only forbids wanton destruction.

(10) And not only regarding trees, but even one who destructively breaks vessels or rips up clothing or tears down a building or seals up a spring or wastes food violates the Negative Commandment of “Do not destroy”. However, he only receives stripes for disobedience, in accordance with the Rabbis.

(5) he reason behind the commandment to dispatch the mother bird is to teach us empathy and to encourage us to turn our backs on all forms of cruelty. The latter is a negative virtue. The commandment is parallel to that of not slaughtering the calf on the same day as its mother. It is in line with what we learned in the oral Torah that the reason ritual slaughter of animals has to be performed by cutting the animal’s throat is because this is the least painful method of killing the beast. Killing the animal by hitting it on the neck (such as the עגלה ערופה) is much more painful. The foregoing is the opinion of Maimonides in his Moreh Nevuchim, and I have already mentioned part of it earlier.

Maimonides in the More Nevuchim 3:48 teaches: The Torah does not want the mother bird to experience the anguish of watching to see herself being deprived of her chicks. The situation is analogous to the prohibition of not slaughtering the calf and its mother on the same day (Leviticus 22,25), so that the cow does not watch the death of its calf.

The love of a mother animal for its young is not determined by intellectually rationalized feelings but by something more profound in the psyche of the animal. It reflects its power of imagination. If the Torah is so concerned with the feelings of birds and four-legged domesticated animals, how much more is it concerned with the feelings of human beings! The legislation therefore is designed to teach us not to practice cruelty even when such cruelty is only of an emotional nature.

(1) שלח תשלח את האם ואת הבנים תקח לך, “you must be sure to send away the mother and take the young for yourself.” According to the plain meaning of the text the Torah’s directive here is designed to protect the species from extermination. Even though the Torah permitted slaughtering of living creatures for the enhancement of man’s lifestyle, the Torah did not mean to give a carte blanche for exterminating any species thereby.

If one were to take both mother bird together with her young (and eat them) it would be symbolically similar to exterminating that particular species (Nachmanides).

The Torah adds the words: “in order that that it will be good for you,” i.e. if you will display concern for the survival of the species of these birds, G’d in turn will display His pity for you and will increase your days on earth as compensation for not having wiped out that family (species) of birds (Ibn Ezra).

When the Blessed Holy One created the first human, He took him and led him round all the trees of the Garden of Eden and said to him: “Look at My works, how beautiful and praiseworthy they are! And all that I have created, it was for you that I created it. Pay attention that you do not corrupt and destroy My world: if you corrupt it, there is no one to repair it after you.

And this is the way of the pious and people of [proper] action - they love peace and are happy for the good of the creatures and bring them close to Torah, and they do not destroy even a grain of mustard in the world. And they are distressed by all loss and destruction that they see; and if they can prevent it, they will prevent any destruction with all of their strength. But not so are the wicked - the brothers of the destructive spirits. They rejoice in the destruction of the world, and they destroy themselves.